A week after action was deferred, House Bill 1205’s fate was decided in House Taxation.

 

The committee chose to kill the bill, which called for the creation of the school district tax revenue fund to equalize dollars from revenue collected by school districts from the bank franchise tax, wind energy tax, and gross receipts from telephone companies and electric co-ops, on a 9-5 vote.

 

ASBSD opposed the bill. In November, member districts voted unanimously to support the Association’s resolution C6 Other Revenue, which supported the notion of keeping other revenue in its current state prescribed by statute.

 

“Your school districts don’t want this,” ASBSD Lobbyist Dick Tieszen testified on Thursday.

 

HB 1205 stated that any dollars collected from the taxes (listed in paragraph two) that exceed the amount received by districts in 2014 would be deposited into the school district tax revenue fund. That stipulation would remain in effect until 2025, amended last week by the committee from the original date of 2020, after that all revenue collected from the four taxes would be deposited into the fund.

 

Rep. Dan Dryden, the bill’s sponsor, acknowledged last week that he knew ASBSD would be in a “tough predicament” when it came to the bill, but reiterated the idea is to fund education statewide.

 

“It’s a philosophical question about how we fund education,” Rep. Dryden said. “This will bring some change.”

 

The idea to change to didn’t sit well with some committee members.

 

“When the schools, the one’s directly…affected say don’t pass it, I have to yield to them,” Rep. Marc Feinstein said.

 

For updates from legislative session, check the ASBSD Blog and Bill Tracker page.