Organizers of the Invest in Education campaign turned in about 270,000 signatures to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office on Thursday, meeting the deadline to get their “tax the rich” initiative on November’s ballot.
The Invest in Education Act proposes a 3.46 percent income tax increase for individuals earning over $250,000 and households earning over $500,000, as well as a 4.46 percent increase for individuals earning over $500,000 and households earning $1 million or more.
If 150,642 of those signatures are deemed valid, and Arizona voters approve the measure, then 60 percent of the expected $690 million in tax revenues will go toward raising teacher salaries and the remaining 40 percent will go toward improving public school and educational operations.
According to the Invest in Education campaign website, if this measure is passed by voters, the $1 billion that has been lost in public school funding since fiscal year 2008 will be restored by adding together the Invest in Education Act’s $690 million with the additional $400 million that was granted in Gov. Ducey’s “20×2020” plan, after Arizona K-12 teachers held a strike at the state capitol in April.
These combined funds would equal $1.1 billion for the advancement of Arizona’s public schools starting in 2019.
This article appears in Jul 5-11, 2018.
Public schools will need trillions of dollars if they think they are going to bankrupt us.
I will continue to vote NO until TUSD gets honest. Looks like it will take different people that they have now.
If everybody that would not be taxed by this proposal voted for it, it’d pass with a 99% ‘yes’ vote.
I’m all for the tax, because I’m for funding education and because I won’t be seeing an increase in my taxes. Interesting to me is the fact that the children and grandchildren of the people paying the increase in taxes, typically attend private schools, not public schools.