Out-of-state teachers give to ed initiative

BOISE – Advocates of a ballot measure to boost state public education funding by $219 million a year have enlisted the help of teachers unions from California to Connecticut to raise nearly $1.4 million for their campaign.

A financial report filed by the “Invest in Our Kids’ Education” with the Idaho secretary of state this week shows the group behind Proposition 1 has raised $1 million since May.

Of the total, the National Education Association chipped in $600,000. The Idaho Education Association gave $657,000, while the California Education Association added $50,000.

The campaign still has just over $400,000 in its account for the four weeks before the Nov. 7 election, after spending nearly $1 million, including $54,000 for campaign manager Lauren McLean and $184,000 for advertising work done by a Portland-based media company.

Ryan Hill, a spokesman for the effort to require lawmakers in 2007 to raise additional money for textbooks, classroom supplies and teacher salaries, said much of the spending so far has been for TV and radio ads, office space, telephones and staff members who are organizing more than 3,000 volunteers in a get-out-the-vote effort. That won’t change in the weeks to come, he said.

“We’re going to continue to be aggressive on both TV and radio, as well as other forms of communication,” Hill said. “We’re running phone banks four nights a week and that’ll probably go up to five nights a week.”

Originally, the campaign sought to raise the state sales tax by a penny to cover the increase, which the group says is necessary because Idaho ranks at the bottom in national surveys of education funding and students per classroom.

But the Idaho Legislature on Aug. 25 voted to raise the sales tax to help pay for $260 million in property tax relief.

As a result, the measure directs lawmakers to develop an “alternative revenue stream” for local public schools. That could mean eliminating sales tax exemptions for businesses, or creating a new tax on some services.

According to the measure, lawmakers couldn’t take money from existing programs to boost public education funding.

The Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, the state’s largest business lobby, opposes the measure.

It argues it’s not specific enough about where the money will go, or where it will come from. Director Alex LaBeau said the industry group plans to issue an opinion piece criticizing Proposition 1 in the weeks before the November vote.

“Writing a blank check is probably the biggest concern, when there’s really no clear delineation of how that money is going to spent,” LaBeau said. “Accountability is an important issue for us. Education is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to spending money. We want to make sure that when the state puts the taxpayers’ dollars into the system that they’re getting something for it.”