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Maratita: ETC benefits only a few
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Posted on Oct 25 2004
Saipan Rep. Janet U. Maratita is insisting on the repeal of the education tax credit law, noting that it benefits only a handful.
“It’s against public interest. A law should benefit the public but ETC benefits only a few people,” said Maratita in an interview yesterday.
Maratita said her office has researched and analyzed the impact of ETC and found that it primarily goes to some private schools. Only a small percentage, she said, ends up with the Public School System.
Naturally, she said, private schools are opposed to her proposal.
PSS, she said, has “mixed” reaction.
She said the Saipan International School, Mt. Carmel, and Calvary Christian School principal Scott Norman, who is also the president of the Private School Coalition, have objected to her bill.
Maratita said that based on a five-year analysis of ETC ending FY 2003, private schools received $3 million and PSS only got $362,319.
Allocation per student for private school is $4,848 while at PSS, the figure is down to $147.
Private schools have some 2,000 students while PSS has over 10,000 students.
“That’s what I call inequity. ETC should be given to everybody, not just a few,” the lawmaker said.
Based on her analysis, she said the bulk of ETC funds went to SIS, Mt. Carmel, Northern Marianas College, and Brilliant Star Montessori, with each receiving $490,583, $439,188, and $349,346, and $323,750 respectively.
Maratita, in House Bill 14-238, said that ETC income could be used for other services.
She said the ETC should be given directly to the Commonwealth Treasury “to fund the pressing needs of the Commonwealth for essential services in the areas of education, public utilities, health care, and public safety.”
Norman had described the existing ETC law as “the best law ever passed by any legislature.”
Under the law, private businesses or individuals can give as much as $5,000 a year to academic institutions of their choice as a form of tax credit.
