Contact your Senator and urge them to oppose SB 509!

The Senate Tax Committee lightly amended and passed out SB 509, a per child refundable tax credit (meaning you can get more in the credit than you pay in taxes). Game On testified against this bill last week. (See Game On testimony in comments below.) This bill could get incorporated into the Senate budget or go to the Senate floor any time.

Talking points you may wish to use:

*People may choose not to send their children to public schools but they are not entitled to a rebate from the state for doing so. We have parks, libraries, police and fire services, but people don’t get a tax credit if they don’t ever use them.

*Public education is a public commitment and a civic responsibility that is shared by the entire population of the state, not just those who currently have children in public school.

*The costs of this bill are significant. The bill has a $75 million cap, which automatically increases, so the fiscal note is deceptive. Additionally it is not a cost savings because the state will now functionally be paying for students currently in private and home school, which are not currently a state budget item.

*There is no relationship in this bill between how much a family pays in state taxes for public K-12 education and the size of their credit. A family with more than one child in private school could easily receive more in tax credit than their total tax liability and significantly more than the share of their state taxes that goes to public education funding. So we would be giving private and home school parents not just their tax dollars, but would be giving them money from other community members who have pooled their resources for their neighborhood school.

*This bill is welfare for the wealthy.

There is no income limit in SB 509, so people who are perfectly capable of paying for their children’s private education would get a handout from the state. This is an improper diversion of state tax dollars.

*There is no link between this bill and actual expenditures on education expenses and no oversight to ensure that money is being spent on legitimate education expenses. When parents spend their own money, the state has less of an interest in ensuring they make good choices. But since this bill gives away tax dollars, the state has more of an interest in ensuring that money is well spent. As we have seen in Arizona, Florida and other states with voucher programs, allowing parents to spend these funds without sufficient rules and oversight results in wasteful and fraudulent expenditures.

Originally published on Facebook on March 13th, 2024.