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  13 special election, they must ask school officials what approval of the tax would mean for efforts to save money instead of spend it.

  With nearly $444.3 million potentially derived from a SILO tax over 10 years in these two Corridor counties, it’s worth wondering how all of this new money could be used as a catalyst to streamline school operations and to improve student education and career preparation through wholesale integration of the districts’ resources.

  While we can appreciate the districts’ eagerness to have new money to fix old problems, if they expect voters to support a tax that will be collected well into the future, then where are the future-looking plans to achieve taxpayer expectations of government reform in a state that still has 365 public school districts?

  As it’s being billed by promoters in both counties, this influx of significant revenue isn’t being earmarked to position any district to achieve greater operating efficiencies and more effective student education by sharing or consolidating with other districts. In fact, the additional revenue seems to encourage even the financially frail districts to go it alone versus aggressively discovering new ways in which they could cooperate with other districts to share facilities, staff, costs of materials and services or educational programming. And it provides absolutely no incentive to even think about consolidation.

  Each school district in the two counties has put forward its list of how it might use SILO tax revenue.

  The great majority of the needs that districts would address are not only real but critical to their ability to educate students in a safe environment.

  But voters should remember that the best way to meet those needs may not be building a new building or fixing up an old one. It may not be expanding the district’s administration building. It may not be buying new vehicles or equipment. Instead, for example, it might be in sharing facilities or transportation and purchasing services.

  A group of business leaders in the Des Moines area is lobbying the Legislature to approve statewide adoption of the SILO tax this year, which is already on the books in all counties except Linn and Johnson.

  The business group’s support of the statewide tax is contingent upon the legislation providing incentives for smaller districts to pursue more collaboration, consolidation and efficiencies. That’s an idea worth serious consideration, especially if the incentives were extended to all districts, regardless of size. Since the SILO was enacted in Iowa in 1998, no school district has used the tax windfall to consolidate.

  Meanwhile, the 22 school districts in Linn and Johnson counties are focused on short-term needs. Any plans for longer-term changes, which inevitably must include significant reform in the way public education is provided, will likely be pushed even further into the future so long as school districts have the cash to maintain their separate existing infrastructures.

  Education is, indeed, an investment in our children. As voters consider their choices on the Feb. 13 ballot, they need to question if today’s spending plans for the new tax revenue will improve education for the next generation.