Truth And Falsehoods

The Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA) is doing some pretty lousy work in its efforts to scare people into opposing Senate Bill 509. The MSBA’s “fact sheet” highlighting the harms the tax cut would supposedly do to the state’s foundation formula and individual Missouri school districts is chock-full of errors and mistakes.

First, the “fact sheet” uses the Governor’s Executive Budget recommendation in the analysis of the potential cost impact of SB 509. This is a mistake because the governor’s recommendations are just that, recommendations. The figure used is not the actual appropriation amount for the upcoming year. That has yet to be finalized.

Let’s just grant, for the sake of argument,  that SB 509 will reduce foundation formula funding to $3.13 billion next year. If you look at this year’s budget, you will notice that funding for the foundation formula is actually $3.08 billion. So even if the MSBA’s numbers are correct, the foundation formula will be getting more money next year.

However, this whole exercise is pointless because the first year that the tax cut would go into effect is 2017. Fiscal year 2015 ends in June 2015. This means there won’t even be a tax cut for two-and-a-half years. No revenue will be lost next year (or even the year after that) because of it.

I welcome healthy debate concerning major public policy issues, but people shouldn’t be scared with false facts, and that is what the “fact sheet” from the MSBA is: scare mongering filled with plainly false information.