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[Note: This material is copyright by the Press-Citizen, and is reproduced here as a matter of "fair use" for non-commercial, educational purposes only. Any other use may require the prior approval of the Iowa City Press-Citizen.]

Now Iowa City and the other Johnson County districts are asking voters to approve a school infrastructure local option sales tax. The tax would require one cent of nearly every dollar spent in Johnson County -- with key exceptions -- to be given to the district for improvements. Over the course of 10 years, the tax is estimated to generate $104 million dollars ($72 million in the first five years, when the districts can keep all the money; $32 million for the second five years, in which the districts will have to share part of the funds with a statewide pool).

We urge our readers to support this sales tax because the money will be targeted to worthwhile projects in the Iowa City district, because Solon and Clear Creek Amana districts desperately need the funds to meet the needs of their growing student population. Although we urge support for the tax, we also recognize that Iowa City district officials haven't done as good of a job this time around making a compelling case for how the funds will be spent and why the district needs the funds now.

The Iowa City School Board reports that the funds provided by the tax will enable the district to pursue its 10-year Comprehensive Facilities Improvement Plan -- allowing it to meet the needs of the more than 1,000 additional students predicted to enroll in the district by 2010. The money will allow the district to upgrade and repair existing buildings -- including the 90-year-old Longfellow and Mann elementaries -- as well as construct new schools to address the growth in the district. The money also would allow the district to maintain and to expand the Family Resource Centers that have helped a wide variety of students succeed.

Those are good ways for the district to spend money, but they don't necessarily convey a sense of compelling need concerning this tax. Yes, 97 of Iowa's 99 counties already have passed a similar tax. And, yes, our Johnson County legislators worked hard to pass legislation that would allow districts in Johnson and Linn counties to keep all of the funds from the tax for the first five years if the tax is passed before July 1, 2008.

But there's never a time when the school district can't use more money. Likewise, there is no clear-cut reason in Iowa City why the election needs to take place now -- as opposed to 12 months from now. Indeed, Iowa City Superintendent Plugge has said that if the voters reject the sales tax, the district most likely will turn around and bring a bond issue before the voters.

Where the Iowa City school district has made an adequate but not overwhelming case for why it needs the money, officials from the Clear Creek Amana and Solon districts have demonstrated their needs clearly. With the Corridor's growth affecting these smaller districts at a more concentrated rate than in the Iowa City district, the boards and administrators have all but exhausted their bonding capacity for adding new schools to keep up with the growing student population. Unlike Iowa City, if the tax does not pass, these two districts will have to choose between building new schools and repairing existing schools; they won't have the option of floating a bond issue. Unfortunately, state law does not give them the option of calling this election on their own.

Although the sales tax is hardly the "no brainer" decision offered to Iowa City voters in the last bond issue, the bottom line suggests that the benefits to local schools throughout the county outweighs the drain from local pocketbooks.