The Oregon Legislature seems certain to consider property tax reform when it meets next year. Yet finding changes that make the current system better, then persuading voters that they’re fair, will take leadership that we have yet to see.

Oregon’s property tax system has problems. That’s so, in part, because of Ballot Measure 50, approved by voters in 1997. It was a third attempt at limiting property taxes, and it did that. It immediately cut taxes, and going forward it established permanent rates, reduced properties’ assessed value, on which taxes are charged, and limited the growth of assessed value.

Measure 50 created inequities, however, because it disconnected a property’s assessed value from its real market value and limited growth of the former. As a result, the owners of similar homes in different neighborhoods can have very different tax bills.

So far no one has come up with a concrete plan to improve the situation. Lawmakers are talking about it. House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, brought it up at a meeting of coast-area lawmakers and others earlier this month. And Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, has been working on the problem for months.

Hass did make one suggestion in June. Just refer a measure to voters that asks if they want a fair tax system, he said. Then, when they say yes, lawmakers could go ahead and create the system and let the courts sort it out.

One hopes Hass had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when he came up with that one. No doubt voters would love the idea of a fair system. But one person’s “fair” system is another person’s unfair one. The former would see property taxes go down, no doubt, while the latter would see them go up. Besides, broad ballot questions offered without any specifics are misleading to the point of worthlessness.

That’s the problem with tax reform. It creates winners and losers, and no one wants to be a loser. Lawmakers have their work cut out for them. The very reason voters supported Measure 50 to put strict limits on what the Legislature can do with property taxes is that voters didn’t trust legislators.