The Maine Municipal Association’s weekly newsletter, Legislative Bulletin, is always a concise and enlightening look at what’s going on in the State House from the local government perspective. The Feb. 18 issue is no exception.

The lead story is titled “The Last Property Taxpayer.” It provides, in the context three fairly minor bills under consideration, a jarring reminder that small, narrow tax breaks for select groups can add up to a heavy burden for those left out.

One of bills would offer property-tax exemptions to all honorably discharged veterans over age 62, whether or not they served in time of war. Another extends the tax break for agricultural land down to plots as small as two acres. The third would add waterfront lands used for commercial fishing activities to the list of lands assessed at current use value, rather than market value.

Honoring veterans, saving family farms and preserving the working waterfront all are worthwhile goals. The question, given that the property tax already is the source of so much conflict at the local level, is whether property-tax exemptions given at the state level are the best way to meet those goals.

Especially when the Legislature’s generosity creates two classes of taxpayers for town officials to deal with and lots of additional paperwork for town office staff. Only the veteran’s bill comes with a state reimbursement to cover the municipal loss, and that’s only for the new additions to the program and, as town and county officials have learned from bitter experience, state reimbursements are the first to go when times get tough. The cost of the break for a two-acre home-use gardener will be passed along to neighbors. The waterfront home next to the tax-reduced wharf still will be taxed at its highest speculative value.

MMA compares the burden of the property tax to a boat that each year needs to be rowed across a river. The original concept called for everyone to pull the oars proportionally to the property they own. Rather than lessening the overall load for all, the Legislature increasingly is telling certain, favored rowers to take a break, to let someone else do all the pulling. Eventually, MMA writes, “when we get to the last fully exposed taxpayers, those poor souls will be rowing for all they are worth.”

Add to that high probability that the Legislature will take a pass this session on enacting even the most rudimentary standards for the property-tax exemption given to nonprofit organizations — a persistent and growing problem for service-center communities — and it’s easy to understand why local governments are nervous. And why the last property taxpayer is getting very, very tired.