Two bills designed to severely limit the use of judgement levies used by some municipalities to address costly court decisions have been scheduled for a committee hearing this week in the Senate Local Government committee.
Senate Bills 630 and 631 would amend the Revised Judicature Act and the General Property Tax Act to require that a court order resulting in a financial judgement against a municipality shall be paid from existing ad valorem property tax revenue or from the issuance of debt that must be authorized by a vote of the residents. Any additional taxes authorized by the voters would be subject to Constitutional or statutory limits, contrary to current law. The new language would also prohibit the issuance of debt to repay any judgement for the recovery of money paid for a tax or other assessment that the court deemed was imposed illegally or improperly.
The League strongly opposes this proposal and urges members to contact their legislators to urge them not to eliminate this critical safety net for communities.
Chris Hackbarth is the League’s director of state affairs. He can be reached at 517-908-0304
and [email protected].