Gongwer News Service reports that there will be 286 property tax increases on the August 4 election. There shouldn’t be any. Lawmakers ought to ask for all tax elections to be part of the election when most people vote, the November election.

The state constitution requires popular support for all new local government taxes, and so new local government property tax levies have to be authorized by voters. This is meant to ensure popular support of tax policy.

The most important feature of taxation is not its economic effects or its distributional equity. It’s that it is acceptable to the public. Taxes are a cost, and the populace that bears those costs ought to decide whether they’re worth it. The government is for the people, after all. And voter approval of taxes creates support among residents for the work done by local governments.

Property taxes are largely subject to voter approval and voters have been generous in paying them. Property taxes in Michigan are 27% higher than the national average. Only 13 states have higher property tax rates as a percentage of home values.

This mandate for popular support was added to the state constitution in 1978. And it was a message from voters that local government officials had gone too far in enacting unpopular taxes. Theoretically, local officials should represent their voters and should be careful about enacting unpopular taxes. But the job gives officials a look under the hood of government operations, and a machine runs better when it’s well oiled. There is a natural incentive for officials to want more resources and to want their tax proposals to be approved.

While local governments need a majority of voters in an election to approve a tax hike, it can be any election. And so unpopular tax hikes tend to be authorized during low-turnout elections.

It used to be that Michigan elections could be held on any day. But a 2003 law limited that to just four dates. Lawmakers ought to limit it further.

The biggest hesitation against a requirement that new taxes be authorized in the general election is that the ballot might get too long. The argument is that this limit would ask too much from voters and congest polling stations as it takes longer to fill out a ballot. But tax elections are likely to be more contentious questions than, say, community college school board seats or nonpartisan judges, and they ought to have priority for the November ballot if lawmakers are concerned about ballot clutter. Voters also have access to early voting and no-reason absentee ballots if they are concerned about complexity and congested voting sites.

There are bills that would require tax elections to be in November. They’ve passed the House but not the Senate.

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