Michigan lawmakers want to do something about high property taxes. They should note that voters already get to decide whether property taxes are worth it when they vote on new local millages. But the deck is often stacked against taxpayers, and legislators should give them a fairer shot.

The Headlee Amendment in the state Constitution subjects property taxes to voter approval. This ensures that taxes have direct popular support. People can reject new millages and let old authorizations expire to lower their property taxes.

This requirement shouldn’t have been necessary, but it was. Elected officials are supposed to represent the interest of local residents, so the taxes they propose ought to be supported by voters.

Local officials, however, often opt for the easy way out. They propose tax hikes because their job is easier when they have more money to spend. Raising taxes allows politicians to avoid making difficult decisions. Because there is always more demand for spending than there is revenue, it is natural for local government officials to want to raise taxes. Requiring direct popular support for new taxes helps correct this bias.

The bias still affects millage elections, however. Local officials get to decide how much in new taxes to ask voters to approve and decide when the election will happen. They often select low-turnout elections outside of the November general election. Choosing elections with fewer voters is a terrible way to tell whether people think the tax hikes are worth the cost and undermines the spirit of the Headlee Amendment.

Local government officials can also exploit the fact that public funds are fungible. They can move money around within their budget to ensure that they get more money for the programs they want to fund, regardless of what voters say at the ballot box.

For instance, police and fire services tend to be popular. Voters are more likely to support taxes that promise to ensure there will be someone they can call for help in an emergency.

Thus, local officials know voters will probably approve property tax millages restricted to funding police and fire services. With a dedicated revenue source, local officials don’t have to spend general revenue on these services anymore, or at least not as much as they would otherwise. They can spend that money on other priorities. The dedicated revenue for police and fire, in the end, provides extra money for anything local officials want, not just the services voters approved for more funding.

State policymakers could step in here. Legislators can require millages to fund only a local government’s general operating funds. This would prevent governments from exploiting fungibility to drive higher taxes.

School millages are a different matter. School districts cannot ask voters to approve general operations. That would yield higher educational funding in places with higher property values and relatively lower education funding in places with lower property values. Michigan’s school funding system, instead, is centralized at the state level and guarantees that all schools get at least a baseline amount of revenue per pupil, called the foundation allowance.

Districts can ask voters to approve property tax hikes for school buildings and technology. And intermediate school districts can ask voters to approve special millages that are then redistributed to the public schools within the district’s boundaries. These extra funds can be used for general purposes. This conflicts with the state’s policy of equal funding regardless of land value. Legislators should stop allowing ISDs to levy this millage.

Michigan’s state and local governments already assess more property taxes than the typical state. Levies are worth an average of 1.15% of property values per year, the 14th highest in the country.

High property taxes may be what a majority of voters want in a school district, municipality or county. But voters need to remain in direct control of whether those millages are approved. While the Headlee Amendment made great strides in upholding this fundamental principle of American governance, weaknesses and loopholes have grown over the years.

The good news is that legislators can fix these issues, and others. In doing so, they would help voters get tax relief in a way that ensures that the relief has popular local support.

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