Not the good kind
Remember when I told you that Montana politics is really interesting and you should follow it even if you don’t live there? They can’t all be gems. Even Batman has to sit at his desk and sign papers from time to time, and all the exciting projects of municipal government are funded by tedious financial instruments. This week’s column in the Missoula Independent is about1 one such tedious instrument, bond issues. As readers across the country know, Missoula passed a $42 million parks and trails bond last year. Right now, the electorate is voting on a $158 million bond to improve the public schools, which is a damn sight more important than lighted softball fields. Next year, we’ll probably vote on another bond issue to renovate the public library, which falls somewhere between parks and schools in its value to the public.
These bonds originated from different sources, but they all get paid for by the same property taxes. It so happens that Missoula has been spending a lot of money lately, not just with bond issues but also with settlements to various employees. The county risk fund is currently running an $800,000 deficit, which doesn’t come out of the same kitty as schools, parks, or libraries but still gets paid by the same tax base. And the city is about to pay anywhere from $50 million to $150 million to buy Mountain Water—a cost that will be underwritten by ratepayers, not property taxes, but will fall on homeowners and renters alike.
The upshot of all this money spent is that taxpayers perceive The Government—multifarious in its structures but uniform in its source of revenue—as an out-of-control money vacuum. The good people of Missoula are in danger of bond fatigue, which is a problem. It puts projects like school infrastructure and ritzy parks in the same race to voters’ wallets, rushing to get funded before people shut down and stop paying for anything. There’s got to be a better way, and with all these leaders running around, thinking up citizen’s initiatives and five-year plans and whatnot, we should be able to come up with something. Somebody else think of a good way to organize bonding programs. I just point out these problems; I don’t solve ’em. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.
