Some additional context regarding the piece [Public dollars for public schools, Viewpoints, Oct. 18] regarding the Invest in Kids Act (IIKA).
As the local Catholic school principals previously stated [Support IL Tax Credit scholarships, Viewpoints, Oct. 4], the IIKA costs less than 0.2% of the state’s $10 billion K-12 budget. If you include teacher pension payments in that budget amount (and you should), that tiny percentage becomes even tinier. Considering Illinois overpaid unemployment benefits to the tune of $5.2 billion and hardly blinked, this scholarship program is a mere rounding error in the overall budget.
The author claims IIKA cost $56 million in state revenues last year that could have been distributed to Illinois public school districts. How exactly was this $56 million going to be spent more optimally than the $10 billion that preceded it? If there is indeed such a program worthy of this money, we should immediately de-prioritize something else in the K-12 budget and instead fund this game-changing program.
Since its 2018 inception, the author claims, IIKA has “diverted” a total of $250 million tax dollars ($50 million annually) from public schools. If that’s a concern, then why no complaints about the state “diverting” $50 million annually from state education funding to taxpayers via the Property Tax Relief Grant Program under the Evidence Based Funding Formula? If every penny is needed, should we end that program as well?
The author then claims that these “private school scholarships for low-income children can be funded by the same donors” without the state tax credit. While that is true, why offer tax credits for anything? Does the government need to provide tax exemptions and property tax credits for people to have children and purchase homes? Do wealthy eco-conscious car shoppers require EV credits? If incentives are not necessary to induce desired behaviors, then why did the state just offer a half-billion dollars of incentives to a company with questionable ties to the Chinese Communist Party to build an EV plant downstate?
This is not about money. It is about consumption. The corporations fighting this scholarship program (mainly wealthy teacher unions and their allies) will not be satiated until they consume every education dollar and the next one. But the fact remains Illinois taxpayers already spend among the most per pupil on K-12 education in the country. The majority of the country’s school districts would love to have our funding “problem.”
Maybe someday there will be a legitimate reason to end this program.
Until then, let’s keep it going.
Nicholas Binotti
Oak Park