The City of
Howell’s proposed use of an obscure Public Safety Special Assessment (Act 33 of
1951) process to balance the city budget for police protection is illegal
states former longtime City Councilman Douglas Heins.
A special Public
Safety assessment cannot be used to sustain a government function yet the city has
clearly admitted they plan to defund the police to pay for other services and debt
and replace the money with an illegal special assessment I’ve been involved in city budgeting over the
years and I can say some long-time members on this Council have made very poor
budgeting decisions
On background the legal
theory of special assessments is they create a public benefit and make property
values rise because the government’s assessment improves the land and they has
a right to charge the property owner a special assessment tax.
Michigan's Supreme
Court ruled in 1986 the only justification for a special assessment levy is to increase
a property's market value, so there must be a measurable special benefit for
the special assessment to be valid.
City Police
protection already exists, so using a special assessment to continue an
existing benefit, makes it hard to legally argue our property values will
increase. The city is actually creating
a fake hardship to justify this assessment by defunding the police.
The city’s process for
the creating an assessment district is also questionable. The city assessor
will have to be very creative in pretending there is property improvement values
to justify the assessments.
Every property
owner needs to ask the assessor how this assessment will increase the benefit for
our property because Council made a decision to defund the police department.
This assessment does not create a new Public Safety benefit, but only maintains
the status quo.
Also, people really
need to question how the city has been spending money in the past. The city is
crying poor but they recently locked up 3 million dollars in a vacant land deal
to subsidize a development project. If the city had sold this property outright
that would be 3 million more dollars in the bank right now.
It’s pretty clear this assessment process has
the backing of the Michigan Municipal League and Howell is the test case, so if
this passes without a challenge, every small city in Michigan will be doing the
same thing.
The crazy quirk about this type of special
assessment process is every property owner has to attend the public hearing and
protest on the record to preserve their rights.
If a protest is not recorded at the public hearing the property owner person
loses the right to challenge the legality of assessment at the Michigan Tax
Tribunal.
If the city has a
case for money more they should put it to a vote, and stop making property
owners jump through hoops. This is a stupid, arrogant way to ask the public for
more money.
By law a special
assessment must apply to all properties even those exempt from taxation. So, does the city plan to assess schools to pay
for police protection? And if they do, how can the city argue that a school’s property
value increases from the special assessment?
How about someone that has a vacant lot? How does vacant land get a
special benefit from police protection?
It’s the classic
issue, of a spending problem not a revenue problem. The city is currently using
thousands of dollars in general fund money to pay downtown projects, this is
money that should be used for police, not parking lots. Their priorities are all screwed up
Why should every
property owner be forced to file a legal challenge to the Michigan Tax Tribunal? It’s a gross abuse of the law’s real
intent
