Support Our Schools Nebraska had set a goal of collecting 90,000 signatures from registered voters in the state. That is about 30,000 more than the roughly 60,000 valid signatures the Secretary of State’s Office has said are needed.
A Support Our Schools spokeswoman, Karen Kilgarin, declined to say how many signatures the group had gathered as of late Thursday. She said the group is meeting its signature-gathering targets and plans to collect its last signatures Aug. 28 and turn them in Aug. 30, which is the deadline.
Final push
Petition sponsors Jenni Benson, Tim Royers and Paul Schulte of the Nebraska State Education Association said Support Our Schools is making a final push over the next 12 days to ensure voters get a say on the tax credit in Legislative Bill 753.
“We have met our initial benchmarks for signature collection by a significant margin,” Benson said. “We are especially pleased to report that we have signatures from (registered) voters in every one of Nebraska’s 93 counties.”
The largely union-funded group of public school backers again criticized a key funder of a group backing the school-choice legislation, the American Federation for Children, former Trump-era Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
The Nebraska chapter of the American Federation for Children has provided much of the funding that supports Keep Kids First, a group fighting the petition drive. Keep Kids First has criticized Support Our Schools for its state and national union funding.
DeVos, a top supporter of charter schools and school choice nationally, visited Nebraska on Aug. 10 for a Keep Kids First fundraiser at the Happy Hollow Club attended by Gov. Jim Pillen and U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, among others.
Fight over who will benefit
Support Our Schools has argued that the wealthy will benefit most from the tax break and cull money from the public treasury that might one day be needed for public schools. Defenders of the law have questioned why this tax break, and not others, has been singled out as a threat to public school funding.
Earlier this week in Omaha, Keep Kids First called on the petition circulators to stop fighting the tax credit and let families in poverty and families of color access more opportunities to attend the school of their choice, public or private.
State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha, who sponsored the tax credit legislation, said it is “no surprise” Support Our Schools would try to “turn the page” from this week’s comments by some students and parents of color about the need for more private school scholarships.
She said union money and “Susie Buffett-funded special interest groups” such as OpenSky Policy Institute have misled Nebraskans about what the school-choice tax credit does. She repeated a common criticism by advocates and opponents of the petition — that the other side is lying.
“The teachers union and their allies will say and do anything to collect signatures,” the senator said.
Royers, like Linehan, criticized the behavior of the other side.
Under the new dollar-for-dollar tax credit for the Opportunity Scholarships, the tax break is capped at $25 million a year for three years and could rise by the tenth year to $100 million, or about 10% of what the state spends today on state aid to public schools.
Until those caps are met, individuals and corporations who donate to the program can earn tax credits of up to $100,000, and estates and trusts can receive credits of up to $1 million.
Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.
Download our apps today for all of our latest coverage.
Get the latest news and weather delivered straight to your inbox.
