Voters approved the Wayland Union School District’s request for renewal of 18 mills for non-homestead properties over the next seven years.
The total levy actually is 18.387 mills, with the third of mill added to handle the Headlee rollback over the next seven mills. The Headlee Amendment, passed by voters statewide in 1978, requires government units to reduce their millages whenever the annual tax increase exceeds the level of inflation.
The final tally was 621 to 400, just about a 60 percent approval amount. It was a solid contrast with August 2020, when the levy was passed with only a 10-vote cushion.
The millage levy will apply only to second homes and industrial and business properties. Most residential properties are not affected.
Interesting side note to the non-homestead millage vote is that people who do not have any financial interest in this matter get to vote on making people who do have have to pay get a tax increase. Logic would be that only the affected people, who bear the burden of the tax increase, should vote on this. Not the case. I believe the Tea Party colonists said it best, ” no taxation without representation”
People with no dog in the fight get to force a tax burden on others .
Further complicating the matter is rental properties. Folks who own the rental are required to pay the higher tax rate but it is passed down to the renter as part of their payment. So when these taxes go up, so too will rent payments. Likely not immediately, but eventually. Most renters don’t think about paying property taxes becuase it is part of their rent, but they do, and it’s the higher rate that was just approved.
”No taxation without representation” was a part of British law, not something the colonists thought up. And since the colonials thought of themselves as British but were not given any say in what the taxes were they started objecting.