Education funding group may shift strategy
BOISE – The group behind a November ballot measure to boost Idaho education funding by $200 million a year says it would change its message if the Idaho Legislature raises the state sales tax to provide property-tax relief.
So far, the Invest in Our Kids’ Education Campaign has said money for Proposition 1 would likely come from a penny-on-the-dollar sales tax increase.
The state sales tax is now 5 percent. If the Legislature meets in special session this summer and backs Gov. Jim Risch’s plan to raise it, to replace property taxes that now cover $250 million in school maintenance and operations, the campaign would likely shift its strategy, spokesman Ryan Hill said – telling voters the initiative only seeks money for education and does not specify a revenue source.
The money could come from taxes on services, Hill said – or the state could eliminate some of the dozens of sales-tax exemptions valued at tens of millions of dollars annually, according to the state Division of Financial Management.
The ed-funding campaign opposes the governor’s plan. No special session has been scheduled.
“During any political campaign, there are going to be factors that come up that you’re going to have to deal with,” Hill said. His group, which collected 70,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot, has focused on the sales tax only because that would be the “cleanest way” to raise the money – not the only way, he said.
Though the Idaho Association of School Administrators hasn’t taken an official stand on the initiative, its director, Rob Winslow, says his group generally favors increased money for education. It opposes Risch’s plan to eliminate the school maintenance and operations levy, however, on grounds that property taxes are the most stable revenue source.
Should the Legislature boost the sales tax to cut property taxes, Winslow said it would be harder for the initiative campaign to explain where additional education money would come from.
“It certainly clouds the issue,” he said, adding he’d prefer the debate over property-tax relief take place during the 2007 legislative session.
Senate President Pro Tem Robert Geddes, R-Soda Springs, said Risch’s plan will likely be outlined in detail within “five or six days,” about a month before the governor’s suggested special-session date of Aug. 25.
The plan calls for using some of the state’s $203 million budget surplus in fiscal 2006, plus a still-unspecified sales-tax increase, to provide $250 million in property-tax relief to homeowners, businesses, farms and utilities.
Rising 2006 property assessments, up as much as 60 percent in some counties, have prompted calls for the Legislature to take up the issue again. In April, the state Senate voted 20-15 against eliminating the maintenance and operations levy.
“There’s been tremendous pressure to put some relief in place,” said Geddes, a one-time opponent who has since had a change of heart.
Democrats have offered an alternative: Use half the budget surplus to eliminate residential homeowners’ $105 million share of the levy, but leave the property tax on businesses, farms and utilities. They oppose a sales-tax increase, and contend Risch’s proposal gives $150 million in property-tax breaks to “special interests.”
Democrats also would prefer waiting until next session to debate the issue, saying the GOP plan is being crafted without public scrutiny.