Where is the line?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : I-695 Thirty Dollar License Tab Initiative : One Thread

Can someone please inform me as where they draw the line on using public monies to influence the outcome of a vote?

I am in possession of what appears to be a memo from the manager of a public utility district.

To: all employees From: manager Date: Sept. 22, 1999 Re: Initiative 695

Initiative 695 will be on the ballot this fall and is titled as reducing lic tab fees to $30 per year. Section one does just that. Section two, however, contains the provision that ANY tax increase shall require voter approval.(goes onto explain what and who it covers)

This COULD require voter approval to change rates, fees, connection fees and increases of wages under collective bargining agreements.

The Initiative also repeals nemerous existing State laws. One of those being the las that phrobits the State from taxing motor vehicles as personal property. With that law repealed, the value of vheicles could be considered personal property and taxed under existing tax structure.

Due to these possible impacts, the district board of directors voted to adopt a Resolution opposing I-695.

Now, my questions.

1. the inference to having the public vote on their wages? Will that be the case? If not, it is a case of trying to scare employees into voting NO.

2. I question the mention of the possibility of veh being put on personal property tax. The public owned veh are running exempt plates. This should have nothing to do with district business and has no place being in a memo from the manager.

Am I wrong? or is this borderline misuse of public money? And a public district manager trying to influence votes?

-- rons (ron1@televar.com), September 24, 1999

Answers

1. If they have collective bargining agreements, then most of the time this includes standard pay increases for tenure. If a district is already running without a budget surplus and an employee qualifies for a pay increase the district will either have to A) refuse to give that person the raise (violating the agreement), or B) make a budget reduction somewhere else to make the funding available.

2. When a government agency buys a vehicle, most of the time it still has to pay the sales tax on that vehicle. Just because public owned vehicles are exempt from paying the MVET does not mean that they are exempt from paying other taxes, which may include the personal property tax.

Note that I'm sure people will say "so what" to these points, but the question was whether the public utility district had a right to print these comments. Since the memo addresses the possible effects of I- 695's passage on the district, the answer is yes.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), September 24, 1999.


Patrick.. Thank you for the answer and you may very well be correct. I still get the feeling that it was used to influence the vote, but if it is legal, thats the breaks......

PS... in my original post... my spelling is not that bad,, my typing may be.. but I sure missed a couple of good ones..

-- rons (ron1@televar.com), September 24, 1999.


rons:

I believe that as long as a governmental agency is providing factual information, and not advocating how to vote, they can do that without violation of the stae law. Since what you provided was not the entire document, it is a little hard to judge if it was all factual material. Even if the agency has no expectation that their vehicles will be taxed as personal property, it is still fair to include it in a description of the expected effects upon their staff and the public since that would be the result of a direct application of the initiative.

What may be a little more of a problem is the line stating that because of the impacts the Board adopted a resolution opposing Initiative 695. An elected board can adopt such a resolution, if they go through some steps, like hold a public debate in which both sides have an opportunity to argue their points (even if no one uses that opportunity, it needs to be provided). The problem is the inclusion of it in a memo to the staff, and even more problematical is if this were distributed more broadly.

No public money or resources may be used to disseminate a position statement for or against a ballot proposition. The action must be in the minutes of the Board meeting, and that is dissemnated in some established way; but to go beyond that begins to look like campaigning. This was probably unintentional, just to keep the staff informed about what is happening and why; but a toe may be over the line here.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), September 24, 1999.


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