Charities Benefit in Ballot-Measure Votes on Election Day

Charitable organizations that rely on state aid got a lift from Tuesday’s election as voters rejected measures that could have led to major cutbacks.

While the tax proposals on several state ballots were not aimed specifically at nonprofit organizations, the reductions in state revenue they would have prompted could have harmed charities that receive state and local grants and contracts to run arts, education, social-services, and other programs.

Among the proposals that were under consideration this week:

• Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly defeated a measure to eliminate the state’s personal income tax, a proposal that could have reduced the state’s budget by an estimated 40 percent. Michael Weekes, president of the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers, said the tax cut would have slashed nearly $2.6-billion from nonprofit social services.

• North Dakota residents rejected a ballot measure to cut the state’s personal income tax in half and reduce the corporate income tax by 15 percent[—]cuts that would have reduced state revenue by an estimated 17 percent. North Dakota residents also turned down a measure that would have placed some tax money tied to oil and natural-gas extraction in a trust fund, a move that would have reduced state general-fund revenue by as much as $125-million.

• Oregon voters turned down a measure that would have allowed residents to deduct federal taxes from their state income-tax returns, trimming the state’s budget by about $1-billion.

Oregon residents also voted on a measure to bar automatic deductions from the paychecks of government employees. The measure was meant, in part, to prevent labor unions from collecting dues and using them for political purposes.

Nonprofit groups generally opposed the effort, fearing that donations to charities from government employees also could be prohibited. The measure passed by a very narrow margin. Oregon voters defeated three similar measures in recent years.

Minnesota voters, meanwhile, approved a constitutional amendment to raise the state sales tax by three-eighths of 1 percent for 25 years. The new money will pay for projects to protect wildlife habitats, clean up lakes and rivers, and promote the arts and cultural heritage. Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, an arts advocacy group, said the measure would raise about $58-million a year for arts and historical groups.