A proposal to put all Hamilton County special levies up for vote at the same time has helped advance the property tax debate, even though the plan failed to win the two commissioner votes needed to pass it. Commissioner Phil Heimlich and Auditor Dusty Rhodes pushed to let voters see the costs of all 10 special levies at once instead of only one or two on the ballot each year. Commissioners John Dowlin and Todd Portune oppose the change. Neither side seems willing to address the whole story. About 120 taxpayers turned out at Cincinnati's convention center Monday night to speak on the issue.

Taxpayers ought to be fully informed about the combined hit from property tax levies, but they also should be told what the county would do if one or several levies failed.

Heimlich and Rhodes argue grouping special levies on a single ballot would force levy agencies to "cut the fat" and adopt efficiencies. A single-ballot system would be "self-regulating," Heimlich said. But that's not quite right. Several of the county's "special levies" fund state-mandated services for such things as mental health, mental retardation and developmental disabilities and children's services. If those levies failed, the county would have to cut other things in order to pay for the mandated services.

Opponents of the Heimlich/Rhodes plan say voters would be confused, and that bond firms would immediately downgrade the county's bond rating in the belief that the county was at increased risk of losing its levy revenue stream. Al Tuchfarber, director of the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati, reports special levies account for 20 percent of Cincinnati homeowners' property taxes - about $359 a year for the owner of a $100,000 home.

We don't buy the confused-voter argument. Voters can only benefit from more information and seeing the whole picture. But Commissioner Dowlin asks, "If all of the levies lose, what do we do?"

The chance of all of them failing is remote. But if that is the real worry, then mandated services should not be dependent on special levies. They should be covered by the county's unvoted "inside millage," the same way such basic services as the courts, sheriff, treasurer and commissioners' operations are. That inside millage has not been raised since 1932, according to Dowlin. He and Tuchfarber said they don't think voters would accept raising it high enough to cover all the "mandated" services of 2003. Once again, it sounds as if the voters aren't being given enough credit.

This week's debate shouldn't be the end-of-story on special levy reform. The commissioners should especially review if there are better ways than special levies to pay for mandated services.