Revenue cap changes proposed

The anti-immigrant forces may not get a proposition on the ballot this November, but Mayor White intends to have one that would modify the revenue cap proposition that was passed in 2004. He had a couple of potential versions of this up for discussion in City Council.

The mayor's original proposal was to alter Proposition 2, backed by limited-government advocates and approved by voters in 2004. It requires 60 percent voter approval before annual city revenues from all sources combined can increase by more than the combined rates of inflation and population.

White wanted voters to amend the charter to exclude from the cap the city's "enterprise" funds, which draw their revenue from fees for airports, convention facilities and the water and sewer system rather than from property taxes. He also wanted to exclude increases in revenue used for public safety.

The revised plan strips out the public safety portion and, instead, creates a second proposition for the ballot this fall allowing the city to spend an extra $20 million over its budget for police, fire and other emergency services.

White said the changes resulted from "good feedback" from people opposed to a permanent exemption for public safety in the City Charter.

"I want to try to do things by consensus, when I can," he said after Wednesday's council meeting. "These are just two different approaches to accomplishing the same thing."

[...]

Councilman Michael Berry said the revision the mayor proposed Wednesday was a start to bringing the two sides closer together.

"The more things you take out of the cap, the more support you lose from the general public," said Berry, who offered suggestions to the mayor on the changes. "While funding the police is the most popular thing you can do, you lose the hard-core conservatives, who say, 'Well, the cap doesn't apply to anything.' "

He said he still will oppose the mayor's proposal if it removes water and sewer revenues from the cap.

I'll vote for either one, since I don't believe revenue caps make for sound public policy. Ideally, I'd prefer a version that provides the bigger rollback on the 2004 referendum, but pragmatically, I want something that will pass, since that will prevent the anti-immigrationers from trying again for two years, by which time that issue may have faded.

"I still can't support taking any enterprise funds out of the cap," said former Councilman Carroll Robinson, who joined a lawsuit last year that forced the city to recognize Proposition 2. "If you take out convention and entertainment and water and sewer, you open a spigot to uncontrolled spending at City Hall."

On a conference call from Austin with Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt and local businessman Bruce Hotze, Robinson said he supports letting voters decide whether to permit police and fire spending that exceeds the cap.

Hotze has voiced radio commercials attacking the mayor's planned changes, and he pledged a campaign against them ahead of the election this fall.

As Greg notes, Robinson is also the voice of a radio ad, a rather disingenuous little number paid for by la famiglia Hotze, which you can hear at the above link. I have to say, for a 2004 DNC delegate, Robinson keeps some pretty strange company.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on August 18, 2006 to Local politics | TrackBack