PHOENIX β Saying the current trend is a recipe for financial disaster, a Republican lawmaker wants to cap the amount of money corporations can divert from what they owe the state to instead help send children to private and parochial schools.
Rep. Doug Coleman of Apache Junction is targeting a decade-old law that creates a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for corporations that donate to βschool tuition organizations.β These STOs then turn around and provide scholarships that parents can use to pay the tuition and fees of their children.
To protect the budget, lawmakers put in a $10 million annual cap on corporate credits.
But Coleman noted the law allows that to increase by 20 percent a year. The result, he said, is it now has grown to more than $51 million; for next year the limit increases automatically to nearly $62 million.
More alarming, he said, is that the compound effect of future increases will move the cap to $662 million by 2030.
To put that in perspective, total corporate income tax collections for the last budget year were $663 million. And corporate taxes amount to more than 7 percent of all state tax revenues.
Colemanβs bill, HB 2063, would cap the year-over-year limit at 2 percent or inflation for the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, is already gearing up to fight the measure.
βIβm a big believer in giving students and parents a choice in where they send their children,β said Lesko. She said her own children have gone to traditional public schools.
βBut not all children are built the same,β Lesko continued, saying the tax credit gives more children the opportunity for an alternative.
Lesko also noted that the corporate credit, unlike a similar one available to private individuals, goes only to what she calls βneedyβ children.
Coleman sniffed at that contention.
βRight now the scholarships can be given to anybody who makes $80,000 or less,β he said, with the actual figure based on family size. βSo to say that itβs just benefiting low-income [families], I would argue that $80,000 is not a low-income family
But Leskoβs ultimate argument boils down to her contention that the more money that goes into scholarships means more children not in public schools. And that, Lesko said, saves money for taxpayers in the long run.
Figures from the Arizona Department of Revenue put the most recent average scholarship from corporate tax credits at $1,869. But the agency also reports that one specific foundation that gathers money from corporations gave out scholarships averaging $5,569.
The most recent figures from legislative budget analysts put average state aid at $4,242 per student; when federal and local dollars are added, the figure goes to $9,078.
βTo me, thereβs a savings,β Lesko said.
Nor does she believe that logic falls apart if more and more students were to use tax credits to go to private and parochial schools.
βWeβd be spending more than that if all of the students went to the public schools,β Lesko said.
Coleman, however, said the scholarships appear to mainly benefit the schools β schools that are not subject to the same requirements as traditional public and charter schools to accept all applicants. And he said that more money for scholarships only exacerbates the situation.
βThereβs no assurances that the private schools wonβt still try to maintain exclusivity by raising their tuition,β he said.
Coleman, who is a teacher, is not alone among Republicans in his desire to put a lid on corporate donations.
Rep. Heather Carter, R-Cave Creek, put forward a similar proposal last session during budget debates. And while it was defeated, said she remains committed to pushing the idea.
βThis 20 percent is not sustainable,β she said.
And Rep. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix, said legislators need to look at all these tax credits that are βdiverting more and more dollars away before they ever hit the general fund.β
HB 2063 contains another provision also likely to prove controversial.
Right now the organizations that collect the money and give out scholarships, both from individual and corporate donations, can keep 10 percent for administrative costs. Coleman wants to trim that in half.
He pointed out that the state Department of Education administers a different program known as βEducation Scholarship Accounts.β The voucher-like program provides state funds to parents of children who meet certain conditions, with those dollars also able to be used for private or parochial school tuition and fees.
Coleman said if proponents of funding children to attend outside schools want as much as possible to go for the scholarships they should support the change.
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