All Maine children deserve an excellent public school education. The opportunity for a solid pre-K-to-12 education is the foundation for lifelong learning that can mean the difference between a life of hardship and a life of prosperity.

Right now, we have a problem: Maine is failing to give all Maine children that opportunity. Since 2004, the state has been mandated to fund at least 55 percent of the cost of public education.

It has never met that minimum.

Instead, in 2011 and in 2015, state government cut income taxes for the wealthiest Mainers — to the point where a millionaire now pays the same income tax as someone earning only $40,000. Since 2011, with revenues down, communities have had to pay more than $1 billion in added property taxes — $180 million a year — toward education to compensate for state underfunding.

Poorer communities have had to cut programs and teachers. Wealthier communities have had to raise property taxes. The result is the quality of our children’s education depends on their zip code. That’s not fair.

Question 2 offers a solution: we’re asking the wealthiest 2 percent of Mainers to pay a little extra, 3 percent on income above $200,000, in order to raise $157 million a year to fund our schools properly.

Voting yes on 2 will add:

• $157 million to direct classroom education funding

• $3.5 million to desperately underfunded Career and Technical Education programs. (More than 8,000 Maine students attend CTE classes and hundreds more are on waiting lists. This funding will open doors for thousands of Maine students hoping to learn a skill or a trade that will make them part of a well-educated workforce.)

• $3.4 million to expand pre-K programs serving thousands of Maine preschoolers who currently have no access to public pre-K education. (Children living in poverty in Maine increased from 16 percent in 2008 to 19 percent in 2014. Research shows high quality pre-K programs have profound benefits in creating equal opportunities for all students, helping students who live in poverty the most.)

Even our opponents agree we have a problem with public education funding in Maine. Question 2 offers a solution that delivers both tax fairness and equal educational opportunity.

Opponents offer nothing but excuses for why we can’t solve this problem. In fact, many of the opponents to Question 2 are the same wealthy special interests that have benefited from the huge tax cuts for the wealthy that have been passed in 2011 and 2015. 

Don’t be fooled.  Maine people are tired of excuses. They deserve action. Certainly our children deserve no less.

John Kosinski is campaign manager for Citizens Who Support Maine’s Public Schools. He can be reached at [email protected]