Senator Jeff Kruse - June 25th, 2013

 Working Hard For You

June 25, 2013

The State Treasurer, Ted Wheeler proposed the creation of a new bonding instrument (SJR1) and a bonding package (SB 11) this Session.  To help support his idea he sent out post cards to students asking them to send them to their legislators asking for support.  I have responded in letter form to the students who contacted me.  I thought you might find my response to the students to be informative.

I want to thank you for communicating with me about the Opportunity Initiative.  First let me tell you I supported the creation of the Opportunity Grants and I also support fully funding the program.  At this point SJR 1 has passed in the Senate and will probably pass in the House.  I voted against the measure and I would like to explain why.

First this is a measure referred to the people asking them to put a borrowing instrument into the Constitution.  I would suggest very few people know all of the various methods the state has currently for borrowing money, how they work or what their financial backing is.  I think this would be good information to have before creating a new one backed only by taxes, which is unique in our bonding matrix.

But more importantly, there is a better way to fund the program.  Under the Treasurer’s plan we would borrow five hundred million dollars, creating a debt that would in total cost the state over nine hundred million dollars.  When you add this to all of the other debt obligations the state has you will find there is enough money out of the general fund going to debt service to directly fund  a wide variety of programs.  We would be better served if we directly funded the Opportunity Grant Program rather than creating more debt.  The Treasurer stated on his mailer we would still be within our debt capacity, which is true.  My question is, how smart is it to max out our credit cards?  I would definitely support direct funding of the Opportunity Grant.

Sincerely,

Senator Jeff Kruse