Dr. Jim Lewis is the superintendent of schools for the Blaine County School District.
It should come as no surprise to you that your superintendent and school board, along with their parent organizations, the Idaho School Boards Association, and the Idaho Superintendents' Association, urge you to vote "no" on the advisory vote for the Property Tax Relief Act of 2006, which was passed during the special session of the state Legislature in August. Even though your local legislators, Wendy Jaquet, Clint Stennett, and Donna Pence, did everything they could to thwart this effort, interim Gov. Jim Risch and company pushed this down the public's throat and are now expecting Idahoans everywhere to obediently support that action.
The ballot reads as follows: "Should the State of Idaho keep the property tax relief adopted in August 2006 reducing property taxes by approximately $260 million dollars and protecting funding for public schools by keeping the sales tax at 6 percent?" It even sounds like we should all just go along, but please understand what has happened here. First, this shifts all funding to the state level, which will eventually move all local control thereto. Follow the dollars and you will find the power has long been understood by Idahoans and should not be overlooked in this situation.
Next, it is important that we all remember that education has been used many times before to seduce Idahoans into increased sales tax only to be siphoned away into other state coffers, which school districts must return to their local property owners for support through overrides.
It doesn't take a math genius to understand that when Medicaid has increased at an annual average rate of 15 percent over the last 20 years and funding for corrections (prisons) has increased 12 percent, that Idaho's children are going to lose out with a general fund comprised of sales tax and income tax that has increased less than 6 percent annually during that same time period. This is a smoke and mirrors gimmick that has worked before and will work again if we don't oppose this advisory vote.
Lastly, for Blaine County residents, the results are double-loaded. Since we were one of the four high-cost districts to be given "hold harmless" consideration, it seems like we should be fine. Do not be fooled here, either. What that really means is that we will be one of the first school districts that will need to come back to its local property owners for support since it is the only avenue it has. What actually happened is that these four districts will receive their share of state appropriations but are "frozen" at current funding levels. Any increase in state revenue to support new students, which we have every year, will be deducted from local property tax revenues.
That seems well and good, but anyone can see that if Blaine County wants to maintain the quality of its school district with the programs it has today, the only recourse is to return to the local taxpayer who has been asked to support the rest of the state with a 20 percent sales tax increase referred to on this advisory vote.
Please vote "no" and send a message to the people in power that they did not listen the first time, and they need to reconsider the abuse of power they demonstrated in the special session.
