For Reina and our future, vote for I-1098

By Frieda Takamura

My young friend, Reina, has just completed her second year as a third grade teacher in South Seattle. Reina was a social worker for two years after college, but decided she wanted to work more closely with individual children, so with a hefty loan from the bank, she went back to graduate school to get her masters in teaching with an endorsement in bilingual education. With that specialty in a “hard to fill” position, she quickly got a job and come September, found herself in a class with twenty-two eager students, as racially, ethnically, socially, economically diverse as the South Seattle community from which they came.

It was a tough first year, trying to meet the many needs of her students and families, but it was also a tremendously satisfying year as she saw her students progress academically and as individuals, not to mention the growth she felt as a person and as a teacher. And she had escaped being laid off because of school district budget cuts. Most of the following summer she spent taking professional development classes and preparing for the coming year. Reina was excited to begin her second year. This year, though, her class-size had grown from twenty-two to twenty-eight students.

As the year went on, Reina’s frustration grew. Slashes in state education funding and the school district budget forced the school to reduce or eliminate classroom and student resources. Gone were the full time librarian, the art, music, and physical education specialists, the nurse, and many of the classroom aides. Reina filled the gaps because she knows students need more than the “3-R’s.” At the same time, she faced constant pressure to “raise academic standards and student achievement,” too often measured only in terms of high stakes tests, required without the provision of additional time, resources or support.

By June, Reina was physically and mentally exhausted as once again, she was faced with the possibility that she might not have a job in September because once again, the district was facing a fiscal crisis. Luckily for her students, Reina will return in September for her third year. But for how many more years of uncertainty and lack of resources can an enthusiastic, dedicated, caring teacher like Reina persevere? For how long can she continue to do what she loves and does best?

The passage of Initiative 1098 on November’s ballot will help provide the resources that the thousands of Reina’s in our schools need. By restoring and dedicating funds for education and basic health care, I-1098 will provide the stable revenue needed for the basic infrastructure of a healthy community. It will do this by requiring those who can most readily afford it (couples making more than $400,000 and individuals more than $200,000) to pay their fair share through a modest income tax.

If we truly believe that the “children are our future,” that “it takes a village to raise a child,” and that “public education is an investment for a stronger, prosperous America,” we must vote “YES” for I-1098. We must prove to the Reina’s of our state that we believe in and support them because they are indeed, ensuring that our future generations will be well educated and productive, and that they, in turn, will support us.

(Frieda Takamura is a member of the PSARA Executive Board.)

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360,000 sign I-1098

Initiative 1098, raising a billion dollars for schools and healthcare while lowering taxes for homeowners and small businesses, will find a place on the November ballot.

Supporters rolled up an impressive 360,000 signatures in an intensive six-week campaign. Campaign activists were preparing to deliver the signed petitions to the secretary of state at our deadline.

The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans had set a goal of 1,000 signatures, but topped 4,000, an achievement recognized by campaign leaders as remarkable for an organization of our size.

I-1098 will face lavishly-funded opposition from the Business Roundtable, a collection of wealthy CEOs and venture capitalists who shudder at the thought of equity in our tax system.

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I-1098 cuts taxes for most, funds schools, health care

Initiative 1098, now being actively circulated for signatures, would provide tax cuts for most Washingtonians, create jobs and provide dedicated funding for quality schools and health care. The measure would materially improve the fairness of the state’s notoriously regressive tax system for the first time since food was exempted from the sales tax in 1987.

For homeowners, the initiative would roll back the state’s share of the property tax by 20%. About 375,000 of the state’s smallest businesses would be exempted from the business and occupation tax, enabling many businesses to add workers.

By placing a modest tax on incomes above $200,000 for individuals and above $400,000 for couples – about 3% of households in all -- I-1098 would raise enough new revenue both to provide the tax cuts and to ease the state’s ongoing budget crisis by an estimated $1 billion.

Seventy percent of this net new revenue would be earmarked for education and 30% for health care. The initiative requires regular reporting on how the revenues are spent. Future changes in the income tax could not be approved without a vote of the people.

The initiative is the work of a coalition of respected business, labor and community leaders like Bill Gates Sr., who support a careful, balanced reform of our state’s tax system intended to benefit the middle class and strengthen small business. I-1098 has been endorsed by the Main Street Alliance, an organization of 2,000 of the state’s small businesses, and by the Rebuilding Our Economic Future Coalition. The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans is one of the coalition’s 130 affiliated organizations.

The campaign has set a target of 325,000 signatures by the July 2 filing deadline. The PSARA Executive Board immediately endorsed the measure and launched its own signature-getting campaign. Petition forms have been sent to every member, with a covering letter explaining the urgency of getting the measure on the November 2 ballot.

The measure is essentially the same as Initiative 1070, reported on in the May Retiree Advocate. The number was changed to I-1098 owing to last-minute changes in the wording of its title.