Commentary: Local-option tax the wrong solution to Maine communities’ funding challenges

Over the past decade, choices in the Legislature have caused roughly $720 million worth of budget shortfalls in towns and cities across Maine.

This year, lawmakers should seize the opportunity to patch the holes they’ve made in municipal budgets. But they should do it without tilting our tax code further out of balance or leaving rural towns behind.

That means saying “no” to the local-option sales tax, which would hit the poorest Mainers hardest and do little to help our smallest communities make ends meet.

Click here to read the full op-ed by MECEP policy analyst Sarah Austin, first published April 11, 2019, in the Portland Press Herald.