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TALLAHASSEE - Some of the worst bills legislators propose are the ones that sound the best-intentioned. The newest paving brick on the road to you-know-where is a constitutional amendment that propounds an extra homestead exemption for public school and charter school teachers.
As the spouse of a former teacher, I ought to be sympathetic. No one needs to remind me that teachers are overworked, underappreciated and underpaid. But that's precisely why I dislike this bill (CS for SB 2076, HB 1499). I hate to see teachers scammed.
To begin with, everyone involved knows that it's not likely to pass. With the session almost half over, it has cleared two committees with eight more to go. The two would have done the decent thing by killing it.
It would still be a scam even if the Legislature did approve it and the voters followed suit. Here's why:
It would be up to city and county commissions whether to give teachers an additional exemption, of up to $25,000 on the assessment of their homes, at the expense of equally underpaid police officers, firefighters and utility workers. Some might. Most wouldn't. Take note, please, that school taxes would not be affected. That means the Legislature would not have to make up the money.
Tax exemptions are a lousy substitute for a rational pay scale. For one thing, homestead exemption is worse than useless to teachers who don't own their own homes. Every new exemption shifts part of the total tax burden to people who don't qualify, like renters.
One of the sponsors told a Senate committee the other day that he's trying to alleviate the teacher shortage. Not many beginning teachers can afford to rush right out and buy a home. The most that anyone could save in actual taxes would be $500 a year, which is not enough to spell the difference between owning and renting.
It would be different if the proposal were a mortgage or rent subsidy targeted to beginning teachers, and the Legislature were ready to pay for it.
What they want the local governments to pay for would cost an estimated $36.4-million in tax revenue if all of them implemented it. That is about two cents on the dollar toward what Florida ought to do for its teachers.
With the Senate's votes last week, the Legislature is in the final throes of giving run ranges and gun owners favors like no one else has. If Marion Hammer of the National Rifle Association put revolvers on their desks and told them to play Russian roulette, would they do it?
Probably so. No, I do not think it would be a good idea.
The saddest of news last week was about former Cpl. Simon M. Benkovic of East Lake who survived combat in Iraq and died when he lost control of his truck, was thrown from the vehicle, and struck his head on a tree. The story said he wasn't wearing the seat belt that might have saved him. He was 25.
There are lots of young people, and old people too, who don't take the trouble to fasten their belts. Dori Slosberg was one of them. Ever since, her father, state Rep. Irving Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, has been trying to give them an incentive by changing the law to allow police to ticket for that even if the driver hasn't committed some other "primary" offense. The experts say it could save nearly 200 lives a year.
The House passed the bill 81-39 during the first week of the session and Gov. Jeb Bush favors it, but Senate President Jim King still has it in his deep freeze.
King says he worries about police using primary enforcement to pick on minorities, but that excuse looks pale in current light. Of the 17 African-American House members, 11 voted for it and the NAACP state president endorsed it.
Some people suspect that King, who is not svelte, simply doesn't want to wear a belt. But the freeze may be thawing. King said Thursday he has told U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta that "the sponsors and proponents of this legislation should keep after it because it seems like there's more and more leaning towards it." But still not enough in the Senate, he said, "at this time."
The smartest thing Florida ever did was to spend money on the tobacco awareness program that sharply reduced smoking by teenagers. The dumbest thing was to virtually kill the program last year, and the Legislature apparently means to kill it for good this year. The dumbest excuse, as stated by Sen. Durrell Peaden, R-Crestview, is that it ought to be part of the school curriculum instead of a separate program. On things like smoking, kids listen to other kids, not teachers, and they're impressed by smart media, not textbooks. If they can't fit $16-million for that into a $57.7-billion budget, the governor should veto the whole thing.
Correction: Rep. Marcio Rubio, R-West Miami, is 32, not 34.