Education Funding will be discussed soon in the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee (JFAC). Please contact your Senator and Representatives and members of JFAC ( JFAC members click on members tab) to request more funding for education, and no income tax cuts.

Talking points:

• Every child in Idaho should have an equal educational opportunity in the “general, uniform, and thorough system of public free common schools” required by Article IX of the Idaho Constitution. The legislature is not fulfilling this constitutional mandate.
• Inadequate state funding for schools leaves local districts with unequal ability to levy taxes to make up needed funds, and children with unequal opportunities.
• Over the years, the number of districts with supplemental levies increased significantly, from 59 in 2007 to 95 districts in 2017. 
• Income tax reductions are not tax reductions. They are tax shifts. While there are reports that taxes to the state were reduced by $1 billion between 2007 and 2017, the state Department of Education’s reports of Tax Levies for School Purposes that school districts have been requesting and getting supplement levies totaling $1.59 billion in that time span. That is more than one and a half times the money “saved” in state taxes.
• The state of Idaho used to provide 90% of the funding for the colleges and universities.  Now half of the funding is coming from student tuition and students are having to take on debt to continue their schooling.  If you want to increase the so-called go-on rate, we need to make college affordable.
• I ask you to put the money that might be cut from income tax revenues into the public schools and higher education.