Abstract:We examine whether the salience of the property tax liability implications of voting yes on a school bond referendum affects bond approval rates. We exploit the fact that school districts in Minnesota are required to explicitly note the property tax implications of voting yes on bond referenda in bold capital letters on a ballot while districts in the neighboring state of Wisconsin are only required to inform voters of the amount of bonds to be issued. Using data on local school bond passage rates from Minneso… Show more
“…This result is both statistically significant and of important magnitude. Further, our findings are consistent with the only existing study of property tax wording effects, which found a 4 to 7 percentage point effect of the property tax wording in Minnesota (Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen 2018). We now turn to our second research question which asks, Does different wording connecting school bond referenda passage and the required property taxes to service the debt have different impacts on voter support?…”
Section: Resultssupporting
confidence: 91%
“…Although there has been substantial research into the determinants of support for bond referenda, our earlier study (Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen 2018) is the only research to examine the influence of property tax wording on support for bond referenda. Thus, this current article fills an important void in the literature.…”
Section: Theory and Conceptual Frameworkmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…There is a substantial amount of literature that looks at the determinants of bond elections, such as the effect of education, bond amount, and bond purpose (for a review of this literature, see Bowers and Chen 2015; Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen 2018). However, there is a paucity of research about how including property tax wording influences referenda election outcomes.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…One way to investigate this question is to observe voting outcomes across similar places where ballot wording is different. In prior research, for example, we compared school referenda passage probabilities in Minnesota, where the potential for tax increases is made explicit, to those in Wisconsin, where the language on bond ballot initiatives is silent on the tax consequences of voting yes (Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen 2018). We looked at hundreds of bond elections in both states over a 10‐year period (2008–17) and found that when the property tax implications of voting yes were included on the ballot, the faction of voters favoring bond passage declined by 4 to 7 percentage points and the probability of bond passage decreased by approximately 10 percentage points.…”
This article reports on an experiment testing whether additional information influences support for bond referenda. Respondents were randomly assigned to treatment conditions that varied the way the potential implications of property tax increases were presented to voters. The results show a persistent negative effect of tax information on the probability of support for school bond referenda across all treatments. Specifically, the results show that the probability of voting yes decreased by 6 to 9 percentage points, depending on the treatment. This result persists across multiple specifications and robustness tests. The effects are consistent across populations, with only those with high levels of education showing no statistically significant effect of the treatment on their support for school referenda.
Evidence for Practice
Some states require bond referenda to include statements that seek to make plain the connection between ballot passage and property taxes, while others do not.
We find a persistent negative effect of property tax information on the probability of support for school bond referenda of 6 to 9 percentage points, depending on the wording.
This line of research has become increasingly important to public policy making given that about half the states, including the largest state, California, have some type of property tax wording requirements for referenda.
We argue that providing wording connecting property taxes to bond referenda passage is consistent with transparency efforts governments have pursued for decades. However, such wording might not improve the accuracy of information for citizens since, ultimately, the ensuing property tax levy depends on myriad factors, only one of which is debt service on bonds.
“…This result is both statistically significant and of important magnitude. Further, our findings are consistent with the only existing study of property tax wording effects, which found a 4 to 7 percentage point effect of the property tax wording in Minnesota (Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen 2018). We now turn to our second research question which asks, Does different wording connecting school bond referenda passage and the required property taxes to service the debt have different impacts on voter support?…”
Section: Resultssupporting
confidence: 91%
“…Although there has been substantial research into the determinants of support for bond referenda, our earlier study (Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen 2018) is the only research to examine the influence of property tax wording on support for bond referenda. Thus, this current article fills an important void in the literature.…”
Section: Theory and Conceptual Frameworkmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…There is a substantial amount of literature that looks at the determinants of bond elections, such as the effect of education, bond amount, and bond purpose (for a review of this literature, see Bowers and Chen 2015; Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen 2018). However, there is a paucity of research about how including property tax wording influences referenda election outcomes.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…One way to investigate this question is to observe voting outcomes across similar places where ballot wording is different. In prior research, for example, we compared school referenda passage probabilities in Minnesota, where the potential for tax increases is made explicit, to those in Wisconsin, where the language on bond ballot initiatives is silent on the tax consequences of voting yes (Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen 2018). We looked at hundreds of bond elections in both states over a 10‐year period (2008–17) and found that when the property tax implications of voting yes were included on the ballot, the faction of voters favoring bond passage declined by 4 to 7 percentage points and the probability of bond passage decreased by approximately 10 percentage points.…”
This article reports on an experiment testing whether additional information influences support for bond referenda. Respondents were randomly assigned to treatment conditions that varied the way the potential implications of property tax increases were presented to voters. The results show a persistent negative effect of tax information on the probability of support for school bond referenda across all treatments. Specifically, the results show that the probability of voting yes decreased by 6 to 9 percentage points, depending on the treatment. This result persists across multiple specifications and robustness tests. The effects are consistent across populations, with only those with high levels of education showing no statistically significant effect of the treatment on their support for school referenda.
Evidence for Practice
Some states require bond referenda to include statements that seek to make plain the connection between ballot passage and property taxes, while others do not.
We find a persistent negative effect of property tax information on the probability of support for school bond referenda of 6 to 9 percentage points, depending on the wording.
This line of research has become increasingly important to public policy making given that about half the states, including the largest state, California, have some type of property tax wording requirements for referenda.
We argue that providing wording connecting property taxes to bond referenda passage is consistent with transparency efforts governments have pursued for decades. However, such wording might not improve the accuracy of information for citizens since, ultimately, the ensuing property tax levy depends on myriad factors, only one of which is debt service on bonds.
“…For instance, in Minnesota, school districts are required to state the property tax implications of bond measures. Researchers have noted that this added piece of information helps explain lower rates of bond passage compared with other states such as Wisconsin (Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen 2018). However, we are unable to gauge this possibility with our data.…”
Section: Race Ethnicity and Public Financementioning
In the context of tight state budgets, local education funding is increasingly important. This article examines the relationship between district-level demographic characteristics and voter support for tax increases to fund the local school district. Using district-level panel data on California school district elections and demographics from 1995 to 2014, we ask the following questions: (1) What is the relationship between demographics and support for school district tax measures? and (2) Does this relationship vary by the type of tax measure? Results suggest that voter support varies by district demographics. However, results differ for bond and property tax measures and suggest that the proportion of Black students increases the likelihood of passing a bond measure but reduces the likelihood of passing a property tax measure. This heterogeneity offers one potential explanation for contradictory evidence in the literature. Results have implications for racial inequality of educational resources between districts.
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