Why “Yes for Kids”

October 12, 2022

You may have seen our name as a supporter of the Healthy Children’s Fund (Prop 5) to be on the ballot in November. Yes, you read that correctly. As an organization that values efficient and effective government with smart taxation, it may be a bit surprising to see our name on the top of that list in support of a new property tax. For a bit more perspective, here are some details that I feel matter:

Tax versus Anti-tax

As a chamber of commerce, we cannot be anti-tax. Taxes pay for things like roads, infrastructure, public safety, law enforcement, and education. We get to be (and arguably should be) supportive of efficient uses of taxes and effective government. An inefficient tax is simply wasteful – and government has shown throughout history that it can be inefficient. Ineffective may be even worse.

As an entity that values both effective and efficient taxation and government, this initiative is innovative in building accountability into the policy that limits government administration and demands data-based accountability – this should be an expectation for all taxes.

A property tax?

Who loves a property tax? No one.

Unfortunately, when looking at funding options, a property tax is simply the only mechanism that makes sense. Retail sales tax is not applied adequately. B&O tax is even worse, as it should not be up to the business community to fund this community issue alone. Anyone want to talk about an income tax? I didn’t think so.

Some could say we collect enough taxes already – and I think that is a fair point. Considering these dollars could very well be going to building infrastructure for private entities, our state has some constraints when it comes to the gifting of public funds. Most people would agree this is a good constraint to have. Let’s change the narrative to say yes to this funding model and perhaps reducing some other funding sources – a conversation for another time.

Committee and Board Vote

Both our Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee and Board of Directors voted to support this initiative. Our organization’s process was followed, and it was carefully considered before we added our name to this initiative. This community problem is crippling our business community, and we need solutions. The chamber does not take any stance lightly, especially one that is related to a tax.

Business Case for Childcare – a two-fold investment

Childcare is not a new topic to the chamber. We have been advocating in this space for over 5 years. It started originally with a simple survey of our members. The message was clear – lack of childcare was (and still is) impacting our local workforce therefore impacting our local employers. The problem has only gotten worse.

Just prior to the pandemic, we partnered with the Opportunity Council to create the Center for Recruitment & Expansion of Child Care NW. The goal was simply to help increase capacity in our childcare providers throughout the community. The pandemic hit just as it was getting started so the focus had to change slightly with the goal to keep as many operators in business as possible.

Last year, I wrote the Business Case for Childcare Investment. In simple terms, an investment in childcare is twofold: an immediate return to get parents back to work and a future investment in children to ensure they are well rounded humans and great employees for tomorrow’s workforce.

More than State and Federal Help

As we are emerging from the pandemic, we now know how bad things have gotten. This is a state and national issue – so much so that the US Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Washington Business (AWB, our state’s chamber) are both engaging in this topic of the importance of quality early childhood education and childcare. Chambers of commerce are starting to engage around this topic and crisis.

Some could argue this is not a local issue – wrong.

Yes, we do need state and federal solutions to this issue as the private sector cannot solve the problem alone. The unfortunate fact of this scenario is that it is far worse here than in other places – we are a childcare desert. So, the inconvenient truth … even if we had state or federal solutions, we would still need a local solution to get us to an even playing field. It is my hope that our kids are ready to succeed in the K12 system, in a college environment, and a career. With a lack of 5,000 childcare slots, we are setting everyone up for failure.

 

Guy Occhiogrosso
President/CEO