Posted on 08/04/2005 3:49:48 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - The state's largest teachers union has dropped an initiative that would have poured billions of dollars into schools by raising property taxes on businesses, union officials said Thursday.
Instead, the California Teachers Association will work with the opponents of the "Tax Fairness Act" to craft long-term solutions to school funding in the state, CTA president Barbara Kerr said.
The CTA had gathered enough signatures - more than 900,000 - to qualify the initiative for the June 2006 ballot, Kerr said. It would have exempted California commercial and business properties from Proposition 13's rule that property value, upon which taxes are based, is only assessed at the time of sale.
Taxing commercial property at its current value would have raised billions in 2006, and could have raised more than $3.5 billion annually to be split among schools, local transportation projects, public safety and other programs specified in the CTA's measure, Kerr said.
Business groups, such as the California Manufacturing and Technology Association and the California Business Properties Association, opposed the measure.
The CTA's initiative "would have severely damaged businesses from every corner of the state, cost jobs and threatened our economic recovery," said Rex Hime, the CBPA's president. "A cooperative, collaborative effort is the right way to pursue long-term solutions for public education."
The new coalition of teachers and business interests also includes the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and the Association of California School Administrators.
The group will first study what it costs to provide a child with a quality education and will then focus on four areas - making sure there's enough money to fully fund schools and that it is shared equitably; investing in quality teachers; helping low-performing schools; and ensuring that schools are accountable in how they spend state funds.
Any strategies that emerge from the talks would then be taken to lawmakers, Kerr said.
The two unions and the business groups are traditional rivals and are on opposite sides in the fight over Proposition 75, the measure on the Nov. 8 special election ballot that would require public employee unions to get written permission from their members before their dues could be used for campaign donations.
That rivalry will be put aside in talks on education reforms, Hime said.
"When you talk about education," he said, "it doesn't have the same kind of boundaries that other political issues have."
Even the sacred cows of each faction - tax hikes for the business associations and Proposition 98's school spending minimum for teachers - aren't off limits in the talks, Hime and Kerr said.
I'd like to start a bid to tax teacher's salaries to fund businesses! Especially businesses like independent schools!
it's not about education, it's about lining their pockets.
MORE EDUCATION FOR THE MONEY
Problem solved.
Why should the California education system GET ANY MORE MONEY? They should be fired, not given a raise. Just more liberal madness that runs California...
Gee, does that mean regular outside audits...?
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