Nebraska’s prime election official confirmed Tuesday that state voters will resolve subsequent yr whether or not public cash can go to non-public faculty tuition.
A petition effort to get the query on the November 2024 poll far exceeded the variety of legitimate signatures wanted to place the controversial query earlier than voters, the Nebraska Secretary of State’s workplace mentioned in a written assertion.
The hassle seeks to repeal a measure handed by the Nebraska Legislature earlier this yr permitting hundreds of thousands in state revenue tax to be diverted to organizations that grant non-public faculty tuition scholarships. That passage arrange a battle between highly effective training unions and heavily-funded conservative teams attempting to make their mark on faculty insurance policies following COVID-19 lockdowns and ongoing fights over transgender insurance policies.
In August, the Assist Our Colleges referendum petition effort turned in 117,000 signatures to the Nebraska Secretary of State, almost double the greater than 61,000 legitimate signatures wanted to make the poll. On Tuesday, Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen introduced that election officers validated almost 92,000 of these collected signatures.
“The overwhelming success of this petition sends a transparent message to the governor and state lawmakers: Nebraskans wish to vote on the problem of diverting public tax {dollars} to pay for personal colleges,” petition effort sponsor Jenni Benson mentioned.
The brand new faculty funding regulation doesn’t applicable taxpayer {dollars} immediately towards non-public faculty vouchers. As a substitute, it permits companies, people, estates and trusts to donate a portion of their owed state revenue tax.
Companies and people could be allowed to donate as much as $100,000 per yr, whereas estates and trusts might supply as much as $1 million a yr. The invoice would allocate $25 million a yr over the primary two years beginning in 2024, and as much as $100 million yearly thereafter to cowl such donations. That dollar-for-dollar tax credit score is cash that will in any other case go into the state’s common income fund.
Supporters of the scholarship program say it helps underprivileged college students who’ve few different decisions after they discover themselves in an underperforming or poisonous public faculty atmosphere. They deny opponents’ assertions that it’s going to harm funding to public colleges, noting that lawmakers additionally handed a invoice this yr that can pump greater than $1 billion — largely from federal pandemic restoration {dollars} — into public training.
Public faculty advocates counter that the act sends taxpayer {dollars} to non-public colleges which are allowed underneath non secular tenets to discriminate towards LGBTQ+ college students.
“This was a decisive victory and step one to make sure public funds are used to help public colleges, not non-public colleges,” mentioned Benson, who can be president of the Nebraska State Schooling Affiliation, the state’s largest lecturers union. “Nebraskans can’t afford to pay for 2 faculty techniques.”
Supporters of the non-public faculty funding plan, together with the state’s highly effective Roman Catholic lobbying group, have launched their very own effort — known as Preserve Children First Nebraska — to counter the petition drive and made an aggressive push to attempt to persuade individuals to not signal the petitions.
“The lecturers union was prepared to say and do something to take instructional freedom away from Nebraska households, so it’s no shock they gathered sufficient petition signatures to qualify for the poll,” Preserve Children First mentioned Tuesday in a written assertion.
Evnen’s workplace mentioned Nebraska Legal professional Normal Mike Hilgers will draft the poll language for the measure within the coming days. Within the weeks forward of the 2024 election, state election workers will schedule three public hearings concerning the measure and create informational pamphlets that can be out there to voters at county election workplaces, the Secretary of State’s workplace mentioned.
