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Committee advances bill letting school systems lower 14-mill floor to 10 mills
Summary
The committee voted to advance Senate Bill 44, which would allow local school systems that currently face a 14-mill property tax floor to roll back their school millage as low as 10 mills while preserving eligibility for state equalization funding.
Senator Watson introduced Senate Bill 44 to the Education Committee, saying the measure would let local school systems that are constrained by a 14-mill floor reduce their millage to as low as 10 mills if they choose.
The bill is aimed at systems where the property tax digest has increased and local officials want to pass some of the increase back to taxpayers. "All we're doing in this bill is allowing those systems that want to go below the 14 mil, lower to 10 mils if they want to," Senator Watson said. The bill also includes a penalty intended to prevent systems from going below the 10-mill floor.
Committee members asked how the change would interact with the state's equalization program. Senator Watson and other members explained that under current law some systems cannot drop below 14 mills and still receive equalization. The bill would allow eligible systems to reduce toward 10 mills without losing equalization, but would not permit rates below 10 mills without forfeiting equalization.
Representative Todd and other members pressed for clarity on how an increased digest and equalization interact; committee discussion noted that equalization and local fair-share are calculated by separate formulas and that a millage rollback is intended to return higher property-value gains to taxpayers while preserving equalization for low-wealth systems.
Representative Cox moved that the committee give the bill a "do pass" recommendation. The motion was seconded and, after no further discussion, the committee approved the do-pass motion and advanced the bill. Representative Chaz Cannon was named as the House member who will carry the bill forward.
The committee discussion included questions about which districts this would affect, how much local digests would have to rise for a district to forgo equalization, and the relationship between local fair share and equalization. No vote tally was recorded in the transcript.
