A Shift to Fairness

Most property tax reform legislation and reform adherents propose to replace property tax funding with income tax funding. So to the extent that we are proposing to replace property taxes as a source of school funding we are proposing to increase the amount of revenue raised by the income tax.

Any conceivable adjustment of the income tax to raise additional revenue, even a flat across the board % increase in the tax rate for each bracket in the existing scheme, would produce something that is fairer than the existing scheme. The Property Tax Reform Task Force mission is encouraging the shift from property tax funding to income tax funding and not focusing on the adjustments in the income tax scheme needed to accomplish this. This is particularly the case if we don't know the results of particular changes in tax rates and brackets in producing additional revenue or how much revenue is needed.

However, we don't shrink from explaining that the roots of the present dilemma lie in past state income tax reductions that have paid for tax decreases by reducing state aid to schools and revisiting those reductions is an obvious place to look for additional revenue.

The question is: If not from property tax, then where do we get public school funding revenue?