Ballot initiative aims to boost public schools funding

Jun. 19—Reclaim Idaho has begun gathering signatures for an updated version of its Quality Education Act ballot initiative, which would boost funding for public schools by raising taxes on wealthy Idahoans.

A new fiscal analysis indicates the measure would generate about $323 million per year.

The bulk of the money comes from a new 10.925 percent tax on individuals with taxable income greater than $250,000, or married couples with taxable income greater than $500,000. The corporate income tax rate — which lawmakers this year cut to 6.5 percent — would be raised to 8 percent.

Revenue generated by the tax increases would flow into a new Quality Education Fund, which the State Board of Education would manage. The money could be used for a variety of purposes, including reducing class sizes, providing more competitive wages and benefits for teachers and staff, and funding full-day kindergarten.

The initiative is intended to augment existing state support for K-12 education, which next year will top $2 billion, or about 49 percent of all general fund expenditures.

Reclaim Idaho, the group that spearheaded the successful Medicaid expansion ballot measure in 2018, said more money is needed to attract highly qualified teachers and to ensure that rural school districts, in particular, have a stable source of program funding.

"We've estimated it's going to take over $300 million to move the needle," Reclaim Idaho co-founder Luke Mayville said. "Idaho is dead last in per-student funding, and $300 million isn't really going to shoot us up in the rankings. It's only about $1,000 per student, per year. That potentially moves us up one or two spots, but it at least makes us somewhat more competitive."

Earlier this year, Idaho lawmakers approved more than $383 million in one-time and ongoing tax cuts, including reducing the top corporate and individual income tax rates from 6.925 percent to 6.5 percent.

Mayville said that simply reinforces the need for a stable source of education funding that isn't subject to legislative meddling.

"The State Board of Education would have oversight and work with local school districts to distribute the money," he said. "We aren't particularly concerned about the Legislature not having a role in spending that money. A lot of (financial) decisions are made at the local level right now, and the Legislature would maintain its role in determining how existing (general fund dollars) should be spent."

Sen. Carl Crabtree, R-Grangeville, hadn't seen the latest version of the initiative, but he wasn't particularly thrilled with the idea of handing fiscal authority over to the state board.

"The idea of circumventing our existing process doesn't appeal to me," said Crabtree, who sits on the Legislature's joint budget committee and on the Senate Education Committee. "We have a system in place for allocating money. Not everyone's happy with it, but that's what the Constitution mandates."

Nevertheless, Crabtree and the Legislature as a whole have struggled to address education funding issues.

Earlier this year, for example, Crabtree co-sponsored legislation that would provide state support for optional full-day kindergarten services, rather than forcing school districts to pay for the services through supplemental levies.

"This bill would offer parity statewide, so if school districts and families decide that optional full-day kindergarten is appropriate for their children, funding would not be a barrier," the measure said.

The bill came with an estimated price tag of $42 million. It never received a public hearing.

Similarly, Rep. Charlie Shepherd, R-Pollock, introduced legislation this year giving school districts the option to issue district-specific teaching credentials.

The measure was intended to address critical teacher shortages in rural areas by allowing non-career educators to step into the classroom. The bill passed the House, but subsequently stalled in the Senate.

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said the bill ignored the most obvious reason for Idaho's teacher shortage.

"Pay the darn teachers," Rubel said. "That's the solution to this problem. Pay them in rural areas, pay them in urban areas. Just pay them. That's how you get qualified teachers to work, not by dropping our standards."

Mayville said raising tax rates for corporations and the wealthiest Idahoans was "the most reasonable design we could come up with" to address the funding issue.

He noted that the 10.925 percent tax rate would only apply to the portion of someone's income that exceeds the $250,000 or $500,000 cap.

Moreover, the initiative is structured so the Quality Education Fund would only receive as much revenue as is generated by the new tax rates. Mayville said the state general fund would continue to collect just as much money under the new tax rates as it would receive through the current tax schedule.

Reclaim Idaho began collecting signatures on an earlier version of the ballot measure last year, but subsequently suspended the effort because of the COVID-19 outbreak. After submitting a slightly modified version to the Secretary of State's Office this year, it recently received approval to begin collecting signatures.

Nearly 65,000 signatures are needed for the measure to qualify for the 2022 ballot.

Under legislation signed into law this year, Reclaim Idaho will have to collect signatures from 6 percent of registered voters in all 35 legislative districts in the state, rather than the previous standard of 18 districts.

The group has filed suit to overturn the expanded geographic requirement, saying it effectively makes grassroots initiative campaigns impossible. The Idaho Supreme Court will hear that case on June 29.

If the court upholds the 35-district standard, Reclaim Idaho will likely put the education initiative on hold for a second time and shift its focus to collecting signatures for an Initiative Rights Act ballot measure.

The Initiative Rights Act would restore the initiative requirements that existed in 2012, when there was no geographic distribution standard and measures could qualify for the ballot simply by collecting signatures from 6 percent of registered voters statewide.

More information regarding the Quality Education Act initiative, along with copies of the measure, can be found on Reclaim Idaho's website, at reclaimidaho.org.

Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.