An alternative to vouchers in the works?
Leading private school tuition-voucher group Parents for Choice in Education, along with the nonprofit Children First Utah, is working to get the word out about other states that give businesses income-tax credits for donating to private school scholarship groups, executive director Elisa Clements said.
Children First Utah, believed to be the only such private school scholarship group in Utah, was asked to present at Wednesday's Education Interim Committee. The presentation included mention of Pennsylvania's and Florida's income-tax credits for businesses donating to scholarship-granting organizations.
"Make no mistake: no vouchers this year," Clements said of the 2008 legislative session, which starts in January. "But everyone has said we are open to looking at meaningful education reforms. Our job this year is to promote education reforms ... whatever those reforms might be."
Children First Utah was not on the committee's agenda. State law requires agendas to list each topic for discussion.
Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, called the item "background information for the committee" that was not discussed and therefore in line with the law.
Children First Utah this year gave 368 low-income children up to $1,800 — or half their tuition cost — to attend private school, executive director Leah Barker told lawmakers. About 2,000 applied. Scholarships are awarded by lottery.
"We feel like we're serving a tremendous population," Barker said.
The group has used $2 million in private donations to provide more than 1,800 scholarships to date, Barker said. She hopes the attention to vouchers might inspire more donations.
There are other incentives, Clements said.
"They can only do so much (fund raising)," she said. "Having a solution that's more permanent ... where a corporation could give some of their tax liability, that's an added incentive to fund a nonprofit like Children First Utah."
Pennsylvania and Florida offer a corporate tax credit worth up to 75 cents on the donated dollar, Clements reports. Pennsylvania caps the credit at $200,000 per corporation and $54 million overall. Florida's program doesn't cap the tax credit for businesses, but they can't give more than $5 million to a single nonprofit. The statewide program ceiling is $88 million.
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