In case you didn't notice, property taxes due this year in Linn and Benton counties total more than $223 million. And on the ballot next month we have a ballot measure to make passing further increases easier.

The $223 million is the total that's being levied by two counties as well as two mid-size cities and a smattering of small ones, along with school, fire and assorted special districts. The total is up about 6 or 7 percent from last fall. That's because while basic tax rates have not increased and some bond rates have gone down, some special levies did increase, the assessed value of most residential real estate rose 3 percent, and there was new construction during 2007.

The totals mean nothing to individual homeowners, but individual tax bills do, and most of those will rise around 3 percent.

In many mid-valley households, however, income is not rising at that rate, if at all. Once again we see how the property tax is disconnected from people's ability to pay.

The tax has been reformed over the years, first by Measure 5 in 1990 and then by 47 and 50 in 1996 and '97, respectively. But it's still out of line with changes in income.

Without the earlier reforms, voters by now might have gotten so fed up as to abolish the tax altogether and replace it with something else. A few more years of steady increases without accompanying boosts in income, and Oregon voters may still get to that point.

One way to get there faster is to approve Measure 56, which allows property tax increases to be approved with less than a 50 percent turnout in any May and November election instead of just in general elections in even-numbered years.

The measure may pass because the 2007 legislature, which specialized in writing misleading ballot titles, also did a job on this one: "Provides that May and November property tax elections are decided by majority of voters voting."

No mention there of of tax increases. No mention of the the real effect.

Under the constitution as it is now, tax elections without a 50 percent turnout requirement always come a couple of weeks after tax statements arrive in the mail.

Tax bills are a useful reminder to make voters think twice about what they're doing. Without it, yearly property tax increases will become even more common - and possibly bigger - than they are now. (hh)