O-SenseLast week news broke of an effort to reduce college tuition in Idaho by raising the cigarette tax by $1.50 a pack. Led by Bill Moran, a Boise-based political consultant, a group known as StopTuitionHikes.com (their website is can be found here) is behind the effort.
The measure is a rather comprehensive package (the ballot language can be viewed here) with the following key provisions:
· A 10% reduction in mandatory fees and tuition for resident undergraduate students in the 2017 academic year.
· An additional 16.7% reduction in the 2017 academic year.
· Future increases in fees and tuition are limited to 3% above the increase in the Consumer Price Index for the preceding year.
· The state board of education and the state board of regents can exceed these restrictions if state revenues for higher education fall.
· An increase in the cigarette tax to $2.07 from the current 57 cents a pack of 20.
· 10% of the revenues are set-aside for community colleges and technical colleges.
The Spokesman-Review’s Betsy Russell in a story last week provided a statistical overview of Idaho’s higher education funding:
According to the state Board of Education, Idaho’s public college tuition and fees rose 80 percent from 2004 to 2013. Meanwhile, the share of the state budget going to colleges and universities has dropped from 13.5 percent in 1994 to 8.6 percent in 2015. Tuition and fees covered 7.2 percent of the cost of an Idaho public college education in 1980; it’s 47 percent today. However, Idaho ranks 13th among 15 western states for its resident university tuition, and is at 81 percent of the average; Washington is No. 1 in that group, at 155 percent of the average.
In the past three fiscal years, excluding one-time funds (money from the following year’s budget), the Legislature has authorized the State Board of Education to set tuition at the following levels for Idaho’s universities, colleges and technical colleges:
|
Year |
Tuition Authorized |
|
Fiscal Year 2014 |
$218,043,700 |
|
Fiscal Year 2015 |
$231,767,200 |
|
Fiscal Year 2016 |
$247,097,600 |
Over that three-year period, the increase in authorized tuition authority has been 13.32%.
In an interview last week, I asked Moran what motivated him to push this issue in Idaho. He noted that there has been considerable discussion among Idahoans about the cost of higher education.
In researching the issue he learned that Idaho has the second highest per capita student debt in the western United States. “A lot of [Idaho] kids simply can’t afford to go to college”, noting Idaho’s fourth-lowest in the nation completion rate for higher education. He claims that when a student drops out “[t]hat means all the money that student has invested is lost. That means all the money the state has invested is lost.”
Moran justified a tax on cigarettes by pointing out that the deleterious impact of smoking on a smoker’s health and lifespan impose social costs that boost state spending, reducing revenues available for Idaho’s higher education system. He also cited a poll taken in late 2010 that showed that 73% of Idahoans supported a $1.50 increase in the cigarette tax. He said, “[t]his is something that Idaho has said already it wants.”
Moran was raised in Arizona, graduated in 2014 from Georgetown University Law School in Washington, D.C., and has been involved in a wide array of political causes in Arizona, including various campaigns for Arizona Democrats at the state and federal level and the recall of controversial Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce in 2011. He recently moved to Boise with his wife to lead this initiative.
The first step in the process is the official submission of the proposed initiative to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office, which the group plans to do on Sept. 8. The Idaho Attorney General then will review the proposed initiative. Next, the signature gathering process will begin. Advocates will have until April 30, 2016, to make the November 2016 ballot by gathering at least 47,623 valid Idaho voter signatures, which is equivalent to 6% of the voters eligible in the 2014 general election. But, according to a 2013 change in the Idaho statute, the 6% signature number must be gathered in at least 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts.
Moran is optimistic that those signatures can be gathered. In an interview last week, he indicated that 130 volunteers were in place to gather signatures statewide. “Momentum is there and the will is there,” he stated. He stressed that the impact of college tuition hikes are felt broadly. “This is a huge issue and needs a real solution.” He noted that student debt impacts the ability of students to buy homes and start businesses. He claims that the initiative will reduce loan repayments by 9 years.
Moran does expect opposition from tobacco users and the cigarette industry.
Initiatives in Idaho have had a rocky history in the past couple decades. The last successful initiatives to receive voter approval were voted on in 2002.
Steve Taggart is an Idaho Falls attorney specializing in bankruptcy (www.MaynesTaggart.com). He has an extensive background in politics and public policy. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
