CommunityLink Local news Top Stories Sports Features Business Opinion Obituaries Weather News of record News archives Recreation Golf Hiking, Etc. But the goals of this initiative are not the problem. The means are. Initiative 728 would bypass the budgeting authority of the Legislature, divert revenue from the general fund and set up an immense earmarked account, working on automatic pilot, to be distributed with almost no strings attached.
Initiatives are a bad way to make law.
They are a very bad way to make such fundamental changes. Initiative 728 is well-intentioned but bad policy. The initiative would divert part of the state property tax away from the state general fund, to be distributed, along with a large share of the state's budget surplus, to local school districts. It also would dedicate part of the state's lottery winnings to school construction. The purpose is to boost education by circumventing the limits on state spending voters imposed with Initiative 601, and to take money before the Legislature can decide where it should be spent.