Educational Investment Incentive Act Passes NY Senate - First time in 15 yrs!

The Educational Investment Incentive Act (S.2732/A.5081) provides a 60% tax credit for donations to NY public schools or private school scholarship funds. It is a clear win for both students and taxpayers. The tax credits are limited to $200 million (half for public schools and half for private school scholarships) and would save taxpayers between $400 and $500 million/year. Part of the savings come from direct donations to public schools and part from scholarships enabling thousands of students in failing public schools to switch to private, mostly religious, schools, typically at less than half the cost, saving taxpayers about $10,000 per student.

For 14 years both Republican leader Joe Bruno in the Senate and Democrat leader Sheldon Silver in the Assembly would not allow the bill to even come to a vote. even though it had widespread support from legislators in both parties. But this year, at the very last session of the Senate, Republican leader Dean Skelos allowed a vote, and the bill passed with huge support from both parties by a vote of 55-7. Unfortunately, Democrat leader Sheldon Silver would not allow a vote in the Assembly because of opposition from the teacher unions. Even though public schools get more money with this bill through donations, the unions want private schools to close to give them more union jobs. They could care less about the overburdened taxpayers in NY state.