Legislator should explain vote

On Monday, March 13th, the PA House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to expand the wildly popular Education Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) programs.

To understand why these programs are so popular, consider a typical example of how these programs work: With preapproval from the state, a local, small business makes a $2,000.00 donation to a qualifying education entity such as a Catholic school that charges annual tuition in the range of $5,000.00 per year. That school, in-turn offers a scholarship to the child of a family who could not otherwise afford the tuition. With that assistance, the family comes up with the other $3,000.00 and moves their child from a traditional public school that costs tax-payers about $15,000.00 per student per year to that Catholic school which the family prefers for whatever reason. The state gives the business a tax credit between $1,500.00 and $1,800.00.

Think about what happened here. The state spent somewhere between $1500.00 and $1800.00 to draw another $5,000.00 of private money into the total education funding pool. That’s called leveraging. A family that could otherwise not afford the same school choice that is available to wealthy families now has school choice. The child wins. The family wins. The Catholic school wins because it gets another paying customer to help keep it stable – benefitting the other families in the school. Even the traditional public school wins because it has one less child to educate, but did not lose a single penny in the deal. Tax-payers win because a child moved from a more expensive form of education to one that is less expensive and the remaining public dollars are spread over fewer students. The business owner sleeps better at night, knowing that he or she gave something back to their community. (Yes, the business got a tax credit, but for less than it donated.)

The legislature votes to expand these programs every two years because they are usually “sold out”. Businesses apply for more credits than are available. While the OSTC program is used solely for scholarships for students, the EITC program can also benefit traditional public schools. For example, a business could donate funds to buy equipment for a school’s science lab. Even hard-core, free-market conservatives who oppose tax credits in any form can support a tax credit program like this that actually draws more money into education from the private sector and, for folks at the other end of the spectrum, what better way could there be to help poor children than provide them with a way out of a chronically failing public school (hope)?

Knowing this, how could any legislator in their right mind vote against this? In my opinion, they could not. Yet, that’s exactly what Mayor / State Representative Carolyn Comitta did on March 13th. Barring any other explanation, we can only assume that she caved into pressure from the public-sector labor unions that funded her last campaign. Despite its wealth, the 156th district is home to many children who can and have benefitted from these programs. It is also home to students who attend one of four Catholic schools located within or just outside its borders as well as many other education entities that can and do benefit from these programs. Does Carolyn believe that only wealthy children should have school choice? Is she putting the interests of the teacher’s union ahead of the interests of the poorest children in her district? Maybe she was too busy serving in two elected positions to do her homework and learn how this program works? She really needs to explain this vote to her constituents. Dan Truitt East Goshen