As home values crashed after the housing bust, many property owners thought one consolation would be a corresponding drop in their property taxes. Why that didn’t happen is the subject of a four-day Arizona Republic special report, “Taxation Vexation,” that will publish beginning Sunday.

To prepare you for the series, here’s some background on the property-tax system in Maricopa County.

Question: What government agency determines the home values used to calculate owners’ tax liability?

During the epic housing crash, property values fell by almost 50 percent in Maricopa County. Did property taxes fall a similar amount? Not by a long shot.

As homeowners clung to the idea that lower tax bills would be one small consolation of the bust, schools and cities and fire districts and hundreds of other government entities stared down their own financial crises in the five years from 2008 to 2012.

Arizona’s patchwork of special taxing districts took shape more than three decades ago as local governments looked for ways around property-tax limits without incurring voter wrath.

Today, that system is convoluted, inconsistently regulated and often mystifies taxpayers. Its effects can make or break homeowners, whose property-tax bills often include a one-two punch of levies for local government services and special-district items ranging from street lights to irrigation.

Arizona lawmakers have slashed $1 billion from public education dollars in recent years and gone to court to avoid mandatory increases in school funding. Now they want taxpayers to directly cover the costs of new construction, repairs, equipment and school buses.

It was heartening to see The Arizona Republic editorial board endorse the Arizona Senate’s action to support Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid proposal as “courageous.”

While it’s nice to get accolades in politics, I must admit it was not an act of courage, but simply what we were elected to do. The proposal as written will restore the law (as passed twice by Arizona voters) without decimating our state’s fiscal health. Any senator willing to look at the facts and the options would easily come to this conclusion.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is pushing ahead with a modified proposal to simplify the state’s sales tax system, one of her key goals this year.

But in a major concession to cities, the governor proposes to mostly maintain the current system for taxing construction activity.

Details of the governor’s proposal emerged today, even as the Senate is debating a budget plan that assumes the passage of legislation to overhaul the state’s sales tax system.

It was heartening to see The Arizona Republiceditorial board endorse the Arizona Senate’s action to support Governor Jan Brewer’s Medicaid proposal as “courageous.” While it is always nice to get accolades in politics, I must admit it was not an act of courage, but simply what we were elected to do.

Gov. Jan Brewer and some Arizona lawmakers are determined to pass her plan to simplify the state’s tax code this year, but municipalities are just as determined to delay at least one portion of the governor’s proposal that they argue could do irreparable harm to their finances.

Testimony at the Senate Finance Committee on March 20 on Brewer’s Transaction Privilege Tax reform proposal focused on the need to approve her plan this year. Without it, Arizona won’t be able to abide by the federal Marketplace Fairness Act and begin collecting remote sales taxes from online transactions.

Gov. Jan Brewer believes she found her “game-changer” in her quest to expand Arizona’s Medicaid program.

On April 25, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a guidance memo for the states that appeared to answer a question that has been hovering over Brewer’s top agenda item — whether the state can continue its enrollment freeze for childless adults in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System.