Revenue-Raising Limitations on Local Government

Local governments across the country are reevaluating their fiscal position. California's vote on Proposition 13 in 1978 and the subsequent flood of similar proposals that surfaced in legislatures and on referenda throughout that fall exemplify the public concern that is focused on governmental expenditures and the competition for public monies. It is important for administrators and scholars to take a fresh look at the limitations, both new and traditional, imposed upon the availability of local governments to raise the revenue needed for public service delivery. This research will review state revenue limitations and the alternatives with which localities deal with such fiscal constraints. Additionally, the actions of the Maryland General Assembly during the 1978 and 1979 legislative sessions to shift tax burdens and alter taxation procedures between the state and the local governments are examined as a case study of a state attempting to relieve fiscal pressures on its localities. The popular pressure for austerity may have come along at the right time. After a long post-World War II period of operating deficits (with a record deficit of $6.2 billion for 1975), state and local governments, as an aggregate, were in the black for the years of 1976, 1977, and 1978. This is in contrast to the continuing deficits in the federal budget. The sharp growth in local government spending that characterized the early 1970s diminished somewhat in 1974 and 1975 when the recession forced state and local governments to tighten their belts. State and local spending increased only 5.7 percent during fiscal 1977

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• The impact of rate capping on local government expenditure

  Subba Reddy Yarram, Brian Dollery et al.•Policy & Politics•2021

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