NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A pair of television ads that launched Monday urge people to vote down changes to Nashville's charter.
The pair of 30-second ads suggest reversing 2020's 34% property tax increase, and requiring a vote for any future increase over 3% is too consequential.
"People want to see our students making progress, but it's going to be very difficult to do that if every single time we need an increase in funding it has to go to a vote," said Amanda Kail, president of the Metro Nashville Education Association.
MNEA is part of the coalition of organizations, business groups and labor unions that make up Save Nashville Now.
Save Nashville Now is paying for the TV ads that are against the property tax referendum up for a vote on July 27.
"The referendum will essentially roll us back to 2019 level funding. If you remember in 2019, things were so bad that over 1,000 teachers risked their job walking out," Kail said.
Meanwhile, proponents of the referendum believe something is wrong if Metro Government needs to dramatically raise property taxes to pay for services.
"The fact that the government thought we needed a 34% property tax increase is a symptom of serial mismanagement," said Jim Roberts.
Jim Roberts is the founder of 4GoodGovernment, the organization that got the signatures for the referendum.
"The solution to mismanagement by the city is not to punish the taxpayers or voters," Roberts said.
If the referendum passes, there are five other changes that would also take effect. NewsChannel5's Ben Hall covered this topic on OpenLine. Click here to see his discussion of all six amendments.
