Editor,
Ever wonder how common-sense legislation, with bipartisan support, can still stall in Augusta and not become law? As a freshman legislator just finishing her first term, I share your curiosity.
The struggle to pay ever-rising property taxes on a fixed income is a very real, pressing problem for Maine’s seniors desperate to remain in their homes. It’s also a problem that is only to worsen over time as our population ages.
Our elderly homeowners worked extremely hard their entire lives to pay off mortgages with the hope they could live out their retirement in their own homes.
Sadly, the reality is too many seniors are unable to remain in their homes because their fixed income, usually Social Security, cannot keep up with yearly increases in property taxes.
The 128th Legislature considered only two bills attempting to help elderly homeowners: My bill, LD 1196, “An Act to Assist Seniors and Certain Persons with Disabilities in Paying Property Taxes” and LD 1629, “An Act to Protect the Elderly from Tax Lien Foreclosures.”
My bill, LD 1196, would revive a successful program in place from 1989-1991 that allowed the state to advance, on behalf of qualifying seniors, property taxes directly to the municipality, so long as the senior homeowner resided in the home.
The state’s payment of property taxes was fully secured by a lien on the property; when the home was sold the state received full reimbursement. This was a very successful program: 100 percent of these property tax payments were reimbursed.
Like the original law, my bill is a Win-Win-Win: (1) no senior would lose their house because they can’t pay property taxes, (2) municipalities would receive owed tax money, and (3) the state would be fully reimbursed.
My bill was unanimously passed by the Taxation Committee and Legislature. Unfortunately, despite a modest fiscal note and the eventual repayment of any monies expended, the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee failed to prioritize my bill and voted not to fund it.
The other bill, LD 1629, would protect seniors when a municipality seeks to take their home through foreclosure. LD 1629 holds municipalities to similar rules that all banks must follow when foreclosing on residential mortgages, including returning any surplus funds from the foreclosure sale to the homeowner. For most seniors, a home is their biggest, if not only, asset; ensuring their right to any surplus funds is the absolute right thing to do. Unfortunately, LD 1629 also appears unlikely to be funded in Appropriations.
It’s distressing that our Legislature is poised to adjourn without taking steps to address property tax relief and asset protection for seniors. These two bills may not have been the best or only possible solutions to this serious problem, but they were a start in the right direction. The Legislature had the opportunity to at least do something, however modest, for Maine’s seniors but chose to do nothing.
Those who care about the security of our state’s seniors might want to strongly recommend to the next Legislature that it not repeat this same mistake.
State Rep. Donna Bailey
Saco
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