South Portlanders are currently seeking relief from – get this – enormous and unwelcome increases in personal wealth. Sound silly? It’s a paradox, alright. Here’s why: Our home values are soaring, while our incomes remain flat. So, therein lies one half of the problem: Our taxes are pegged directly to the price of our homes – even if those real-estate values are inflated far beyond our earning power. They’re also pegged to the City’s ability to spend tax dollars responsibly. That’s the other half of the problem. The City Manager prepares next year’s budget and arrives at a price tag for combined city services and maintenance. Now, divide that price tag by the value of all taxable property in South Portland and you get our city’s mill rate. Multiply the mill rate by the value of your home and you get your tax bill. Put it all together and now you see that your tax bill is a product of the value of your home and the City’s ability to hold down spending. We have to pay taxes. But the very least we can do is cap the city’s ongoing ability to peg our property to the real estate market until the dust of this roller-coaster economy settles. Hand in hand, we can also make sure that we invest our tax dollars responsibly. I believe we need an immediate two-year moratorium on new valuations. Not a permanent tax cap. Just a temporary “time out.” The State requires that we revaluate our real estate when the last valuation drops below 70 percent of the true market value. In this real estate market, we could bob up and down that threshold in a matter of months. When, and if, the real estate market settles, we can pick up where we left off. At least then we’ll know the true, time-tested value of our homes.

We also need to make sure we’re not taxing some of our newest and oldest homeowners out of existence. Folks who never dreamed they’d see these heady hikes in their property values — and therefore, taxes — are struggling now to stay afloat. What can we do? In many cases, tax relief is literally just around the corner – filed four times a year in cabinets at City Hall. Some of our homeowners – especially young couples who bought their homes five years ago and the elderly who’ve lived in their homes most of their lives – are already eligible for a number of tax breaks and don’t even know it. City Hall currently mails out reminders for folks to take advantage of the Homestead or Circuit Breaker tax exemptions. But guess what? At the end of 2005, 1,300 South Portlanders failed to get word. So, we need to be actively helping South Portlanders — especially our elderly – identify and take advantage of those offerings. That’s why I’ve started a group of local volunteers called the Homesteaders. We go door-to-door and make sure our neighbors are taking advantage of every available form of state and local tax relief. Here’s how it works: The City generates a list of candidates who are eligible for the exemption and supplies us with their names and addresses. We hit the road. We then return to City Hall with applications in hand, signed, sealed, delivered. Voila: Money back in the hands of those who need it the most. The program is simple and inexpensive. And in many instances, it makes the difference between someone packing it in or living out their life in the community they love.