In what has become an annual custom, Mark Brainard, grand poobah of Delaware Technical and Community College, is asking the General Assembly for a new statewide property tax to raise money for upkeep of its facilities. And a lot of lawmakers seem ready to give it to him.
Senate Bill 50, sponsored by frequently-used tool Sen. Harris McDowell, has a worrisome number of co-sponsors, from both parties. Their concern for the school’s physical plants might be laudable, but they are being buffaloed into supporting a good idea for a bad cause.
Republicans greeted the proposal like news of an Ebola outbreak. Sen. Colin Bonini reliably attacked, predicting the rate would increase faster than inflation in Venezuela. CRI raised the specter of wingnut welfare rating systems frowning on such a move.
So when Gov. Carney, proving he lacks the sense God promised a beagle, visited the Crossroads Restaurant with three Republican lawmakers Tuesday, of course somebody wanted to know his position on it. It wasn’t lunchtime yet, but word salad was served. Per WDEL’s Mark Fowser:
“The concern I have is it’s competition with the local school district’s tax base,” Carney said. “Notwithstanding the fact that we have very low property taxes – among the lowest in the country – it’s always difficult to get a property tax increase for local education expenses.”
Okay, so he’s not a word guy. I’ll try to guess what he means.
Carney is incorrect to say it’s “competition” with the local school districts. This tax would be applied countywide in each county; school taxes are applied district by district, in a couple of cases crossing county lines. What I think he means is that we’d be dipping into the same well as K-12 schools, which would be at a disadvantage because they must pass public referendums, while this law would allow DelTech to raise tax rates at its own discretion, as Vo-Tech districts already do.
Carney is right about Delaware’s property taxes — residents in only a handful of states pay lower property taxes than Delawareans. And he’s right about the difficulty of passing local referendums to pay the district portion of education expenses. So why don’t we kill two birds with this stone and adopt a statewide property tax dedicated to paying for education funds for low-income students?
That’s a rhetorical question, really, because public support for new taxes scores only slightly higher than Ebola, making this a high hurdle even in a non-election year. Brainard’s sob stories about leaking roofs and cracked sidewalks don’t tell me anything other than DelTech must be poorly managed indeed if nobody planned for predictable maintenance needs all these years.
I have no idea if this idea finally will go somewhere. Hearings are next week, and I’m sure El Som will fill you in on the political outlook. I can only tell you it’s a viable solution, but not for the problem it was designed to address. As GOP Rep. Mike Smith says on the WDEL tape at the link, there are other ways to get the money to fix roofs. Finding the money to fix K-12 education is more important.