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Panel rejects proposal for business income tax to help fund schools
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
CARSON CITY -- The Legislative Committee on Education refused Wednesday to accept a proposal from a teachers and support staff group that called for lawmakers to adopt a business income tax and earmark some of the funds for public schools.
Committee members also did not act on other proposals from the Nevada State Education Association, including a call for the Legislature to restore all cuts to education funding made since the recession began in 2007 and an end to tax abatements that cost education money. They also rejected a proposal to return funding to pre-recession levels for education technology programs.
"In light of the huge budget deficit, I can't imagine us increasing any funding," said Assemblyman Lynn Stewart, R-Henderson. "We can't guarantee any budget allocation at this point."
Stewart said later during the daylong hearing that budget matters rest with budget committees, the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.
Any decision of the Education Committee to inject itself into these matters "would be superfluous," he said.
The committee did decide to recommend that the 2011 Legislature change state laws to give school districts the flexibility to shorten their school years.
The state now mandates a school year of 180 days.
The proposal would allow the state superintendent of public instruction to allow schools to cut as many as 10 days in times of "economic hardship."
Joyce Haldeman, associate superintendent of community and government relations for the Clark County School District, said the proposal could save jobs for teachers and other personnel.
If unions do not agree to "shared sacrifices," or reducing pay, school personnel would have to be laid off, Haldeman said. But the Clark County district can secure $9 million for each day it cuts from the year, and those funds could be used to avoid layoffs.
"If it is a choice between reducing the school years by a couple of days, or increasing class sizes (because of layoffs), then this may be an option," she said.
Sen. Joyce Woodhouse, D-Henderson, called the plan to reduce the school year "just awful," but she joined other committee members in supporting drawing up legislation for the concept.
"We want our students in school," she said.
The biggest loser of the day may have been the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank in Las Vegas.
The group made 28 recommendations to change education, including eliminating class-size reductions, lengthening the time required for teachers to earn tenure, requiring open meetings for collective bargaining, securing merit bonuses for exceptional teachers and changing how teachers are evaluated.
Patrick Gibbons, an educational analyst for the institute, contended that younger teachers, in particular, deserve merit pay if they are superior educators. He said the system of longevity pay for older teachers should be replaced by a bonus pay program for teachers whose students attain specific achievements.
Gibbons also failed to win support for a plan to give tax credits to parents who make extra expenditures on education for their special needs children.
Members, however, did back a plan that would push back by 30 days the time frame when students are given standardized tests required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Woodhouse said she receives a lot of e-mail from teachers who claim Nevada students do poorly on standardized tests because teachers have not had time to teach them the necessary material. If testing is done later in the year, students presumably would do better.
Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.
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A friend sent me this proposal. Please read:
Governor Daniels and Superintendent Bennet agreed on a more equitable way to pay teachers. Both are of the opinion that majority of teachers are nothing more than "high paid" baby sitters. Here is their plan....
Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan -- that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit children.
How many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. Remember they only work 180 days a year!!! No pay for vacations. LET'S SEE.... That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. What about those Master's? We could pay them minimum wage ($7.75). To be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That's $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children
X 180 days = $280,800, Something's wrong here! Average teacher's salary is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!
"It just needs to be changed to work better.
And lets hope it does...with our help."
This is the great thing about democracy and I think people are looking for change now more than anytime I can remember in my lifetime.
The election of President Obama was a huge signal that people were fed up with the status quo and the Bush administration and I think we're going to see the same outcome in this years midterm election in Congress. A lot of senators are stepping down in the face of hard battles and senior senators like Bennett in Utah aren't even winning their primaries. I think people feel let down by incumbents in both parties and essentially are cleaning house.
I think there is a lot of common ground we all share (whether liberal or conservative) that neither party is addressing.
GH:
Sounds reasonable to me.
I agree with you that money that the state spends sometimes is spent less wisely than it should be however the perfect should never be the enemy of the good and just because the government sometimes spends less wisely than it should, does not mean that we should give up on the government. It just needs to be changed to work better.
And lets hope it does...with our help.
I think you raise some valid points and most reasonable people realize that taxes are a necessary evil in a civilized society.
I think much of the resistance to new taxes isn't so much an anti-tax attitude as it is an anti-waste attitude.
No matter how much governments collect in taxes they always find ways to spend more than they take in, and then they ask for more taxes.
California has much higher tax rates and has massive deficits. New York has much higher tax rates and has massive deficits. The federal government receives Trillions a year in receipts and still runs massive deficits.
I for one would have no problem with a tax increase to better fund schools if I thought it would be spent wisely, the problem is I have no confidence that it will be spent wisely (or even spent on education at all) and I have little doubt that within a few years they will be asking for another increase.
This is just my opinion but I think if people felt that tax revenue was being (and would be) spent wisely they would be open to an increase in taxes for education.
GH:
You sir are correct! There are very few natural advantages that Nevada has over practically any state, HOWEVER having said that it has done little, if anything, to rectify the important differences that continue to reduce Nevada's appeal to businesses like Yahoo.
Survey after survey finds that major corporations do not come to Nevada primarily because of the problems this state has with funding education. This is no secret and it has been a constant since I came to this state back in 1974.
It should be obvious to any observer that low taxes, by itself, is simply not a basis for a diverse economy so why hasn't the state recognized that?
In my opinion, it has to do with the single minded focus of a very short sighted citizenry that continues to ignorantly support even the most minimal increases even when it is in the states long term best interests.
I mean seriously, we still have a large segment of the population here that doesn't understand that the state is losing BILLIONS of dollars a year that cannot ever come back because we allow FOREIGN mining companies to take OUR natural resources out of the state and enrich their own countries for PEANUTS.
This absolutely unreasonable attitude has made the work of the government nearly impossible and that is reflected in the business environment of the state.
Oh, and it doesn't help that this rag cheers the lunatics on all the while; no matter how few really pay attention to its blather.
patrick, the problem with arguing examples is there is always examples to counter with.
''an Irvine business relocation specialist has come up with a list of 100 California companies that have expanded elsewhere or pulled up stakes entirely (and left California) in this decade.''
The list includes the following, among others:
Abraxis Health, Apple Computer, Assurant Inc., Automobile Club of Southern California, Bazz Houston Co., Beckman Coulter, BPI Labs, CalPortland Cement, Checks To-Go, Creators Syndicate, DaVita Inc., Digital Domain, Ditech, DuPont Fabros Technology, eBay, Edwards Lifesciences, Facebook, FallLine Corporation, Fidelity National Financial, First American Corp., Fluor Corp., Hilton Hotels Corp., Intel Corporation, Intuit, J.C. Penny, Knight Protective Industries, Kulicke & Soffa Industries, Inc., Lennox Hearth Products Inc., MiaSolA, Patmont Motor Werks, Inc., Pixel Magic, Premier Inc., Pro Cal of South Gate, Red Truck Fire & Safety Company, Simple Tech, Solar World, Special Devices Inc., StarKist, Stasis Engineering, Tapmatic, Telmar Network Technology Inc., Terremark, Terumo Cardiovascular Systems, Toyota, True Games Interactive, Twentieth Century Props of L.A., U.S. Airways, US Press, USAA Insurance.
Specific reasons given for relocating vary but, in general, they all demonstrate dissatisfaction with the business climate in California.
These moves mean the loss of many of the high earning individuals who pay most of the state’s income taxes.
Taxes, workforce, location, regulations, etc, etc, etc all factor into business.
For some businesses California is a good fit, for others it's not, Nevada doesn't have a lot of the natural advantages California does so we're forced to compete through taxes and regulations. You work with what you've got.
Huh?
And with "all" this state has to offer; wonder why they didn't do this here instead?
"The City of Santa Clara has approved a plan by Yahoo allowing the Internet giant to build its new headquarters on a sprawling 46-acre (186,155 square meters) campus in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Yahoo spent US$112 million on the property and will contribute over $10 million on transportation and other improvements to the city, according to public documents on the city's Web site.
"For them it's a big chunk of money to invest and for the city it's a great deal to have someone like Yahoo come into the city," said Kevin Riley, director of planning and inspection for Santa Clara, in a video of the Tuesday hearing."
Oh, well, we still have Steve Wynn...for a while.