The real issue in the Legislature's debate on property tax relief legislation is trust. Here are some of the trust issues.

Previous legislative initiatives have cost you on your current county and municipal property tax assessments. The estimates are that at least 50 percent of the local property tax increases during the past five years are the result of previous state legislative actions.

Eight years ago, on a whim, the House took all the $520 million for the tax relief programs "off budget" (residential property tax rollback for school operations, inventory tax rollback, homestead exemption for those over 65 and manufacturers depreciation). This action reduced the official size of the budget and thus reduced funding to local governments by about $22.5 million per year. The total today for the eight years is $180 million.

The South Carolina Constitution requires the state to allocate 4.5 percent of the previous years appropriation to local governments in "aid to subdivisions." (About 84 percent goes to counties and 16 percent to municipalities). By taking this tax relief money off budget, the Legislature left the locals to raise tax millage elsewhere to cover this lost revenue.

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If this was not bad enough, in 2003 the Legislature capped the total amount of money it sends back to local governments for school property tax relief. By capping these funds to each county and setting a $100,000 per home exemption, it meant that county taxpayers, not the state, were paying for any new home or renovation eligible for this school tax relief. This forced counties to increase tax millage or shift the tax to other areas.

If the Legislature wanted these tax relief programs, they should have provided funding for all of them forever. The Legislature broke a trust to local governments, and made themselves look good in the eyes of the voters at the expense of the local officials. This capping of the property rollback monies caused the locals to increase taxes to cover this loss of revenue to about $60 to $70 million statewide per year.

Another area where the state Legislature has hurt local government is the reduction of the auto tax assessment value from 10.5 percent to 6 percent over the six years. The Legislature wanted this for their re-election, but they did not fund it. This auto tax assessment reduction has forced local governments to make up $100 million this year and $400 million since the reduction began.

Unfortunately, there is a disdain among many state legislators toward local government officials. The philosophical problem is many Columbia legislators want to run all governments in South Carolina. He who holds the money holds the power.

This whole question of tax relief becomes one of trust. Remember legislators are the same people who gave us the TERI Plan that has put the State Retirement System in jeopardy. They are the ones who spent $177 million more in state revenue than they had a few years ago. They are the ones who gave us National Board-certified teachers at a cost of $45 million per year, which by their own study has little value to student learning. They are the same ones who cost us our AAA credit rating by excessive spending and not protecting our agency savings accounts. (The state still owes these agencies $173 million.)

In all these devious ways, the Legislature has cost local governments about $185 million per year in increased property and auto tax milleage for schools and county operations.

In the years of legislative shifting of funds from local governments, the Legislature has caused at least $820 million statewide in lost revenue that the locals have had to make up for school and county operations. Taxes have been raised on local residential, rental, business and industrial property to make up for these losses.

This in no way exonerates the local governments' and school boards' wasteful spending, but I hope it shows the Legislature is the primary culprit to our current property tax dilemma.

The real question to answer: Do we want these devious people intent on their own re-election agenda to set about to reform our tax structure? Their actions have not been in our best interest in the past, so why should we trust them now?

Harry Stille of Due West served