PHOENIX β With a teacher-pay plan eluding a legislative deal ahead of Thursdayβs statewide walkout, a Prescott Republican wants colleagues to consider a financial βbridgeβ to provide immediate money.
State Rep. Noel Campbell says a three-year, one-cent sales tax, on top of the existing 0.6 of a cent levy dedicated to education, would provide about $1 billion a year, more than enough money not only for pay raises for teachers and support staffs but also to help restore some of the funding thatβs been cut over the years in state aid to education. It also would give schools enough to provide full-day kindergarten if they wish; that programβs funding was cut during the Great Recession.
If nothing else, it also would provide some breathing room while education advocates come up with a more permanent solution that could go to voters on the 2020 ballot, Campbell said.
He said heβs not buying Republican Gov. Doug Duceyβs prediction that a growing economy will produce $670 million by the 2020-2021 school year to fund a 19 percent pay raise for teachers and restore $371 million over five years in money taken from schools.
βI do not support the governorβs pie-in-the-sky economic forecast,β he said.
But Campbellβs plan is getting no love from either side of the political aisle.
Minority Leader Rebecca Rios, D-Phoenix, dismissed it out of hand, saying sales taxes are the most regressive β low-income people generally spend more of their income paying them β and many residents are paying rates approaching 9 percent when state and local levies are totaled. Thereβs also no assurance of long-term funding when the temporary levy expires.
βIt could be a bridge to nowhere,β Rios said.
She and other Democrats prefer things like increasing taxes on the wealthiest Arizonans and revisiting the various corporate tax cuts that have been enacted.
Those ideas, however, drew derision from House Majority Leader John Allen, R-Scottsdale, who said they amount to class warfare, creating βstrife between the haves and the have-nots.β Taxing the rich is precisely the way to undermine economic recovery, he added.
βIβve never gotten a job from a poor person,β Allen said.
Even Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association, one of the two groups leading Thursdayβs statewide teachersβ strike, said the sales tax proposal is unacceptable.
Also, Campbellβs plan lacks an actual guarantee of a pay raise for teachers or anyone else.
βItβs not our mandate to set teacher salaries,β he said, saying he would give the new dollars to school districts, which would decide how to use them.
Campbell was undeterred: βWhat Iβm trying to do is start a discussion. If youβve got a better idea, put it in writing. If you donβt have a better idea, shut up and get on board.β
He isnβt the only one who questions Duceyβs financial predictions. House Speaker J.D. Mesnard and Senate President Steve Yarbrough, both Chandler Republicans, continue to meet with Ducey in hopes of crafting something that can get the requisite votes and the governorβs signature.
Complicating matters is that all those votes likely must come from Republicans, as Democrats want an identified source of dollars that is sustainable and paid for by the people and corporations most able to afford it.
βWeβre looking at helping teachers that are being underpaid and yet you want to tax them more on all the essentials of daily living,β Rios said of the idea of higher sales taxes.
She wants to curb the ability of corporations to divert some of what they owe in income taxes to instead help pay for students to attend private and parochial schools. Rios also thinks the state should review the tax rates paid by its highest-income earners.
βI think itβs a fairness game and everybody paying their fair share,β she said.
Rios also said Campbellβs βbridgeβ would not be needed if educators and their supporters write a plan and gather signatures by the July 5 deadline to put it on the November ballot.
Thomas said educators are still weighing such an option, echoing Riosβ contention that a sales tax is unlikely to be their favorite choice.
βRemember, we didnβt diminish sales tax over the last 10 years,β he said, as the state instead reduced corporate taxes, carved new exemptions and cut individual income taxes. βThose are the revenue streams we need to grow back up.β
Campbell, however, pointed out that business leaders are already talking about putting a permanent one-cent sales-tax hike before voters in 2020.
Allen, for his part, questioned the motives of the education groups whose members voted for the walkout, saying that the Ducey plan β however it ends up being funded β gives teachers the pay raise they sought.
βIt wasnβt a financial question,β he said. βIt was a political one.β
But Thomas said the pay hike for teachers is only part of the demand, with Duceyβs proposal not providing specific dollars for support-staff raises or any money to restore the nearly $1 billion a year in inflation-adjusted state aid to education that was cut in the past decade.
