MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - On the August 5th voters will see a statewide proposal on the ballot that could free local businesses from paying the Personal Property Tax. But how will this affect Meridian Township's residents and government?

Meridian Township collects about $80,000 from the Personal Property TAX, PPT, and uses this money to help with government services like police, fire, and education.

The wording of Proposal 1 is not specific, but one message that is being made loud and clear is that everybody wins. But if Proposal 1 eliminates the PPT revenue once collected by local governments, how will this money be replaced?

69th District State Representative, Sam Singh says, "There's two mechanisms for us to replace the money that used to come out of the personal property tax one is that there will be an assessment on larger business to replace part of that personal property tax. That assessment will generate about 20% of the loss revenue that we have with the elimination of the PPT. The Other 80% is being secured off of the Use Tax."

On the whole this plan ensures PPT losses to be recovered to the state of Michigan, but on a unit by unit basis this may not be true for all municipalities.

Meridian Township Treasurer, Julie Brixie states, "They are saying that communities will get complete replacement but the formulas that they are presenting us don't illustrate that. Our DDA, Downtown Development Authority will get some replacement revenue from it, but I don't think that the Township's general fund will get any replacement revenue."

Proposal one guarantees PPT Funding for communities by taking money from the General Fund. Currently the general fund is in good standing and pays for services like Medicaid, human services projects, and transportation spending. Prop 1 will not raise taxes on residents - but in the future if the money in the general fund is strained this could mean higher taxes for residents

Ultimately Singh describes the effects of Proposal 1 by saying, "There are some things that change within this mechanism, but the sense was, is we can keep communities whole of where they are at right now that there might be a way to balance the local needs such as police fire and kind of school funding but at the same time be able to provide the removal of a fairly old and antiquated way of taxing businesses."