RURAL-CITY LOCAL OPTION

It’s hard enough to get people to pay taxes when they appreciate when they get in return, but when they see the money going elsewhere and not back to them, it is nearly impossible. So at the rally last week against a local-option sales tax, the minimum rural lawmakers could have done was to explain to constituents the value of keeping service centers economically healthy.

About 75 percent of jobs in Maine are in the service centers, in part, because places such as Bangor offer tax-increment financing to companies such as General Electric. Residents of the surrounding communities benefit directly from Bangor offering this incentive, and benefit as well from the city having the utilities, airport and transportation system to attract the business to begin with. The same is at least as important for the many tax-exempt health care facilities in Bangor and other service centers. These not only provide excellent, local care but support regions economically.

Half the people who use the Bangor Public Library don’t live in the city. Maine’s homeless come from all over the state but they go to Portland or Bangor or Ellsworth because that’s where the shelters are. From treatment for substance abuse to annual basketball tournaments, rural areas depend on service centers to be economically strong so that the cities can maintain the services they offer. And about three-fourths of the state’s sales and income taxes are generated in service centers, but those centers get only half of the state revenue-sharing money, with a disproportionate share going to rural communities.

And that may be a good thing, because as much as the rural areas depend on cities, cities depend on rural areas. The cities need not only shoppers and commuters but open space and recreational opportunities that can’t exist where there is a concentration of people. This mutual dependence is one reason that legislators from cities routinely support bills for tree-growth reimbursement and to help small towns with rural-development grants.

Bangor uses its auditorium and civic center for entertainment and to serve as host to conventions, product shows and large business meetings, etc. These gatherings provide local businesses with customers, and the businesses in turn help support the city with property taxes (and help support the rest of the state with income and sales taxes). But the auditorium and civic center are by any current measure substandard. Rebuilding or building new cannot be done on the local property tax alone – as many homeowners who have moved from the city to the suburbs already know: High property taxes were a prime reason many of them moved.

The legislation that the rural lawmakers don’t like would let residents of a community vote on whether to raise the sales tax by one penny for a specified time to undertake a specific project – it could be an auditorium or a regional school or some other facility that serves not just the immediate city but the area. If Bangor is going to replace its outdated auditorium, this is the most likely way for it to happen, unless the rural lawmakers are saying they don’t care whether the service centers thrive or fail.

They should care because the many roles service centers play are important to the people in their districts. This mutual dependence of rural and city can either create divisiveness or it help Maine grow stronger – even if it means paying an extra penny on a dollar.