“Thank You, Senator Bee, For Cutting My Education Off at the Knees”

by David Safier

(TASL) Many pixels have been spent discussing whether the “Thank you, Senator Bee” ad was an illegal use of school district funds to influence the outcome of an election. (The right answer, by the way, is Yes, it was an illegal use of funds.) Meanwhile, Tim Bee, friend of education, has been working hard to cripple funding for education.

This is the guy school districts are spending money to praise?

Bee is one of the prime movers behind what the Citizen refers to as an “absurd repeal of property tax,” which passed the House today and is headed to the Gov’s desk for what I hope is another use of her invaluable Veto Pen.

This is a property tax that was suspended in 2006, when the state was a bit more flush, until the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Clearly, we’re not flush now. Without those tax dollars, we’re going to be in even worse shape than is currently projected, but the legislature voted to repeal it outright.

The biggest winners are businesses — no surprise, since Republicans are the force behind the repeal — and the biggest losers are our school-aged children. (Other agencies are affected too, but I’m blogging about education, so I’m keeping my sights on school funding.)

So why are school districts getting together to sing the praises of Bee, who did one nice thing for the schools by pushing to extend Career Ladders to all school districts? Funding Career Ladders takes money, but Bee’ repeal vote says, “Sorry, we’re cutting off one of schools’ funding sources.”

School districts, School board associations and Teachers’ unions all spoke out against the property tax repeal, but Bee voted for it. So remind me, why was tax money for schools spent to give Bee a big, sloppy, public Thank You kiss?

Oh, and remember Tom Boone (R-Peoria) who was slated to get his very own Thank You ad before the campaign was canceled? He voted for the repeal as well. Paula Aboud (D-Tucson), who got a little Thank You mailer, voted against the repeal, the only one of the three supporting adequate school funding.