One can only feel sadness and regret over Governor Brad Little’s decision to support a bill that will provide taxpayer support to private and religious schools. By doing so, Little will be the first governor in the 134-year history of Idaho to openly and knowingly violate the Idaho Constitution.
The founders of our state were very clear when in two sections of Article IX of the Constitution they banned the use of taxpayer dollars to fund religious schools. By endorsing a tax credit that will provide $50 million to those who take it, the governor might argue that he isn’t spending taxpayer funds because the monies never hit the general fund.
But that would just be a wink and a nod to the Constitution because he has been in government a long time and knows that a tax credit diverts money from the state’s general fund. After it’s diverted, it can’t be used to support public education, which is already underfunded, even if Little’s promised investment of $150 million is approved this session.
Little is following the script of other Republican governors who have bowed to the out-of-state billionaires and their front organizations that are foisting these misbegotten policies on the citizens of their states. He is promising that he won’t let any voucher-style law hurt funding for public schools.
He also told lawmakers that he wants accountability built into the program. Unfortunately, in every voucher state there is little or no accountability and, in some cases, even the weakest sideboards are eliminated over time.
The same playbook has been used in other states, including neighboring Utah. When Governor Cox signed the first-ever taxpayer-supported voucher bill two years ago he asked for an increase in school funding and the privatization program capped at $43 million. But in the second year the voucher lobbyists wanted it increased to $150 million.
It is understandable from a political point of view that Little is planning to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Idaho Constitution. Over the last two election cycles many of the governor’s strongest allies in the Legislature have been defeated because they have courageously rebuffed the out-of-state moneybags that want our taxpayers to support private and religious schools. (Interestingly enough, they haven’t volunteered to help pay for it.)
But the electoral carnage could have been avoided if four years ago Little had told the out-of-state billionaires to go packing. He could have told them that on his watch he would never betray public education or the taxpayers of Idaho who would pay the price. Some exceptionally good people would still be in the Legislature. Now he is stuck with the extremists who don’t even support his programs like Idaho Launch.
That was demonstrated over the weekend when Little held his annual fundraising dinner, while GOP Chair Dorothy Moon and the far-right of the party held their own event across town. No matter what Little does he has lost his party to Moon and Attorney General Raúl Labrador and the far right. Maybe moving farther right will take some of the pressure off him, but he is already seen as not one of their club members. He is just disappointing the people who have stood with him the last few years.
The bottom line is you cannot compromise with the out-of-state billionaires and their front organizations that want vouchers. Two years ago, Chris Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Rural and Small Schools Association, told Idaho’s legislators that after the first voucher-style bill is approved the lobbying and pressure to expand it to a universal program with no income limit on families that receive the subsidies will only grow more intense.
Lagoni knows what he is talking about. The Indiana program started out in 2011 serving 4,000 students, mainly low-income students. Now the program serves 70,095 students at a cost of $439 million up from $311 million in 2022, a 40 percent increase in one year.
Moreover, two thirds of the students now subsidized by vouchers have never attended a public school, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle. And the number of families that receive subsidies and earn more than $200,000 a year has grown from 354 in 2021 to 3,700 in 20022.
Indiana’s experience is the history of vouchers in every state. Start out small and build over time until the money goes to wealthy families who have never sent their kids to public schools.
We all consider Idaho a special place to live and work, but we are not special enough to swim upstream against the out-of-state billionaires who have an army of lobbyists and have bank accounts as large as Fort Knox.
Next year, or the year after that, or the year after that we will get a universal education savings account passed in Idaho. It may not be on Little’s watch, so he might be able to avoid the carnage and leave it up to another governor to clean up the mess. That is what’s happened in Arizona which faces a $1 billion budget deficit and has cut funding for education, water projects, and roads to balance the budget.
Former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, who spoke at the Mountain States Policy Center forum at the statehouse this week, praised the Arizona program which was estimated to cost $33 million the first year and $65 million the second year. But this year Arizona budget analysts told Idaho Ed News that it will cost an estimated $822 million.
And 69% of the students who received subsidies last September had never attended a public school, Idaho Ed News reported, meaning their parents already had enough financial resources to pay the tuition.
What is most sad about what Little is doing is that he was on his way to being one of the greatest – if not the greatest – public-school governors in Idaho history. He was justifiably proud of his record over the last seven years.
Unfortunately, history will now record that he was the governor who opened the door to voucher-style programs that will eventually divert funding for public schools and other important programs, including Little’s cherished Launch program, and cost Idaho taxpayers millions of dollars.
