Unnecessary
panic and confusion over Single Taxing District
By
Rep. Donna Walsh
Charlestown
taxpayers recently received an unwarranted scare when they received the June
Special Edition of the town’s official newsletter, the Pipeline. Many readers
of that mailer assumed a legislative change had been made, or is about to be
made, to the Chariho Act that would increase Charlestown’s share of the Chariho
budget by $14,469,425 and cause a property tax increase of over 50%.
As
I told the many taxpayers who called, this is simply not true. Not only has no
such legislation been passed, but no such
legislation was even introduced to create a Single Taxing District for
Chariho. I believe no such legislation will be introduced simply because of the
long and cumbersome process involved in getting the General Assembly to even
consider changes to the Chariho Act.
It
is not
true, as the Pipeline flyer implies, that changes such as a Single
Taxing District could be imposed on Charlestown. In order to get the General
Assembly to consider opening up the Chariho Act for changes, all
three towns, including
Charlestown, must agree and must send Town Council-approved
resolutions to the General Assembly. The Chariho School Committee must concur.
If
a change to the Chariho Act is then approved by the General Assembly, it
must go back to the towns for approval by the voters of all three towns.
Charlestown’s
taxpayers do not need to worry about this single taxing district scare because
no bill will be enacted unless Charlestown joins in consensus with the other
two towns. No actual change to the Chariho Act can be put into place unless the
voters of all three towns approve.
The
idea of a single taxing district comes up every once in a while but never goes
anywhere because of this system I described that gives any one town the right
to veto any changes it does not like. This recent scare was a false alarm
because no legislation to create a Chariho Single Taxing District was even
introduced.
I
will not support or introduce legislation that changes the operations of the
Chariho School District unless it meets the essential requirement of consensus
among the three towns and the School Committee. There is no value to
introducing legislation that can be vetoed by any one of the three towns unless
all the towns are in agreement.
I
think many people only looked at the numbers in the Pipeline and the impact of
“The Impact of A Single Taxing District” and were misled by vague language.
The
creators of this Pipeline Special Edition did a disservice to our residents by
presenting a scenario that not only did not happen, but is unlikely to ever
happen. The sky is not falling.