The Voucher Tax!!! David Hazen, chief financial officer for Racine District: “It’s a tax, and we might as well admit it."

Republicans voted for a tax increase, just to pay for Voucher Tax!!! That’s how much they hate public schools. Where's Grove Norquist when you need him?

Read the section below! This is the best explanation of vouchers, and the impact on taxes and schools, I’ve come across in my coverage of this whole privatization effort.

Republican voters are okay with paying more of their hard earned money in a “voucher tax.” If I’m not mistaken, that would be called a tax increase, wouldn’t it?

It’s about ideology, not about taxes. It’s about “big government,” and “big public schools.” Never mind every other industrial nation has a national system of education. We’ve got American Exceptionalism build into our DNA.

Scott Walker expanded vouchers in the Racine Unified School District, something he wanted to do statewide. How’s that working out?:

Mt. Pleasant Patch: Racine Unified School District officials are looking at possibly closing at least one elementary schools to avert an impending long-term structural deficit in the 2013-14 school year. David Hazen, chief financial officer for the district, said part of the reason the district's property tax is increasing in 2012-13 is because of what he calls a “voucher tax,” which will continue to take its toll on future budgets.

This is the easy explanation, something even your conservative neighbor can understand:

Last month, the school district raised the estimated property tax  (from) 6.42 percent to $9.51 per $1,000 equalized value. The rate includes "the voucher tax," Hazen said. Hazen explained that the district would lose $1.2 million in state aid in the 2012-13 budget because students are leaving the district to go to private schools (and) because the district can’t count the voucher students in their enrollment numbers, the district appears like a richer school district. This means it will receive less in equalized state aid and in order to maintain the funding for the existing student population at the same level, the cost is shifted onto the property taxpayers.

“That’s an additional few million dollars, and that’s another 20 to 30 cents added onto the tax levy,” Hazen said. “It’s a tax, and we might as well admit it and fix it.”

Think a few Republican readers might be in shock right now?