In choosing an incremental approach to tax relief rather than something more dramatic such as the voter-rejected Palesky initiative, the Maine Legislature can’t claim they delivered massive tax cuts to property tax payers. But they did achieve reasonable savings after several attempts for more ambitious cuts failed. More important, they prepared the legislative ground for more cuts to come.

LD 1, the governor’s tax-relief bill, reduces property taxes directly by increasing the Homestead Exemption to $13,000 from $7,000. It doubles the Circuit Breaker rebate to $2,000 and expands the income eligibility. It will send considerably more money, overall, to municipalities for K-12 education, thereby reducing the need for some property taxes, unless residents vote to use the tax money for local services. It sets spending caps on all three levels of government.

Back in near-mythical times, around the mid-1980s, the state set funding 55 percent of K-12 education as its goal and has pursued that grail ever since. By drawing nearer to it this time while establishing a method for determining how much a school district should spend for education through Essential Programs and Services, it will relieve pressure on local property taxes. The first years of those savings aren’t especially impressive, however, about $200 for the average property tax payer, according to the Maine Revenue Service – appreciated but not life-altering.

Much more significant savings should come later, if lawmakers can remain committed to keeping Maine on track. Next biennium, the state should complete the second half of its phase-in to 55 percent. Less directly, the caps and the EPS funding method should restrain revenue growth. Combined, these add up to several hundred more dollars off property taxes.

The risk, of course, is that by relieving a little bit of the pressure this time, lawmakers will move on to other issues and place demands for funding ahead of tax cuts. That is a real possibility because there are real programs that could benefit the state now and for a long time to come if they had more money. Higher education is one example; research and development is another, related one.

The Baldacci administration is convinced that there is substantially more money to wring from state and local governments by making them more efficient, so that less can be spent for the same or even improved services. Let’s hope they are correct.

Meanwhile, keep an eye on tax relief. What was accomplished in LD 1 was, in part, a demonstration that a bipartisan group of lawmakers could put together a tax package that would, with a lot of political maneuvering, pass the Legislature. But its value is as a beginning to further tax improvements. Someday, lawmakers may figure out how to make sense of the sales tax.