School-tax check box a ‘fiction’ that needs to go: Janz

The check box on property tax forms that gives owners the choice to direct their education taxes to the public or Catholic system is a misleading “fiction” that needs to end, the Edmonton Public school board chairman says.

“I have yet to hear of an argument beyond sentimentality that justifies the existence of this hangnail. It needs to be trimmed,” said Michael Janz, who steps down as chairman next Tuesday. He will remain a trustee.

It doesn’t matter which box you check, Janz said — education dollars collected by municipalities are pooled by the province and distributed to public and Catholic schools based on how many students are enrolled.

He has put a motion before the Edmonton public school board to lobby the province to do away with the check box, which he said is an anachronism that confuses voters.

Education Minister David Eggen said the Constitution and Alberta Act compel the government to ask about the religion of property owners where a separate school board exists. Catholics who live in a Catholic school district must pay their education property taxes to that school board.

Just 32 per cent of Alberta’s education costs are funded by property taxes, with the rest coming from the province’s general revenues. The model has been in place since 1994, when the Progressive Conservative government took away school boards’ rights to set their local tax rate. It was supposed to make education funding more equitable across the province.

Janz said the illusion of choice leaves voters with a misconception that more people directing taxes to the public school board would buy more teachers and smaller class sizes. Taxpayers ask why the school board won’t build a new public school in a new suburb if most of their neighbours ticked the “public” box, he said.

Governments have a vested interest in keeping the boxes because it deflects blame away from the government’s decisions about how to allocate education dollars, Janz said.

The data isn’t used to determine who is eligible to vote or run as a candidate in public or Catholic school board elections, which prompts some confusion. Renters are also excluded from making a designation, which makes a count of taxpayers useless in predicting enrolment, he said. “This whole system is bonkers,” he said.

Cities, towns and other municipalities are responsible for collecting education property taxes on behalf of school boards. It’s a role many municipalities want to rid themselves of, said Morinville Mayor Lisa Holmes, president of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association.

Not only do cities absorb the cost of administering the tax, it prevents councils from raising municipal taxes for urban improvements if they know an education property tax increase is on the same bill.

If a property owner doesn’t pay, the municipality is still on the hook to forward money to the education ministry, she said.

Edmonton Public school trustees will discuss Janz’s motion next week.