Property Taxes and State Tax Policy | Hour 1

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, I Daily Show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendarshow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Happy Friday. We're closing out this week with many of us feeling a little lighter in the wallets this week. Tax Day was Wednesday the fifteenth, and it got us all kind of thinking about what your government is actually doing with your money, from the Fed all the way to local and county taxes. Have you seen your property tax go through the roof? I know mine has, and it turns out it's gotten the attention of some state lawmakers and Raleigh. This week, Carolina Journal legislative reporter Andrew Pomerance is joining us now. It's got the latest on some new moves from a legislative committee that's approving what they call levy limits on property tax Andrew, thanks for. Calling in, Hey, Dona. Happy Friday, Happy Friday. All right, tell me you've been down there at the state legislature all week. What's actually moving forward in this effort to kind of keep property taxes under control? Yeah, So on Wednesday of this week, the Houseflot Committee studying property tax met and actually approved their draft final report which included that tax levy limit threshold, so you know, looking at how much localities and counties can increase their tax probaby tax growth rates looking forward. So this is this piece of legislation would have to go through the whole DARKAI General semily here during short second over the next six weeks, which is projected to start on Tuesday. I know we're all looking forward to that. That'll be a large kind of legislative package. They'll have to move through both bodies over the next six weeks, and then we'll be put forward to a vote by the larger public in November as a ballot amendment. So that's the big one, right, So you can find all the details over on Carolina Journal dot com. But if this makes it all the way through, this would actually be a constitutional amendment that we would all vote on as in North Carolina. It would it would It is a large piece of legislation. It's something that the House Committee has been working on now for multiple months and has brought in experts across the board or that the tax experts or property experts and have heard I think the committee mentioned heard from many many counties in towns across the sane North Carolina weighing in on this, both in favor and in opposition. And so this has been an issue that they've been trying to tackle now four months, and this is the next big step towards kind of that final recommendation come November. Right, do you think would you call this like an early momentum thing or do you think that there's the appetite they just exploring the idea? Yeah, I think at this point there is a true appetite to get this passed. I think, you know, really energize Repulican voters come November, and I think the General Assembly sees that as an opportunity. In a press release actually released this morning, you can find that over at the Carolina Journal dot com as well, Senator Burger came out and actually mentioned this piece of legislation is something that he was looking forward to bringing up in this upcoming session, and so I think there's some true momentum behind this, and I think it really comes back to how many constituents a racing out to the legislatures, and I think they're hearing it and we're all feeling it right especially right now during tax season. So I think this is something that has some momentum behind it, and I think it'd be really interesting to kind of follow this piece of legislation all the way until November. Right. But what about local governments? I mean, this is their main source of revenue, and there's got to be some objection about how they're going to keep their bottom line healthy if there's a cap on how much they can charge us for property tax. Yeah. Absolutely, And this is and I think, you know, the line that we've heard from local government over and over again is, you know, property texts are primary funding for local sources, whether that be schools or police departments or fire and there's a lot of concern over those loving limits, and we heard that from legislatures this week as well. Joe Harris over at the John Locke Foundation has a wonderful study out about kind of all things levy limits, and in that I think he really highlights. You know, this isn't a budget cut immediately on any localities and a uh you know, uh counties. This is purely a limit on increased spending going forward, and so those you know, counties could continue to operate at their current budgets and an increase every year, just a more controlled increase on what we've see. Okay, So we're not reducing the amount that can collect. We're just saying you can't grow as fast as you've been growing. Absolutely, yep. And that's the beautiful thing about a levy limit. You know, it's truly, I think a way that the legislature has has seen an ability to pull back kind of a growth in spending that some much some of of us are feeling, but while still being able to fund counties to their full potential and allowing them to operate, you know, this basic services that they need to for their citizens. But it really doesn't matter if it doesn't pass law the voters right in November. Is there a sense of where North Carolinians are on something like this. Yeah, absolutely so. We did some recent pulling over at the Carolina Journal and it turned out, you know, this is I think an issue that North Carolina voters would would be well behind. Thirty eight point one percent voters said topery tax was a major burden on them, with another thirty eight percent saying it was a minor burden. So you're talking about over seventy five percent of participants in this poll saying that property tax was a burden on them and something that they would like to see their legislators handle. And then seventy three point two percent actually said they would support a constitutional amendment for Levy when that come. November seventy two. That's that's a big number. It is. It is, you know, not many things in today's policy has seventy three percent approval. I think, you know that number I think is really kind of driving you know, the support in the in the apptits from the legislature to take up this issue. I think they see it as an opportunity that has you know, wide backing across across citizens, right, and. You got to I mean, they have to be looking toward November, right if they want to be able to campaign the summer and talk about the November re elections, they maybe want to have this in their back pocket. If it's got seventy percent or more approval. Absolutely, And you know, traditionally tax cuts are something that drive Republican voters out to the polls, and I think they see an ever more challenging forecast come November. You know, we saw some initial fundraising numbers come out this week that favorite Democratic candidates, and so I think they see an up battle and I think they see this as an opportunity to you know, really re energize their base and bring out new additional voters who may not be showing up in a off federal year election. Sure, sure, well, no, you're actually this is going to be I think your first first year really covering the state legislature. What are you hearing we can expect because it really kicks off on Tuesday, We're going to be talking about it all through the summer, getting bombarded with political ads. I'm sure a lot going on. What are you going to be watching most closely in this legislative session? Yeah, absolutely, starts Tuesday. It's going to be six weeks. I think we heard this week twenty seven total voting potential voting days. I'm so going to be quick, I think, you know, in the deadline July first, looking at the last voting day currently. I think that really highlights the need and the pressure Republicans are feeling to get back out on the campaign trail, you know, earlier than later, so that they can go back into their districts and campaign to really kind of push this message forward. I think we'll see a quick start on some of the issues that we've been discussing all winter, whether that being Medicaid funding has been a large topic General Assembly all winter, talking about you know, different growth and how do we kind of real and some of those maybe those fraudulent claims. I think something like this is property tax levy limits something that we'll see moved rather quickly. And then I think the last thing I think we'll see potentially move on next week is the existing governor's vetos of a couple pieces of legislation from the twenty twenty five legislative session. We're missing one or two votes, and now that we had some of those primaries, we have some folks on their way out, some legislators who do not we're not successful in those primaries. I think we'll see them more motivated and willing to maybe switch sides and vote with the Republicans on overwriting some of those governor's vetos. All right, We're going to be watching that really closely. Andrew Palmerans from Carolina Journal, thanks so much. I appreciate your help today. Thank you so much. Have a great Friday. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit Creative video dot Com. Right now, there's a new study out that I want to talk to you about. It's from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. We're talking about taxes today because all feeling a little light in the wallet after April fifteenth. But this new he is confirming what a lot of us are already seeing. More and more of our neighbors are coming from New York, New Jersey, Illinois. I feel like every time I go to the store, somebody just moved here from California. It looks like everyone is fleeing these high tax states for low tax states like North Carolina. We've worked pretty hard getting our taxes under control, and everybody's coming here to get a little piece of it. And it looks like they're not going to let us roll up I ninety five or I eighty five. So we may be seeing more of it. Right North Carolina is gaining one new resident every seven minutes and thirty six seconds. That is so often, so that makes us the third highest migration rate behind Texas and Florida. Andrew Wilford joins us right now from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation worked on this study. Andrew, thanks so much. What is going on? Why are we getting so many new neighbors around here? Well, thank you again, don for having me on today. I think, you know, you kind of alluded to it. I think on the one hand, North Carolina is doing good things with its tax code. It's steadily bringing its rate down and has been for quite a few years now. But on the other hand, there are quite a few states around the country that can't seem to get taxes under control, and in fact keep raising them year after year. Every year they're talking about, we need to we need to increase our income tax rate, we need to get you know, we need more revenue. And every year they're the ones that don't have enough revenue. So they're all headed to North Carolina. And as you said, Florida and Texas, right. Well, how do we get them to leave that philosophy behind them? But you know, maybe they're self selecting, right because they want to go where there's a good quality of life relatively lower housing, although it feels like housing prices are going crazy. Do you think that these trends are long term shifts or something that's accelerated by saying, you know, the pandemic and this move toward remote and hybrid. Work there, they're long term ships shifts that have been accelerated. I think we saw we North Carolina has been has been pulling new residents from you know, the entire Northeast and California for quite a quite a while. That's that's nothing new, and it's it's been one of the one of the hottest new destinations for you know, you can go back decades and that's been the case. But certainly since the pandemic, people have had a lot more ability to move somewhere that isn't you know, a thirty minute commute away from their office. And I think a lot of people who have the opportunity to do that are saying, Hey, if I'm gonna work for the same employer, why why don't I do that, Uh, somewhere where the you know, the weather's nice and the tax rates are reasonable. Right, That's that's not the case in a lot of those other states. Right Well, North Carolina has been kind of on a march to get our taxes low now the year three point ninety nine, and maybe even lower starting next year. If lawmakers can you know, be brave and keep us on track here and not give in to the pressure to stop that march toward lower taxes. Tell me what you think about whether you see these major metro areas, it's like Charlotte, of course, when of you know, North Carolina's biggest city and airport's critically important. We've got lots of new residents, housing prices still still high. Do you see areas like Charlotte playing a role in this and driving it or do you think it's kind of a state wide trend. What are you seeing about Mecklinburg County. Well, it's it's certainly state wide trend. But I think what you see in a lot of states is that, I mean, across the country, metro areas are losing population, right like, for example, in people are people are leaving metro areas and they're heading to the suburbs. That's been that's been going on pretty much since the pandemic, right And in the state like Michigan, for example, Michigan is a resident about once every hour, but if you take out Detroit, Michigan is pretty much is pretty much breaking even so a lot and that's the case in a lot of these states that once you take out the metro areas, things aren't aren't as drastic, sure, But in Charlotte, what we've actually seen is that people who leave Charlotte's just about overall, it's just about breaking even. But the interesting thing is Charlotte is losing about about ninety nine hundred people to other parts of North Carolina and then gaining about about ten thousand from other states. So it's the portal. Yeah, that's but that's great news for North Carolina because it means that well people, you know, when people want to leave Charlotte, they're going to They're going to the surrounding counties. They're moving into the North Carolina suburbs. They're not leaving for South Carolina. They're not heading down to Florida or you know, or anything like that. They want to stay in North Carolina. They're just not They're just not a They're not leaving for sure. They're not leaving the other states. Of course, So what does this message send to states that are having trouble keeping their taxes under control when North Carolina is enjoying that kind of because these are pretty high earners that are coming in. It's not people looking for jobs. It's people with our jobs already in hand. Yeah, I mean we estimate that for twenty twenty six, So for this year, North Carolina will have about about six hundred million dollars more in combined state and local revenue just from migration this year. So that's you know, you think about how that compounds year after year after year. I talked about how you know, like California and New York, year after year after year they're looking for to raise taxes, and it's because they're they're experiencing this steady drain. I mean, California is losing going to lose about four billion dollars in state local revenue this year or because of out migration. So it kind of creates this vicious cycles for these states where you know, they're they're high earners are driven out because the taxes are too high. So the state says, oh, my goodness, we need more revenue, so they raise taxes on the remaining high earners and that pushes them out even faster. But really they causes them to kind of circle the drain. Whereas states are saying, you know, hey, we wanna we recognize that these higher earners, they're a huge net plus for our budget. Even absolutely, even Forida and Texas where you have no income tax, you still there's still a huge net plus because they're paying, you know, very high property taxes, they're paying sales taxes, they're paying all these other uh they're paying into the state budget and all these other ways. So it's just really common sense to want to bring these people in because they're just they're just making the budget easier for everyone else. Great, all right, well, thank you so much, Andrew Wilford, National Taxpayers Union Foundation. You can find more about that on their site in on Carolina Journal dot com. Have a great afternoon, Thank you too. We're gonna have got a beautiful weekend ahead. It's like ninety degrees and it's supposed to beautiful. I have to get out there and you know, get some gardening done and maybe go over to the lake. We've got a bunch of stories that we're following pretty closely here at WBT and at Carolina Journal dot com. Among them, we begin at the state Capitol. So state lawmakers are pressing state officials for answers for what they describe as ongoing concerns about medicaid fraud, oversight, accountability, These are things we've been hearing about across the country. Now they're here in North Carolina. Lawmakers want a few more details. In hearings this week, legislators questioned whether current safeguards are strong enough to check out and detect improper billing, enrollment errors, potential abuse within the medicaid system. Here in North Carolina, some lawmakers are calling for tighter auditing procedures, more transparency, and how taxpayer fundedhealth dots are tracked. After we had tax Day this week. It's important I know that everybody's paying attention about how those dollars are spent. What are lawmakers doing? State officials meantime, they're defending their system. They say our existing controls are designed to catch those improper payments, and additional reforms are already underway to strengthen oversight. This is going to be an ongoing debate throughout the legislative session that's starting here on Tuesday. The discussion is actually really kind of a broader tension in Raleigh over how to balance access to healthcare programs but still making sure we have some integrity preventing fraud in large public assistance programs. Of course, that's been capturing a lot of the headlines across the state. We just want to see if it's going to happen here in North Carolina. We're going to be keeping a close eye on that. Also in election related news, North Carolina State Board of Elections this week approved some new rules addressing non citizen voting safeguards, following a really heated debate among them, and it was split right down party lines, three Republicans voting in favor, two Democrats voting against. The policy clarifies procedures for removing individuals identified as non citizens from North Carolina's voter rules when it's confirmed through reliable data sources, while also outlining some safeguards intended to prevent eligible voters from being mistakenly removed. Supporters of the change say it strengthens the confidence and accuracy of the voter registration lists make sure that only eligible citizens in North Carolina are participating in our elections, But critics, led by the Democrats on the North Carolina Board of Elections, said that this really concerned them, saying that they worry about the verification methods and the potential for administrative errors catching folks who are citizens are eligible, but then makes them not eligible. So this all comes, of course, as election administration continues to be really highly scrutinized in North Carolina to over access security, public trust ongoing at both the state and national level, And of course we've been talking a lot about how North Carolina is growing. Our North Carolina is also facing a long term population and workforce question tied to a record blow US birth rate. This is so interesting to me because you know, three children of my own at home, But new analysis is saying that the nation's declining fertility rate is beginning to reshape our assumptions for schools, our workforce, economic growth. Fewer births over time mean the smaller entering school population, eventually a tightening labor market, unless it's offset, of course, by migration and productivity. North Carolina specifically, officials are watching how these trends interact with our in migration from other states, which we've been talking about, is helping the state grow even as those birth rates are declining nationally. Still, economists say that our aging population lower birth rate could put some a lot pressure on public services, retirement systems, long term economic expansion. You can find all those details at WBT dot com and Carolina Journal dot Com. That's really interesting story there, and in political news this is a good one. Governor Josh Stein is drawing some attention after calling for the legalization of recreational marijuana in North Carolina. So a new panel report came out that examined the policy options and potential regulatory framework to help promote renewed discussion about whether North Carolina should join the states that have legalized adult use cannabis. So Governor Stein's position is a pretty notable development in this debate, as supporters argue that legalization could generate a new tax revenue, reduce criminal justice costs, and aligned state policy with changing national attitudes. I just don't see it happening here in North Carolina. I feel like we have as big as our agriculture industry is. I just don't think that there's the appetite here in North Carolina among citizens for such a thing. But you know, the opponents of this are continuing to raise concerns about public health, workplace safety, you know, the regulatory challenges that would be associated with a legal cannabis market. If you've been to Denver, or you've been to New Orleans or Washington, d C. It really has, in my opinion, become kind of a scourge on the on the communities. There, the smell and you know, all of those things that I just I'm not positive that North Carolinians have the appetite for it, but I don't know. You tell me, let me know what you think. Seven oh four five, seven zero one zero, seven to nine. The proposal is supposed to be part of a broader legislative discussion, possibly even this coming sessions. Policymakers reconvene on Tuesday with some competing views on criminal justice reform and state revenue needs. So finally, going into those state policy discussions, lawmakers continue to focus on the broader questions of governance, trust, all the things that we talk about around the kitchen table, election and administration, public benefits, fraud, and our long term demographic cultural shifts that we've been talking about here today, A common theme is kind of emerging. How does the state balance that growth and modernization along with accountability, institutional trusts, and overall fiscal responsibility. You know, they got a lot of our money this week. We want to know that they're trustworthy, that they're they're catching the fraud, and that they're spending it wisely. So that's a big discussion that we're probably going to hear because you know, we still don't have a state budget. Lawmakers have not passed a state budget. There's a lot of pressure to do so I'm hearing that they potentially could pass a bunch of. Mini budgets that fund in individual needs. Of course, schools and teacher pay that's going to be a big one, and maybe even restructuring how the STEP program works, how those teacher pay structures work that better reflects performance in the classroom. So medicaid and election rules, population trends, all of these things are really happening here in North Carolina as we enter a new period right where several long term policiers seem to be converging at once. Senate Leader Phil Berger, who as we are all familiar by now, was not re elected in his primary, but still he has the gavel. He's going to be leading the state Senate as they reconvene on Tuesday. He has a really interesting column out you can catch it over at Carolina Journal dot com, and he's saying, look, we need to keep discipline front of mind, discipline on our spending, keep those conservative principles that got North Carolina where it is today. In our economy, growing folks wanting to come here in droves. So that column available on WBT dot com and on Carolina Journal dot com. I'm Donna King filling in for Pete Calender today on one oh seven point nine WBT Charlotte's FM News Talk. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.