SALT LAKE CITY - State legislators removed language from an education reform bill that would have increased general income taxes to generate more than $90 million for public education reform.

The bill, which still includes provisions for tuition tax credits, passed through the House Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee with an 8-6 vote after more than two hours of debate Wednesday night.

Fourth Substitute Senate Bill 154 now heads to the full House for debate. Bill sponsor Sen. Thomas Hatch, R-Panguitch, said he might consider supporting a one-year delay of implementation of the bill if House members approve it.

House speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, said he opposed the tax increase and proposed raising vehicle registration fees by $10 to raise $26 million for the first year of the bill.

"Fees have to be increased periodically to pay for inflationary adjustments," Stephens said. "We're not going to raise the registration fees to fund public education. The registration fee is to fund this bill."

Gov. Mike Leavitt said while he supports many of the education reforms in the bill, he opposes the concept of raising fees to pay for tuition tax credits.

"I'm willing to do it if we are talking about putting that to roads, and then taking the money that we're currently diverting out of education back into education. That makes some sense to me," Leavitt said. "But if we would be doing it simply to take public dollars and send them to private schools, I have a problem with that. I don't feel comfortable raising taxes, in essence, to be able to send public tax dollars to private schools when 97 percent of our children are in public schools."

Leavitt said he has proposed a budget that would delay some highway construction to pay for education reform.

"I know there are a lot of legislators that don't feel good about my ideas with that," Leavitt said. "I've put a budget forward that would put education first and not allow prisoners to go free to balance the budget."
Copyright Brigham Young University 27 Feb 2003