<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri', 'sans-serif'">"On a different note: do folks think it is time to re-visit how we fund our public schools? Below is Marty Trillhaase’s column from a couple of days ago."</SPAN></DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri', 'sans-serif'">--Judy Brown</SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV>I always thought money worked well? What did you have in mind? Maybe a barter system instead?<BR><BR>--- On <B>Fri, 3/20/09, JLBrown <I><jlbrown@turbonet.com></I></B> wrote:<BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid"><BR>From: JLBrown <jlbrown@turbonet.com><BR>Subject: [Vision2020] school funding<BR>To: vision2020@moscow.com<BR>Date: Friday, March 20, 2009, 2:06 PM<BR><BR>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri', 'sans-serif'">On a different note: do folks think it is time to re-visit how we fund our public schools? Below is Marty Trillhaase’s column from a couple of days ago.</SPAN></DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri', 'sans-serif'">Judy Brown</SPAN></DIV>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">Idaho Falls <I>Post Register </I>Wednesday March 18, 2009 </SPAN></DIV>
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<P class=MsoNormal><B><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">The great mistake of 2006</SPAN></B></DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">By Marty Trillhaase</SPAN></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
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<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">If then-Gov. Jim Risch hadn't pushed his 2006 tax shift package in a rushed, one-day special legislative session, we would have recognized more of its flaws.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">Cutting schools from property tax support saved $260 million. Raising the sales tax from a nickel to 6 cents on the dollar replaced $210 million. That equals $50 million in tax cuts, which went to wealthy homeowners and corporations. Everybody else - especially low-income families who rent their homes - paid more.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">Only a deepening recession could reveal the Risch tax shift's true damage to the schools.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">Gov. C.L. "Butch' Otter said the school budget must be slashed about $109 million next year. Just having that debate tells you something about Risch's tax shift:</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">It destabilized school funding. Before Risch took office, schools relied on a maintenance and operation levy for a quarter of their money; the state general fund provided the rest. During its past decade, the amount of dollars this levy produced for schools increased 77 percent to $293.5 million. Had Risch left well enough alone, the state Tax Commission estimates the levy would have generated at least $166 million more this year. Instead, schools are stuck with the sales tax, down 8.8 percent, and the income taxes, down 14.5 percent.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">The $114 million school stabilization account couldn't meet the challenge of a deep and prolonged slowdown. Just keeping the schools afloat this year would have all but depleted it, had the Obama federal stimulus package not provided another $166 million.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">Otter's right. Schools will eventually run out of money when the stimulus and the reserve account are gone. Call that a structural deficit - schools cost more than we're paying. The Risch tax plan never replaced the $50 million yanked from school support. It also removed property tax dollars dedicated exclusively to schools. Now education has to compete with every other state agency for a slice of a general fund that is shrinking by 12 percent.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">Nearly three-quarters of Idaho voters approved Risch's plan in a 2006 advisory vote. But the question was loaded. Nowhere in it did the ballot measure note school funding had been cut $50 million and otherwise destabilized. In fact, the measure promoted the tax shift as a way to protect funding for public schools.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">Plummeting home values and a shaky economy mean money will be too short to drop the sales tax back to 5 percent even with a restored maintenance and operation levy. But reviving the M&O levy might relieve enough pressure on the state budget to accelerate lifting the unconscionably regressive sales tax on food.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">Make this the defining question of next year's campaign: Do we continue chopping away at our schools or is it time to correct this mistake?</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'">Marty Trillhaase</SPAN></DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri', 'sans-serif'"> </SPAN></DIV></DIV></DIV><BR>-----Inline Attachment Follows-----<BR><BR>
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