News from Patrick Flynn

A comment responding to my previous post asked:

Would you be willing to write a post on the tax cap?

My understanding, which was clearly flawed, was that the cap made it effectively impossible for the city to lower taxes by recapping at the lower dollar amount if taxes were lowered for a year. From your post, I presume that you can lower taxes for a year without readjusting the cap.

Thanks! And thanks for keeping us informed.

The answer is yes, though it might be simpler to summarize the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  Nevertheless, here goes.  First off, the tax cap was adopted as a charter amendment in the 1983 municipal election and recently modified in the 2009 election, and here’s how it reads:

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