Republican leadership in the state Assembly said the Democrat controlled state Senate only has 24 hours to avoid a $600 million property tax increase - a tactic Democrats have called a political stunt.""
State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster previously stated that if K-12 funding is not agreed upon in the state budget by Friday, then local governments will need to increase property taxes to make up for the lacking state funds, according to Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, in a press conference.
Huebsch said a tax increase would result if Senate Democrats did not vote on AB506, a K-12 education-funding bill passed recently by the state Assembly.
""It is imperative that the Democratic leadership in the Senate take AB506 to the floor tomorrow to prevent the $600 million property tax increase promised by Superintendent Burmaster,"" Heubsch said.
Huebsch added that Republicans had offered concessions by agreeing to a $1.25 increase tax on cigarettes and approving a level of K-12 funding similar to that of Gov. Jim Doyle in AB506.
Democrats felt the cigarette tax was ""just not enough"" according to Huebsch, and he said this is why he is not optimistic the budget will be finished by tomorrow.
""It is clear that we will not have a budget passed before tomorrow's deadline to fund our schools,"" Huebsch said.
The state Senate will not vote on AB506 tomorrow according to Carrie Lynch, spokesperson for state Sen. Russ Decker, D-Weston, who is a member of the Conference Committee debating the budget.
Local governments need to know more than just school funding to finish their budgets and have sent letters saying that explicitly to Democratic leaders.
""The way to stop property taxes from going up is to pass the entire state budget,"" Lynch said.
According to Lynch, the efforts by the Assembly Republicans are a ""political stunt"" and the state Senate already agreed to fund K-12 by the amounts in AB506 in the Senate version of the budget. Lynch also said any possible property tax increase is not guaranteed or automatic.
""They keep trying to make it sound like on Friday they are going to mail out property tax bills, that's not how it happens,"" she said.
Lynch said zero phone calls or letters had been received from constituents asking to pass AB506.
Patrick Gasper, communications officer for the Department of Public Instruction, said the Friday deadline is real. However, he said there were differences between what the DPI saw as the money needed for Friday and what Assembly Republicans claimed was needed.
Gasper said that if the budget is not approved by Friday, then the DPI would be forced to use last year's funding levels for K-12 schools. Last year's amounts are $79 million less than the amount approved by the Joint Finance Committee, before the budget talks stalled between the Senate and Assembly, according to Gasper.
The $600 million increase in property taxes is what the Assembly believes will happen, not what the DPI says is needed to fund the schools, Gasper said.
""It is certainly not our number.""
