Senator Steinberg has
lots of ideas. Previously, he announced his desire to withhold state
services in districts represented by Republican legislators, to punish them for
holding out against the higher taxes he supports. Now Senator Steinberg
is threatening to grant local governments and school districts broad new taxing
authority. Under SB 653 a school district would be empowered (with voter
approval) to levy income taxes, excise taxes (e.g. a tax on tobacco, alcohol,
soda), even an oil severance tax in districts lucky enough to have oil
reserves.
As
noted previously, Senator Steinberg’s plans violate the equal protection
clause of our state and federal Constitutions. Way back in the 70’s our
State Supreme Court put an end to the disparity between school funding based
primarily on property tax in a line of cases called "Serrano v. Priest."
Our Supreme Court stated:
For the reasons we have explained in detail, this
system conditions the full entitlement to such interest on wealth, classifies
its recipients on the basis of their collective affluence and makes the quality
of a child’s education depend upon the resources of his school district and
ultimately upon the pocketbook of his parents. We find that such financing
system as presently constituted is not necessary to the attainment of any
compelling state interest. Since it does not withstand the requisite ‘strict
scrutiny,’ it denies to the plaintiffs and others similarly situated the equal
protection of the laws.
Senator Steinberg
would have us go back to funding our education system locally. If your
child is lucky enough to live in a district with high income earners, perhaps a
small increase in the income tax will generate huge new revenues. If your
child, however, lives in a poor area where incomes are low, an income tax is
unlikely to gain voter approval, but even if it does, the rate needed to
generate the same revenue per student will be unnecessarily high. The Supreme
Court addressed this disparity too:
Obviously, the richer district is favored when it
can provide the same educational quality for its children with less tax effort.
Furthermore, as a statistical matter, the poorer districts are financially
unable to raise their taxes high enough to match the educational offerings of
wealthier districts. Thus, affluent districts can have their cake and eat it
too: they can provide a high quality education for their children while paying
lower taxes. Poor districts, by contrast, have no cake at all.
Is it too much to ask that our Legislature
actually spend some time discussing "real" solutions to our budget mess instead
of making veiled threats? I am all for local control. If Senator
Steinberg wants local control of school districts, maybe he should focus less
on taxing authority and more on eliminating the categorical programs imposed on
school districts by the Legislature. Maybe he should allow local school
districts to choose to retain the best teachers, rather than the teachers with
the most seniority. Perhaps Senator Steinberg should support reforming
the manner in which bad teachers are fired so school districts don’t waste
money on endless hearings and "paid administrative leave." Those reforms
are all constitutional, by the way.