Once Again, Rankin Files Initiative To Cap Property Taxes At 1 Percent

Anti-tax activist Ron Rankin, apparently oblivious to rejection, refiled his initiative on Tuesday to cap property taxes at 1 percent of taxable value.

Rankin, who won his first election last fall when he claimed a seat on the Kootenai County Commission, filed virtually the same initiative with the secretary of state that voters overwhelmingly rejected last November.

The proposition, which failed to gain even 40 percent in either 1996 or 1992, would shift an estimated $140 million in local property tax support for public schools and junior colleges to the state in addition to limiting remaining property taxes to 1 percent of taxable value.

It prohibits local governments from curtailing any fire, police or emergency medical services to bring their budgets within the cap.

The initiative now undergoes a nonbinding legal review and will be given ballot titles before Rankin begins his campaign to gather more than 41,000 registered voter signatures to gain a spot on the 1998 ballot.

The only major change from the version that was rejected by 63 percent of the voters in November is expansion of the education support shift to include the two junior colleges. Attorney General Alan Lance said last year that the term “public education” did not include the community colleges, which get about a third of their budgets from property taxes.

Critics, which include a broad coalition of interests, have repeatedly said the proposal shifts rather than reduces the tax burden. Gov. Phil Batt said consistently last year in campaigning against it that state spending has already been trimmed to the bone and accommodating the education financing shift would require higher income or sales taxes.

Despite his previous defeats, and his failure to even qualify the proposal for the 1994 ballot, Rankin said on election night as the votes against the 1996 version were mounting up that he would keep bringing the measure back until it is accepted.