An Idea Worth Studying

Starting next month, millions of California residents will begin receiving tax rebates from the $1.1-billion state surplus that Gov. George Deukmejian insisted should go back to taxpayers rather than to schools, as many people had urged.

That money, however, need not be lost to education entirely. And it won’t be if people respond to the request from the Orange Unified School District. It has asked district residents to donate all or part of their tax refunds to the district so it can put it in a special fund to be used to restore some of the programs, such as music, that had to be dropped because there wasn’t enough money in this year’s budget.

Orange isn’t the only district pushing that approach. Several other school boards in the state, joined by parent-teacher associations and individuals such as Kent Moore, a Corona del Mar teacher who has written letters to newspapers in every county, are urging that the rebates be donated to local school districts.

The surplus was created because of the Gann initiative that limits tax spending on a formula tied to population growth and the inflation rate. That unrealistic and needlessly restrictive limit ought to be abandoned entirely. Short of that, the proposed compromise in a ballot initiative suggested by Bill Honig, the state superintendent of public instruction, that would shift the formula from prices to personal income would be more valid. The earliest residents can act upon that, however, would be next June.

For now, the most immediate way to respond to the Gann limit and tax rebate is the Orange school board’s suggestion to turn over a percentage or all of the refund directly to education.

Supporters of that approach argue that the rebate is not going to be that much anyhow: The refunds will range from $32 to $236. The returned tax money is better spent on necessities, such as helping educate the children in school programs that never should have been dropped.

During the debate over whether to return the surplus funds to taxpayers or give them to the schools, many people urging the rebates, including the governor, noted that taxpayers would be free to turn the money they receive over to the schools, as the Orange Unified School District now suggests. It’s an idea well worth considering.