It was a miracle 26 years in the making. Last week the Arizona legislature passed a tax hike.

Well, not a tax hike exactly. SB 1390 is a new tax, but it’s not a new new tax. Prop 301, the six-tenths of a cent sales tax for education, is set to expire in 2020, and the new law gives it another 20 years of life. It’s a new tax without any new money attached.

It’s taken 26 years for the legislature to pass any kind of new tax because in 1992, voters passed Prop 108 which says tax increases of any kind need a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate.

Under most circumstances, two-thirds of our Republican-controlled legislature voting for a tax hike is an impossibly steep climb. I don’t know of another instance when the legislature voted for a revenue increase since 1992, and neither does AZ Blue Meanie from Blog for Arizona, who first told me about Prop 108 and has been pushing to get rid of it for as long as I can remember. SB 1390 is a rare alignment of Democratic and Republican interests. Everyone but 4 senators and 6 representatives — all Republicans — voted for it. Then “No New Taxes” Ducey signed it.

Passing this new tax isn’t exactly a cause for celebration for public education supporters. It doesn’t bring an extra penny to schools. It just means schools won’t lose $600 million a year. Actually, the new law could come back and bite schools in the ass if Republicans decide to tinker with it during another legislative session, as they say they might. Still, it’s being greeted with a sigh of relief from public education supporters. These days if you’re an educator, not losing feels almost like winning.

We may have to wait another 26 years for another moment like this roll around if we stay under Prop 108’s supermajority rule. That means no substantial raise in state revenue in the foreseeable future, which means schools won’t see the kind of revenue boost they need to pay teachers a decent wage, put more money into educational equipment and supplies, or fix our crumbling educational infrastructure.

If we want significantly more money for schools, the first step is to allow the legislature to pass revenue increases with a simple majority, and that means the voters will have to get rid of Prop 108.

Prop 108 is a clever piece of work. The anti-taxers who put it together made sure there was no way to sneak in any kind of revenue increase. No new taxes. No increases in tax rates beyond inflation. No increases in most state fees and assessments. And no reduction or elimination of tax exemptions.

That last item is a biggie. Reducing or getting rid of tax exemptions takes the same supermajority as raising taxes. Democrats make a good case for the the state increasing its revenue substantially without increasing taxes by getting rid of some of the tax exemptions carved out for special interests. That makes a whole lot of sense. But the problem is, once you identify the special interest giveaways, you still need a two-thirds majority to get rid of them. Good luck with that. And if by some miracle the legislature puts together the needed supermajority, the governor can still veto it. Courtesy of Prop 108, it takes a super-supermajority, three-quarters of both houses, to override a veto.

I love Arizona teachers’ #RedForEd movement. It’s great to see the new spirit of activism which has been sweeping the country reaching our state, and I’m for every dollar they can get from the legislature. The last thing I want to do is rain on the #RedForEd parade. But even though I was an English teacher, I’m good enough at basic arithmetic to figure out there’s not enough money in the state coffers to raise our schools out of the bottom five states in per student funding, and there never will be so long as the legislature needs to muster a two-thirds majority to vote in new revenues. That’s got to change.

This article appears in Mar 22-28, 2018.

5 replies on “Want More Money For Schools? Get Rid of Prop 108”

  1. How about getting rid of Prop 123, David? That seemed to be the big news of the week, “Federal judge rules Arizona’s Prop. 123 education funding plan illegal.”
    http://tucson.com/news/local/federal-judge-rules-arizona-s-prop-education-funding-plan-illegal/article_0d71ccfe-db53-513d-95b6-5a0e03aa19b8.html

    Did you notice this fascinating passage in the article? “But Mike Liburdi, the governors attorney, said there is a provision buried in recent federal legislation that not only authorizes future payments from the trust that go into the school-finance formula but effectively ratifies the $344 million in prior payments that Wake said Monday were illegally made. ‘Were not terribly worried,’ said gubernatorial press aide Daniel Scarpinato.”

    A provision BURIED IN RECENT FEDERAL LEGISLATION? Interesting. Even more interesting, I noticed that on the comments following the article on ADS’s Facebook page, Ricky Hernandez, former Chief Financial Officer of the Pima County School Superintendent’s Office and in the news in recent years as a contested member of the TUSD Audit Committee…
    http://tucson.com/news/local/education/tusd-audit-committee-addresses-concerns-over-family-ties/article_72813f94-3d34-5dda-91d1-cba7bddb4d62.html
    …seemingly in a celebratory, “Gotcha” mode, (did I get the tone wrong?) provided a copy of the specific passage in “recent federal legislation” referenced. The passage was entitled “Consent of Congress to Amendments to the Constitution of Arizona.”

    The improbable alliances in this hark me back to the days of the Sanchez & Graham-Keegan joint editorial in the Star arguing for the many benefits of reducing public school teacher credentialing requirements.
    http://tucson.com/news/opinion/column/guest/sanchez-and-keegan-make-it-easier-to-hire-teachers/article_346770a2-27a7-54b5-a4ea-36aa886ed288.html

    Ah, Arizona. Ideological opponents here can’t agree on much, but apparently a Superintendent of a massive public district and the primary architect of charter policy can agree that we should solve our teacher shortage problems by destroying teacher credentialing requirements. Further, representatives of both camps find it delightful when the US Congress helps the AZ Leg change the state constitution so they can raid the land trust to fund the schools.

    It’s all about as fascinating (and exactly as appetizing) as turning over a rock and watching all the diverse variety of creepers and crawlers that squirm together underneath when the light hits them. Unfortunately some of us have had to try to get kids educated in the middle of this stinking, politicized mess of a state school “system,” where the two warring factions can work together only when concocting the worst types of policies and funding mechanisms imaginable.

  2. Prop 108 is the height of stupidity. Government can’t operate without money. It’s the most basic function of government to raise revenue (taxes) to fund its operations and should be possible by simple majority like all other legislation.
    If you don’t like the government’s tax policies, vote in different legislators but don’t tie their hands by foolish regulations that don’t let them represent you.

  3. Republicans are always screaming “no new taxes”which is absolutely absurd thinking. Prices continue to increase, everything continues to depreciate, erode, age, and break down which all require more money to replace or repair. The brain of most Republicans is so fixated and intransigent that to get them to even change their thinking one iota would be monumental. Many of them still subscribe to the “trickle-down-economic” theory which has been proven to be delusional and unworkable because it benefits the the rich at the top and never reaches the masses at the bottom. NO, Arizonans, you don’t need to get rid of prop 108 you need to get rid of the Republicans in government. The perfect example of a state that would have had less damage from a nuclear bomb than what the Republicans did to it is KANSAS. A Republican controlled state legislature and governor’s office who presented their “perfect example” of Republican policies by reducing or eliminating taxes lower than any state had ever done or ever will do again. Now their funding for every function that depends on taxes is threatened and the giant Republican turd-brain ex-governor ,Sam Brownback, is in Donald Trump’s government as an ambassador for some new B.S. assignment that Trump pulled out of his rectum . However, to paraphrase Shakespeare,” Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day. And each player struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” This too shall pass.

  4. Even without 1089 it is doubtful in this bright red and gerrymandered state would ever vote to increase taxes. Ducey has vowed to cut taxes every year and he has kept that promise. Most of the Repubs have signed on to the Grover Norquist pledge never to increase taxes. The only way to increase revenue that I see is a voter referendum. That might work but what taxes? Our sales tax is already one of the highest in the nation at a statewide average of 9.2%. So property, personal income or corporate taxes are the only ones left. Could this be done? Who knows?

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