Prepared Text for Board Meeting –
Marc A. Schare
First, I would first like
to welcome Tracy Dematteo to these proceedings.
Folks, I have a number of
legislative updates this week, but before I get into those, I want to offer a
response to Ms. Best’s pro-amendment statement two weeks ago.
There are indeed two sides
to every story, and Jennifer did as good a job as can be done at articulating
the pro-amendment position. I’d like to offer some direct response to her
statement.
Let’s start with an easy
one. Amendment proponents mention that the amendment will reduce the number of
local property tax levys. The statement itself presupposes that what people
don’t like about the levy process is the hassle, which is possibly true in the
education community and for the people running the campaigns, but probably not true anywhere else.
Out in the real world, of course, we know that what taxpayers don’t like about
the levy process are the TAXES. Well, this amendment replaces tax increases you
vote on with tax increases that are automatic, both at the local level with
property taxes that automatically grow as the value of your property grows and at
the state level with new income taxes and sales taxes. Given the reality of
automatic taxation, reducing the number of local levys is not much of a benefit
and it is, for the taxpayer, the equivalent of dealing with a pain in your knee
by chopping off your leg.
Amendment proponents speak
of accountability through a new Education Accountability Commission,
however, the amendment itself shows that this committee will merely produce
reports that will be used as input to help determine the size of the blank
check. We have accountability in public education today. In fact, we have so
much accountability and so many reports that I can
find a legitimate report to say just about anything. The new accountability
commission was added to the amendment proposal to provide a talking point for
the campaign, nothing more. If the authors had been interested in true
accountability, they would have required the state board of education to follow
the recommendations of the accountability commission and, I’ll add
parenthetically, they would have required local school districts to actually
implement the components of the high quality education that will be funded by
taxpayers.
Amendment proponents
discuss the tax break for seniors. It is stunning that in a constitutional
amendment proposal, the authors of the amendment decided that they should have
the right to pick winners and losers in the game of who should pay for public
education, especially when they go out of their way to say that the question of
“who should pay” is the purview of the general assembly. Obviously, this is a
somewhat shameless attempt to bribe seniors into supporting the proposal.
Thankfully, Governor Strickland has decided to offer more or less the same
bribe in his budget, so seniors will get most of their tax reduction no matter
the outcome of the amendment. What is most disturbing about this talking point
is the fact that amendment proponents don’t seem to discuss the automatic
increase in property taxes or the probable increase in taxes on a seniors retirement income. Since the funding is automatic,
every dollar of property tax cut must be compensated for by a corresponding
dollar of income or sales tax, or, worse, the reduction in state services to
seniors due to the constitutional requirement to fund education first. Putting
this another way, if you think that the prioritization of special education
funding over Medicaid funding belongs to the state board of education, you’ll
want to support this amendment. If you think it should remain with the general
assembly, you won’t. Not to trivialize the point, but assuming sports is
considered part of a high quality education (it is now), This amendment
actually prioritizes a 17 year olds right to play taxpayer sponsored football
over a seniors right to Medicaid and then tries to persuade the senior that
this amendment is going to help them.
I want to spend a little
bit of time on why the amendment is, in fact, a blank check. Amendment
proponents speak of checks and balances; however, a careful reading of the
amendment language shows a lack thereof. Proponents mention that the judgment
of the state board of education can be overridden by a 3/5 majority of the
assembly. In truth, the amendment language says this:
The General Assembly may, by three-fifths majority vote of each house, determine
alternate costs from those identified by the State Board of Education, provided
that any such alternative costs shall include and provide funds for essentially
the same components,
programs and services as determined by the State Board of Education under
this section.
In other words, if the
State Board of Education decides that Ohio Taxpayers should pay for every child
to get a trip to Russia as part of a high quality education, the general
assembly can debate the cost of the trip and whether the trip will be coach or
first class, but not whether the trip is required, and for those of you that
think that requiring a trip to Russia is an absurd notion, remember that
international travel is already a component of the international baccalaureate
program. This proposal is a blank check and no one can point to amendment
language that says anything to the contrary. I certainly look forward to
amendment night on May 21.
Folks, I have several
legislative updates today.
First, Jonathan and I met
with Senator David Goodman on April 24. We gave him the same talk that we gave
Rep. Bacon. He was impressed with our research and promised to pass it along to
the Senate Education committee and the Republican caucus.
Second, as we know,
Amended House Bill 119 was approved unanimously in the House. The bill does
contain a continuation of the transitional aid guarantee, so while not yet law,
it is looking promising. You might recall that with the new, unforecasted funds
we’ll get from the state, we should be able to stay off the ballot until 2009.
Unfortunately, the bill also included a pilot program for special education
scholarships along the lines of autism scholarships. While the pilot limits the
number of scholarships to 3% of the total number of special education children
in the state, it sets a potentially devastating precedent. I plan to follow up
with Senators Goodman and Stivers and I would urge
those who have contacts within the administration to see about getting the
governor to line item veto this provision.
Third, I have a story I
want to share with the board and there is a moral to the story. On April 27,
Paul Cynkar received a note from Susan Greenberger indicating that the House
was planning to leave in place the moratorium on publicly sponsored conversion
schools while allowing new charter schools. Paul forwarded Susan’s note to the
board and I forwarded it along to Rep. Bacon with a cover letter expressing my
opinion that it must be a mistake. Rep. Bacon is familiar with the efforts put
forth by the
Fourth, one of our
suggestions actually made it into the budget bill.