People should have voices heard

Dear Editor,

There is no doubt that state funding for public schools was increased on many fronts during the most recent legislative session as the Legislature aimed to ease property-tax burdens.

There is also no doubt that federal COVID-19 funds helped pay for that.

The 2023 Legislature’s generous spending on K-12 education can’t be questioned. What can be questioned is whether it is sustainable in a constantly changing economic climate.

And the Legislature’s increase in education spending this year should not be used to justify LB 753, the state’s “opportunity scholarship” law.

I have never been a teacher. I am opposed to LB 753 because I’m a taxpayer.

So I don’t think money ($25 million a year for the first three years; possibly up to $100 million a year after that) should be siphoned out of the state’s general fund to benefit wealthy people, corporations, estates, and other entities.

Middle- and low-income taxpayers generally don’t have the money to make big donations to “scholarship-granting organizations” such as those that are part of LB 753. So they wouldn’t stand to gain as much from the dollar-for-dollar tax credits in the law, which are far more generous than the tax deductions offered for most charitable giving.

That money would come from the general fund, which is used for a wide range of state government functions and agencies, including public schools but also including the State Patrol, the Department of Corrections, economic development, Game and Parks, and so on.

It’s too early to definitively say that the tax-credit money would come directly from public schools, but it is to be taken from a pool of money that public schools have drawn on for decades. And with the top-bracket income tax rate being lowered this year, the size of that pool in coming years is not guaranteed.

Also, as a taxpayer, it’s no big thrill to me that the money might come from public safety instead of the public schools. It’s going to come from somewhere that taxpayers shell out for in good faith.

If someone can prove that low-income parents all of a sudden need $25 million a year in state assistance to get their kids out of tax-funded schools and that LB 753 is not just a way to tap into the public till – not just say it, but prove it – I’d be all ears.

Omaha, home of four Fortune 500 companies, has a robust philanthropic community. One group, Heritage Omaha, has created $1.5 billion in civic projects.

I believe that if the demand for private-school scholarships is too high for those schools and their current donors to meet, groups like Heritage have more money to spare than Nebraska taxpayers. (These Fortune 500 companies generally don’t locate in states with unfriendly tax laws in the first place.)

The state constitution bans using public money for private schools because education for all is a public good.

That ban shouldn’t be sidestepped through LB 753. People should have a chance to look at this law on their own and have their voices heard at the ballot box.

That is the goal of the petition drive.

Note to readers: If you have made it this far, thanks for putting up with yet another screed from someone who hasn’t lived in McCook since 1976. I was no great student or model citizen when I did live there, but age makes one come to appreciate the impact teachers had, or tried to have, on one’s life. Both in private and public schools.

Frank Hassler,

Omaha, Neb., MHS Class of 1975