PHX Reporter

Activists pushing the Invest in Education Act are doing all they can in hopes of getting the measure past the finish line this time around.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports that includes considering a sax tales hike the group has long rejected as “regressive and detrimental to the poor.”

Currently, the group is said to be weighing a hybrid of income and sales tax increases that could generate in the neighborhood of $1.1 billion on an annual basis. Roughly half of that windfall, or $500 million, would come from raising the state sales tax by four-tenths of a penny or increasing the tax dedicated to education to a full cent.

In 2018, a similar proposal generated more than enough signatures needed to be formally put before voters but failed to overcome a legal challenge to a proposal that would have allowed increases to the state income tax on the richest state residents for the purposes of funding education. 

“A hybrid model is definitely an option, but the ink is not dry on any of this, so it could look like a few different things before it’s over,” Arizona Education Association President Joe Thomas told the Arizona Capital. 

Thomas added he thinks the measure has a much better shot of succeeding this time. 

“We’re going to see if the Legislature will do what they should do, what they’re constitutionally bound to do, but the voters’ appetite is they’re fine with a billion dollars. This will be on the ballot, one way or another.”

Earlier this year, legislators sponsored an education funding bill that was projected to bring in $500 million by increasing the Proposition 301 sales tax to a full penny. The proposal also included a provision for low earners to receive a tax credit, but neither advanced far, with some critics arguing that it didn’t provide enough funding to make up for the regressive nature of a tax increase that harms the state’s poor.

Enacted in 2000, Proposition 301 sets asides around $667 million a year from state sales tax to fund K-12 schools, universities, community colleges and others. Lawmakers recently extended the tax until the year 2041.