Education Week - September 7, 2016 - 17

Ballot Measures
Seek Tax Hikes
To Benefit K-12

Principal Shawn Chabot
(back left) at Lewiston
High School in Lewiston,
Maine, keeps an eye
on the hallway during
class change on the first
day of school. Proposed
tax increases up for a
vote in November aim
to make up for flagging
revenue in the state that
has had an impact on
school funding.

could potentially raise millions more
for the states' public school systems.
For far too long, proponents of
the ballot measures argue, lowerincome residents and communities
have shouldered the vast majority
of the states' rising education costs
through property taxes, while corporations and higherincome communities
benefit from comN pany tax loopholes
O
I
T
C
ELE
and inequitable
school funding
formulas.
"Our tax code has been rigged in
a way that overwhelmingly beneﬁts
the wealthiest Mainers," said John
Kosinski, a lobbyist for the Maine
Education Association who's leading
the state's campaign. "We're saying
there's a better way."
But opponents to Oregon's Measure 97 and Maine's Question 2,
say the measures are manipulative and will hurt the poor, not
the rich.
Dana Conner, the president of the
Maine State Chamber of Commerce,
said raising taxes on the wealthy
will lead them to leave the state for
lower taxes-and take the jobs they
bring with them.
" 'Tax the rich' is a common cry
you hear worldwide, but, truthfully, I don't buy it for a minute,"
Conner said. "These people, quite
often, have very responsible positions, they employ people, they put
money back into the economy, and
they're making philanthropic contributions we don't want to lose."
Besides, he said, citing research
from the state's former education
commissioner, putting more money
into an already ﬂawed funding formula will only exacerbate inequality between rich and poor districts.
In Oregon, Rebecca Tweed, the
campaign coordinator for the "NO
on 97: Defeat the Tax on Oregon
Sales" campaign, said the 1,000
companies that will be taxed if the
measure passes will just tack those
extra costs onto their products.
"This is a wolf in sheep's clothing," she said. "It's a hidden, regressive sales tax on low-income, everyday Oregonians."

Sarah Rice for Education Week

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

2016

Revenue Soft Spots
Across the country, revenue for
K-12 public schools has modestly
risen in recent years as property
values have rebounded since the
recession and people spend more
money.
But in some states where tax
revenue is heavily dependent on
natural resources such as timber,
coal, and oil, public school districts
continue to suffer.
Legislators, especially in conservative states, are notoriously reluctant to raise taxes unless a court
tells them to. So voters, in some
cases, have decided to sidestep the
legislative process.
Of the more than 153 ballot

measures being proposed this year
across the country, four would signiﬁcantly raise general revenue for
public school systems.

Cigarettes, Sales Levies
In addition to the Maine and Oregon measures, voters in Missouri
will decide whether to increase
the cigarette tax from 17 cents to
67 cents per pack to expand pre-K
services. That proposal is expected
to bring in $300 million annually.
And Oklahoma's voters will decide
whether to raise the sales tax to 9
percent from 8 percent. The money
would, among other expenditures,
provide the state's teachers with a
$5,000 raise.
In 2010, at the height of the recession, more than eight states had ballot initiatives that would affect school
funding, a record number, according
to an analysis by Daniel G. Thatcher,
a policy analyst with the National
Conference of State Legislatures.
Of the 18 education initiatives
that have been proposed since
2010, six have passed. In 2012, for
example, Californians passed Proposition 30, which levied a temporary half-cent statewide sales tax,
along with an income tax on those
who make more than $250,000
a year. The initiative poured billions of dollars into the state's
school system. Voters will decide
on whether to renew it this year.
Tax-the-rich proposals are tricky,
said Lawrence Picus, a school finance and policy expert at the University of Southern California.
"The trick is convincing people it's
a free vote," he said. "You vote, and
someone else pays the tax."
Unlike other initiatives this year,
Maine and Oregon's ballot measures
propose to tap high-income earners
and large corporate revenue in resource-poor states.
Similar to the campaign behind
California's Proposition 30, the
ballot measures being proposed in
Maine, which is heavily Republican,
and Oregon, heavily Democratic,
have those states' teachers' unions
arguing that lower-income residents won't be hurt by voting yes.
"For the last two decades, we've

been faced with disinvestment in
our public schools," said Johanna
Vaandering, the president of Oregon Education Association. "We're
not asking for the world. We're asking the largest corporations to pay
their fair share."
In Oregon and Maine, teachers
have hit the streets testifying to
voters about overcrowded classrooms, low pay, and duct-taped
textbooks. Their campaigns have
an "Occupy Wall Street" tinge
to them, complete with colorful
graphics that seek to highlight how
much of the education costs the
states' poorer residents have had
to pay compared with those with
higher incomes.
Oregon, which does not have a
sales tax and relies heavily on a
statewide income tax, has fallen
almost $1 billion short of what ofﬁcials say is needed to properly fund
schools, proponents of the measure
say. That's largely due to the continued slide of the timber industry and a growing poverty rate. In
order to cushion themselves from
budget cuts by the state, many districts have raised their property
taxes.

Targeting the Formula
In 2010, voters approved two ballot measures to help balance the
Oregon state budget, raising the
income tax on those making more
than $125,000 a year and the tax on
some corporations.
But the state teachers' union
points out that the legislature has
steadily given tax breaks to the
state's corporations over the years.
If Measure 97 passes this year, it
would bring in $3 billion a year in
revenue, according to Paul Warner,
a legislative revenue ofﬁcer for the
state. The legislature would decide
how to divvy the money up between
the state's public education, healthcare, and senior-citizen services.
Democratic Gov. Kate Brown
last month endorsed the measure,
though she has conceded that "consumers would have to bare some
increased costs."
I n M a i n e, m e a n w h i l e, t h e
state teachers' union proposed

Question 2 to ﬁx what it calls an inequitable school funding system.
Like Oregon, the state has fallen
short of paying its 55 percent required share of education costs,
and districts have made up the difference, resulting in large disparities among them. If passed, Question 2 is estimated to bring in more
than $157 million, but how that
money would be distributed is in
dispute.
By sending money to the state
coffers, the union says, the funds
would more equitably be sent back
to districts.
But that's not necessarily so, said
Jim Rier, a former Maine state
education commissioner. Because
of a quirk in the funding formula,
any new money placed into the
system would ﬁrst go to districts
with the lowest millage, or taxation, rates in the state. Those districts tend to be disproportionately
wealthy.
"This is a much more complicated issue than just taxing the
rich to make sure the education is
equitable," said Rier. "This initiative is not going to solve that."
Jim Weber, the superintendent of
the 6,000-student Lewiston public
school system, has qualms about
Question 2. The city's mostly poor
population has swelled in recent
years after several hundred refugees from Africa moved there. Voters have several times over passed
bonds to build new schools and add
on new classrooms. Resources are
still tight.
"We don't have an empty classroom here," he said.
But Weber knows his neighboring suburbs, which have lower
millage rates, would likely beneﬁt
more than his district from any increase to the state's budget.
"While, yes, we can use the additional funds, I'm not sure that
raising taxes on income earners
over $200,000 is the best way to
do that," he said. "I'd hate to drive
out of Maine the very people who
are the biggest investors and employers in the state. And I'm concerned about a tax increase that
didn't come through the more
regular legislative process."

Marty Barrick for Education Week

REVENUE RAISING
Voters in four states are
being asked to approve ballot
initiatives that would use
tax increases to dramatically
increase the amount of
money school districts
receive each year.

MAINE
Question 2: Would levy an
additional 3 percent surcharge
on the portion of any household
income exceeding $200,000 per
year to provide the state's school
system with $157 million a
annual state funding a year.

MISSOURI
Amendment 3: Seeks to increase
the state's cigarette tax from
17 cents to 67 cents per pack
in order to provide $300 million
annually, mostly to expand the
state's pre-K services.

OKLAHOMA
Question 779: Would raise
the state's sales tax from
8 to 9 percent in order to provide,
among other things, a $5,000
annual raise for teachers.

OREGON
Measure 97: Would impose
a 2.5 percent tax on corporate
gross sales that exceed
$25 million to provide
$3 billion worth of revenue
to beneﬁt public schools,
health-care services, and
services for senior citizens.
SOURCE: Education Week

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