California's Tax Revolt—In Favor of Higher Rates
Education spending and student-teacher ratio are about where they were in 2004. The real problem is that tax dollars are being diverted for teacher benefits.
By ALLYSIA FINLEY
Fullerton, Calif.Thousands of California teachers turned out this week to protest potential budget cuts to education and to urge lawmakers to raise taxes. Such activism may be par for the course in Democratic strongholds like Sacramento or Los Angeles, but in conservative Orange County?
Roughly 300 protesters—teachers, parents and students all wearing red in solidarity—gathered on a grassy knoll along the bustling Harbor Boulevard on Monday. They waved signs with messages like "Stand up for schools—support tax extensions," "Close corporate loopholes, not public education," and one you'll only see in Orange County: "Cut Ethnic Studies, Not Science." Every couple of seconds a car would honk its horn in support.
Zuma PressThese teachers complain that schools are facing a "state of emergency." Perhaps what schools are actually experiencing is a state of withdrawal.
The stock market run-up stuffed state and local coffers—but lawmakers decided not to save any of the surplus cash for a rainy day. Between 2004 and 2007, the state increased K-12 and community college funding to $56 billion from $47 billion. Even as student enrollment declined, schools added 4,000 teaching, 2,100 administrative and 5,200 student-support jobs. Meanwhile, school districts that experienced a boom in property-tax revenue increased teacher benefits and salaries.
Lawmakers should have known that it never rains in California. It pours. Months after the 2008 stock market crash, the state had to confront a $40 billion deficit. Democrats proposed raising taxes to help bridge the gap, but they couldn't do it alone since the state's constitution requires a supermajority vote for tax increases. A few Republican state legislators compromised and agreed to raise income, sales and vehicle taxes for two years in order to reduce cuts to education.
Those taxes expire this year. Democrats want to extend them for another five years, insisting that allowing them to expire won't just jeopardize the state's schools, but California's economic recovery. "Five years is what's necessary to bridge our economic recovery," says State Senate Majority Leader Darrell Steinberg.
In a bow to democracy, Gov. Jerry Brown has pledged to put the taxes on a special-election ballot, which also needs a two-thirds vote of the legislature. All of the parents and teachers I spoke with supported this idea.
The California Teachers Association—surprise, surprise—has a different proposal. The union is urging Mr. Brown to extend the taxes without a vote of the people. David Sanchez, the union's president, says he's afraid that voters will reject the taxes if they're put on the ballot after they expire in June. "The people are pretty clear that they don't want new taxes," says Mr. Sanchez.
A recent Public Policy Institute of California poll shows that nearly two-thirds of likely voters oppose increasing sales and income taxes to maintain school funding. At the same time, 76% of parents say their child's public school has been affected by recent budget cuts and 68% believe that the quality of education will suffer if more cuts are made. Education has already been cut by about $20 billion in the past three years. "We're at a breaking point," Suzanne Gastreich, a mother of two from Mission Viejo, tells me.
Molly O'Grady, who has a son at Mission Viejo High School, tells me that the school has only two college counselors for 2,800 students. "There's no interaction. How are students supposed to get into college?" Saddleback Valley school-district board member Suzie Swartz adds that her district can't afford to fund junior varsity sports anymore and can only keep libraries open one day a week. Things could get worse, Democrats warn, if the state doesn't extend the taxes—they say they will have to cut education by $4.7 billion. This could mean larger class sizes, a shorter school year, and even fewer extracurricular programs.
But the reality is that despite recent cuts, education spending and the student-teacher ratio are about the same as they were in 2004. The real problem is that more and more tax dollars are being diverted for teacher benefits. The Los Angeles Unified School District is paying 11% more for teacher health benefits than it did two years ago.
Republicans have offered to help "save schools" by extending the tax increases for 18 months in return for pension reforms and a hard spending cap. But Democrats have refused to negotiate on those points. Union chief Mr. Sanchez tells me that pension reform "isn't going to help anything."
Democrats say that ideally they'd like to make the extensions permanent, but know they can't get the votes to do so. A five-year extension would give them two election cycles to win four more legislative seats and achieve a supermajority. Then they could make the taxes permanent—and raise whichever other taxes they want.
So Democrats have decided to take schools hostage in the budget showdown in order to rally public support for higher taxes. Judging by the crowd and the car horns, their strategy has a chance of working.
Ms. Finley is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com.
The stock market run-up stuffed state and local coffers—but lawmakers decided not to save any of the surplus cash for a rainy day. Between 2004 and 2007, the state increased K-12 and community college funding to $56 billion from $47 billion. Even as student enrollment declined, schools added 4,000 teaching, 2,100 administrative and 5,200 student-support jobs. Meanwhile, school districts that experienced a boom in property-tax revenue increased teacher benefits and salaries.
Lawmakers should have known that it never rains in California. It pours. Months after the 2008 stock market crash, the state had to confront a $40 billion deficit. Democrats proposed raising taxes to help bridge the gap, but they couldn't do it alone since the state's constitution requires a supermajority vote for tax increases. A few Republican state legislators compromised and agreed to raise income, sales and vehicle taxes for two years in order to reduce cuts to education.
Those taxes expire this year. Democrats want to extend them for another five years, insisting that allowing them to expire won't just jeopardize the state's schools, but California's economic recovery. "Five years is what's necessary to bridge our economic recovery," says State Senate Majority Leader Darrell Steinberg.
In a bow to democracy, Gov. Jerry Brown has pledged to put the taxes on a special-election ballot, which also needs a two-thirds vote of the legislature. All of the parents and teachers I spoke with supported this idea.
The California Teachers Association—surprise, surprise—has a different proposal. The union is urging Mr. Brown to extend the taxes without a vote of the people. David Sanchez, the union's president, says he's afraid that voters will reject the taxes if they're put on the ballot after they expire in June. "The people are pretty clear that they don't want new taxes," says Mr. Sanchez.
A recent Public Policy Institute of California poll shows that nearly two-thirds of likely voters oppose increasing sales and income taxes to maintain school funding. At the same time, 76% of parents say their child's public school has been affected by recent budget cuts and 68% believe that the quality of education will suffer if more cuts are made. Education has already been cut by about $20 billion in the past three years. "We're at a breaking point," Suzanne Gastreich, a mother of two from Mission Viejo, tells me.
Molly O'Grady, who has a son at Mission Viejo High School, tells me that the school has only two college counselors for 2,800 students. "There's no interaction. How are students supposed to get into college?" Saddleback Valley school-district board member Suzie Swartz adds that her district can't afford to fund junior varsity sports anymore and can only keep libraries open one day a week. Things could get worse, Democrats warn, if the state doesn't extend the taxes—they say they will have to cut education by $4.7 billion. This could mean larger class sizes, a shorter school year, and even fewer extracurricular programs.
But the reality is that despite recent cuts, education spending and the student-teacher ratio are about the same as they were in 2004. The real problem is that more and more tax dollars are being diverted for teacher benefits. The Los Angeles Unified School District is paying 11% more for teacher health benefits than it did two years ago.
Republicans have offered to help "save schools" by extending the tax increases for 18 months in return for pension reforms and a hard spending cap. But Democrats have refused to negotiate on those points. Union chief Mr. Sanchez tells me that pension reform "isn't going to help anything."
Democrats say that ideally they'd like to make the extensions permanent, but know they can't get the votes to do so. A five-year extension would give them two election cycles to win four more legislative seats and achieve a supermajority. Then they could make the taxes permanent—and raise whichever other taxes they want.
So Democrats have decided to take schools hostage in the budget showdown in order to rally public support for higher taxes. Judging by the crowd and the car horns, their strategy has a chance of working.
Ms. Finley is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com.
Teachers swarmed me, eager to get their message across. "We need to educate our community about the tax extensions," said Elizabeth Hoffman, a member of the California Faculty Association's Board of Directors. "We need a rational budget process, a stable funding source that we can count on," Linda Manion, president of the Placentia-Linda teachers unions, added, only to be cut off by Fola Odebunmi, president of the United Faculty North Orange County Community College District. "We can't take any more!" she said.
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