The Board of Ed weighs in

Continuing the chorus of disapproval on Question 1 (did you see all the letters this week?), the Board of Ed has now weighed in:

VOTED: that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education
expresses its grave concern about the potential impact of Question 1 on
the 2008 ballot, an initiative to repeal the state’s income tax. The
recent report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, “The
Enormous Consequences of Question 1,”
http://www.masstaxpayers.org/files/MTF_Question1_Analysis.pdf, states
that passage of the ballot question would result in a loss of $12.5
billion in state income tax revenue. This loss would cause drastic
reductions in support for students in our schools. As the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation states on page 9 of its report:

The large cuts in education and non-education aid would have a
devastating impact on cities and towns that are already facing serious
fiscal problems. The result would be major cuts in services in almost
all communities and ever higher property taxes that would fall more
heavily on low and moderate income taxpayers.

Consistent with its mission to strengthen the Commonwealth’s public
education system for the benefit of the students we serve, the Board of
Elementary and Secondary Education states its opposition to Question 1.