May 21, 2021

Gov. Stitt Signs Bill To Expand Tax Credit Scholarships

Happy Friday, everyone. As the Legislative session winds down, we are seeing a flurry of education-related bills cross the finish line. One I’d like to highlight today is Senate Bill 1080, which was signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt Friday after receiving final approval from the Legislature.

Senate Bill 1080 will expand the state’s Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship program by raising the cap on tax credits from $5 million to $50 million. Taxpayers (individuals, married couples and corporations) can receive a tax credit for up to 75% of their donation, reducing their total tax liability.

Currently the cap is $3.5 million for donations to private school tuition scholarships and $1.5 million to grant-awarding organizations that support public schools. Senate Bill 1080 raises the caps to $25 million each.

But the reality is, donations on the public school program side have never caught up to private school donations. Public school donations have never even met the $1.5 million cap, while private school donations exceeded the $3.5 million cap in 2017 and 2018.

In 2018, the latest year of tax data available, the lopsided tax credits look like this: $240,000 for public school donations and $4 million for private school donations. (A provision allows credits not claimed by one program to be claimed by the other.)

Do you have experience with the Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship program? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. As always, email and DMs open. Have a great weekend.

— Jennifer Palmer

Around the web

• ‘Game Changer’: Vaccine Rollout Has Oklahoma’s Top Education Official Optimistic About Fall [KGOU]
• Epic’s Founder Saw State’s Quest for Financial Info as a Threat to His Business Model [The Frontier]
• Budget Deal: More Money for Education, but Tax Cuts Too [NonDoc]
• Critical Race Theory in the Classroom: Understanding the Debate [ABC News]
• Cheating at School Is Easier Than Ever — and It’s Rampant [The Wall Street Journal]

Tweet Watch

Help Us Make a Difference

During times of crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, Oklahoma needs high-quality investigative journalism. That is our mission at Oklahoma Watch. We produce stories that hold government and public officials accountable and that make transparent what some prefer to keep secret. We depend on financial support from readers like you to sustain our coverage. Help us make a difference.