A Utah lawmaker said Wednesday his hope to create tuition tax credits for private schools doesn't equal another attempt to implement school vouchers.
But some of the state's fiercest school-voucher opponents disagree, saying tuition tax credit is just another name for a program that would take money from Utah's already strapped public school system.
Sen. Howard Stephenson's early vision: Allow corporations or people to donate money to scholarship organizations, which would then grant private school scholarships only to certain students, such as those who don't test as proficient on state tests, who are from low-income homes or failing schools. Those who donate the money would receive tax credits covering a percentage of their donations, likely between 50 and 80 percent.
Parents of scholarship students would pay part of tuition costs, but they wouldn't receive tax credits — only those who donated to the scholarship organizations would.
Stephenson hopes to see a Utah tuition tax credit bill next legislative session, he told The Salt Lake Tribune's editorial board Wednesday. Though he laid out his ideas, he said the program's actual parameters will largely depend on discussions before his Education Interim Committee, which was recently granted permission by Republican legislative leaders to study tuition tax credits and several other hot-button issues.
Stephenson sees such a system as sort of a next step to the Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarship, a state-funded program that gives private school scholarships to special-needs students.
"I believe it's time to address the needs of other students who ⦠are falling through the cracks and being failed by the system," he said.
But those who opposed vouchers in 2007, when Utah voters rejected the idea in a referendum, say it's merely an issue of semantics.
Kory Holdaway, the Utah Education Association's (UEA) government-relations director, said whether it's called a tax credit or a voucher, it would have the same effect — reducing the amount of income-tax revenue that goes toward public schools.
"Whatever they do, it's taking money from a system that is already the lowest-funded in the country and basically trying to provide a quality service when the voters rejected this just three years ago resoundingly," Holdaway said. "Now we have legislators trying to force their will on the people's will."
Kim Burningham, a state school board member who has opposed vouchers, said it's "doublespeak" to say tuition tax credits wouldn't use public money — since scholarship donors would pay less taxes.
Whether vouchers or tax credits, he said, "The bottom line is, you have less money to use for education."
But Stephenson cites a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling backing a tuition tax credit program in Arizona. Justices said the argument that "income should be treated as if it were government property, even if it has not come into the tax collector's hands" has no basis in law.
And Judi Clark, executive director of Parents for Choice in Education in Utah, said that the tax-credit idea isn't anything like vouchers.
"That's what special interests use to try to vilify really great things that will benefit students," Clark said. "You can't just pull out the V-word anytime you oppose anything."
Stephenson said he believes tax credits would actually put more money in the system per student. Schools would no longer have to pay for students who leave for private schools, but they would still get the percentage of income-tax revenue from corporations and people not covered by the credits, he said. Plus, they would still receive property-tax revenue.
Opponents, however, say schools would still struggle with fixed costs such as buildings and teachers, even if a few students leave.
Lawmakers have proposed tuition tax credit bills in past years, but were unsuccessful.
Holdaway and Burningham believe that tax credits are an attempt to move toward privatizing public education.
Stephenson said that if it were true, it would be "the most cumbersome way of privatizing public education that I could imagine."
