Policy smoke and fire
Legislation heats things up as spring thaw nears

It’s been an unpredictable winter for your policy staff at the MAR, but hopefully we’ve fought off some of the fires that could have much more negatively affected us all.The first and greatest difficulty we are facing as an association is a possible new sales tax
on services.

The state legislature would normally never consider such a thing, but it is faced with a $900,000,000 to $1,400,000,000 deficit (I include all those zeroes to emphasize the point) and a constitutional requirement for a balanced budget. As of this writing, there has yet to be a proposal outlining so much efficiency to be further wrung out of Michigan government. I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying, to date, no one has laid out a specific plan.

The House Speaker has long maintained that Michigan’s tax structure needs an overhaul. The Senate ­majority leader long ago agreed that we need a system of taxation that will keep businesses in Michigan and the state operational. No cause for alarm, as both have well-documented anti-tax voting records. The smoke detectors began to sound only when the state treasurer called for not only research on a plan, but specifically mentioned service industries as a target. Now we’ve got some work to do.

It’s always easier, in a void, to balance a budget with new revenue ­sources than to prioritize thousands of painful cuts from so many government budgets. Although cuts have been made for ­several years now, they have yet to cause real pain for Michigan’s voters. That’s one of the big reasons we’ll all be fighting proposals to ours and other service industries. We don’t want enhanced taxation to be considered in a void.

Please take a moment to think about the amount of real estate services you provided last year. Picture that number clearly in your mind. Calculate one ­percent of that number; all set? Triple that number. Now double it. There’s a nice little estimate of the additional taxes you could be paying next year.

Sound appealing? It didn’t to me, either. If ever there was a reason to prepare ourselves politically, this is it. Write an RPAC check and get ready to editorialize to the papers. We’re going to need everything we have to support those in the legislature prepared to make the hard decisions on state budgeting and not do the easier math of adding to your burden.

Stay tuned.

New lead-based paint package blazes through the process

Lead-based paint has long been an environmental concern in the health of children and Michigan’s lower income citizens. We have all been following the federal government’s laws on how to ­notify buyers about homes built before 1978 and the possibilities of poisoning therein. Additionally, state legislation has occasionally been passed or proposed in support of that federal law.

Suddenly, however, new legislation burned through the Senate to create a hazard-free lead-paint registry and really put the screws to landlords knowingly renting properties with “hazards” still in place. As our public policy committee began working on the issue, we were able to identify concessions that could keep the legislators’ intent and make the law more possible to obey. For example, better defining “hazards” and giving landlords 90 days to remediate them rather than 30. Anyone who has tried to get painters in on a tight schedule knows how difficult deadlines can be, let alone when contracting specialists in lead- paint remediation.

The Senate package, SBs 753-757, came down after a Detroit News series showed how children living in low-income and urban homes were affected by lead-based paint. Under the bills, clinics performing lead-screening tests must send their results to the Department of Community Health, and the state must create a registry of lead-free houses where corrective action has occurred. Landlords knowingly renting a house with lead-based paint covering the walls could be charged with a misdemeanor.

In the end, Michigan’s landlords would be well-advised to brush up on what they’re leasing and take fast action to remediate any real hazards. As I write this article, the House leadership is more carefully evaluating the situation to ensure that public health and safety are promoted without making affordable housing impossible to obtain. The Public Policy Committee did not believe this was too much to ask.

Assessors in a slow burn

In January, I received a letter from Joan E. Peoples, executive secretary of the State Assessors Board, who wrote me on Department of Treasury letterhead. She informed me that the State Assessors Board had reviewed my last Capitol Report from November and, I’m paraphrasing here, the Board was not amused.

In her letter, she mentions the board’s objection to two specific paragraphs of my writing. The first paragraph characterized assessors as being “thrilled” at the prospect of a reduced workload. The second made light of the lack of technology apparently available to help them do their job in Michigan’s less revenue-rich counties. Her letter requests my reconsideration and an apology.

I tendered both in a return letter, and publicly apologize here.

As I wrote to her, I imagine that we could politically remain miles apart from assessors on future legislation. This would be particularly likely of language concerning the timing of principle residence affidavit filing dates or the calculation of “vacancy obsolescence” in commercial rental property. Nonetheless, I had never meant to insult anyone. I ­certainly did not intend to slight the educational training required for Michigan’s assessors and was surprised to see that ­interpretation.

My intent was to inform REALTORS® that the assessors, as represented by their association and a hired multiclient lobbying firm, had taken a firm position that the May 1 deadline for affidavits required much more work than the December deadline they supported.

Additionally, I meant to express bewilderment at the lack of technological assistance apparently available to Michigan’s assessors as they try to do their work. I have talked to some assessors who do not believe a May 1 calculation is inordinately difficult given the ability of modern day computing. Others have disagreed. In any case, I confessed in my letter that I very well may have been undereducated about the workload of the average assessor. I am taking steps to know more.

As an editorial note, I did not write the executive secretary that there has been a change in the tone of my recent articles over the past year. Tim Kissman, our director of communications, has told me that my typically careful and nonconfrontational style of writing is beyond dull and barely comprehensible. Indeed, we have joked, if there are more than five people on the assessors’ board who have reviewed the article in question, I may have doubled my loyal readership. Perhaps it has more than doubled. As the old joke states: My mother could be lying.

Regardless, and as I wrote in my ­letter to Peoples, my longstanding ­opinion is that there is already too much ­negativity and narrow-mindedness surrounding ­policy debates in the political arena. I am truly sorry if I have contributed to it. I hope we will be able to work closely with the Department of Treasury and Mich­igan’s assessors as we strive to achieve the ­fairest taxation possible for our ­homeowners. That is our highest ­aspiration in this debate and I apologize, to her and to you, if I have undermined it in any way.