A bill aiming to offer tax credits to help fund private K-12 education was killed on the Senate floor.
It comes amid both a budget crunch and a legislative push to utilize public dollars for private schooling.
If passed, the bill would have used as much as 80 percent of participants property tax otherwise dedicated to local public schools as a rebate to families enrolling in private K-12 education.
It was brought by Piedmont Republican Sen. John Carley. He said while like a voucher program in essence, it’s a distinct proposal.
“We saw earlier this year some bills that were handing out the term voucher or checks – passing that out – this bill doesn’t do that, this does it through property tax credits," Carley said. "Let me give a perfect example, if someone wants to send their child to a nonpublic school, they’d pay the tuition. They’d write a check themselves and pay the tuition. They turn that receipt in and later that year, and later that year they’d receive their property tax bill and let’s say it was $1,000 that they paid. $1,000 would be reduced on their property tax.”
That total would cap at $6,000 dollars each year under the current school funding formula.
However, the bill faced strong opposition among Democrats and even within Carley’s own party. Canton Republican Sen. Kevin Jensen said the bill isn’t as simple as the prime sponsor suggests
“Believe me, I’m all for finding a solution for the problems of property tax and finding alternate education," Jensen said. "I’m all for that. I appreciate the prime sponsor for bringing this, but to me it’s way too cumbersome, and I just don’t know how people would do it.”
That was echoed by Scotland Republican Sen. Kyle Schoenfish, who said this is an even more expensive alternative to prior proposals.
“Just for comparison purposes, the House rejected alternative education funding of around $4 million in state funds, but this bill could be over $100 million in property tax funds the schools will not receive," Schoenfish said. "I ask you to vote no.”
The bill was killed on a vote of 11 to 24.
