State House and Senate Democrats say they have a plan that will simultaneously ease property taxes and provide money to local schools. The plan is meant to be an alternative to the so-called Great Plan pushed by House Republicans. The Great Plan would use sales taxes to fund the state's public schools and eliminate the school portion from property taxes. Instead House and Senate Democrats want to tap into the state's rainy day fund, now valued at more than a billion dollars. Under the proposal homeowners would get a rebate for taxes paid to local schools districts. Democratic Representative Jeanette Jameison of Toccoa is a co sponsor of the bill. She describes it as a guaranteed tax relief. "It’s a good proposal in that it creates no new taxes and that it shifts no taxes at the local level. It simply uses part of the state reserve and using that money of course, creating the rollback that's available to local school systems." Jamison estimates the rebate would come to about $188.00 per pupil or about 300 million dollars per year. Republican leaders responded to the Democrat's tax proposal by calling it a band-aid and not substantial tax reform.
