STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT raising taxes on millionaires to generate $1.9 billion for education and transportation would hurt the economy and damage the state’s ability to support school services, Education Secretary James Peyser said Thursday.
“Definitely not,” Peyser said following an event at the Omni-Parker House Hotel, which featured state education officials and educators. “I think it will weaken our economy and that will damage our ability as a Commonwealth to support the schools and the other services that we desperately need.”
Peyser said he recognizes that there are people who think additional revenue is needed to help schools, but disagreed that higher taxes are necessary to improve schools.
“I don’t think the issues that we face as a Commonwealth here are really about the fact that we don’t have enough revenue. It’s about how we’re using our revenues wisely and well,” he said.
Gov. Charlie Baker, who opposed new or higher taxes while campaigning but refused to sign a no-new-taxes pledge, has twice passed on opportunities to declare his opposition to the tax amendment.
Peyser noted the Baker administration increased aid to the K-12 school system in last year’s budget and said those types of investments will continue.
“I think the administration is clearly focused on trying to make sure that we’re being as fiscally responsible as possible, trying to make some tough choices, which I think we need to make in order to really get value out of the dollars that we have,” he said.
A proposed constitutional amendment (H 3933) would establish a 4 percent surtax on income in excess of $1 million, raising the tax rate for those earnings to about 9 percent, and is designed to dedicate the additional revenue to education and transportation initiatives.
Mary-Ann Stewart, parent representative on the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, supported the amendment last week, when it was heard by the Legislature’s Revenue Committee.
“Our schools lack the funding they need to give all students a complete, quality education that includes music, art, and athletics. When they graduate, students are forced to take on enormous debt to receive a degree from our public colleges and universities,” Steward said in a statement. “We need to reinvest in quality public education so that all students have access to the well-rounded education and affordable college they need to succeed.”
Asked his position on the amendment, Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester said he doesn’t have an opinion and is “not sufficiently up to speed” on the measure, which has grabbed headlines since tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents have signed on to the effort.
Chester said he’s more worried about the impact of another ballot question that would repeal Common Core education standards, which he said would “essentially pull the rug out” from underneath teachers who have developed their curriculum and cost districts more money.
The constitutional amendment needs 50 votes of support this year and again in the 2017-2018 session to advance to the ballot in 2018.
Michael Norton contributed to this story.
” ‘essentially pull the rug out’ from underneath teachers who have developed their curriculum and cost districts more money…”
Well, it certainly has cost the districts more money. As has buying computers, ChromeBooks, tablets and adding wi-fi and network infrastructure so as to administer and then pay for the PARCC tests and to re-tool the MCAS as 2.0.
Pull the rug out from underneath teachers? Teachers are pretty nimble at continuing to teach their classes regardless of what DESE decides.
Or a better title: “Peyser doesn’t think an amendment to raise Peyser’s taxes is a good idea because… how can you sell off a well funded school system to his for profit private school systems friends”.
Commonwealth would do well to note that Secretary Peyser was a voting member of the Foundation Budget Review Commission, whose report was issued (I believe) unanimously. It found that there are significant gaps in revenue, not wisdom, in state education spending. Did the Secretary not intend to vote in favor of this report?
The photo above is not from Tuesday’s Board of Ed meeting. There was no meeting of the Board of Ed last Tuesday.
Just do it and watch what happens. “Wealthy” people have options, perhaps not short term, but certainly in the long term. NY and NJ have so called “millionaires” taxes and confiscatory estate taxes. When these states raised these taxes, the “wealthy” reacted accordingly and started moving to states like Florida which has neither an estate tax or a state income tax. Net result was that tax revenues from so called millionaires actually dropped. Millionaires is also a misnomer – tax was on income over $500,000. Also understand that the millionaire does not have to actually move – s/he just has to demonstrate (if asked) that s/he was in the state for less than 6 months. The net drain from NY/NJ tax receipts was in the BILLIONS, and is one of the reasons that Florida just passed NY in population — FL is now the third largest state in the union.