Over the past few months, we’ve been working diligently on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issue, and want to share a few key highlights:
First, in early May, attorneys at the IRS and U.S. Department of Treasury invited the National Alliance and several state-level charter support organizations to sit down and talk through our concerns. We had an open, engaging discussion. It felt incredibly productive, and afterwards the attorneys at the IRS and Treasury asked us to continue working with them to provide additional information about the charter sector. We have already begun to do so – and will continue to collaborate with the IRS in the coming months. Second, we reviewed and indexed all the public comments filed by June 18th, 2012, the close of the public comment period. In all, 2,312 comments were filed – more than 95% from the charter sector across the country (that totals nearly 2,200 individual comments from members of the public charter school community!). Not only did we have the opportunity to spotlight this accomplishment when we testified at the public hearing (details below), but several reporters also noted this tremendous show of force (again, see below). Third, the IRS hosted a public hearing here in D.C. on July 9th. I testified on behalf of the National Alliance and public charter school communities across the country. Plus, I was lucky and thankful to be joined by David Dunn, Executive Director of the Texas Charter Schools Association, and Jill Gottfred, Policy Manager at the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. Our individual and collective testimony was very well received. The IRS panelists engaged each of us in a robust question and answer period, inviting each of us to provide supplemental information going forward. Lastly, there was strong media coverage of the event, including a number of print articles. Please see here and here for well-rounded summaries of the hearing and next steps. Perhaps the most important information, though, is not new information. Rather, it’s a reminder – and one the IRS panelists made special effort to note during the July 9th public hearing – that the process of finalizing these draft proposed regulations is a long one. The currently released regulations will be reviewed; input from the public comment process will be incorporated; and, a new document will be released as the official “Notice of Proposed Regulations.” Upon the release of this document, a new public comment period will open, and the input and review process will begin again. Once this process culminates, the IRS will revisit the regulations one more time before issuing the final regulations. In all, it could be – and likely will be – a long process, one which will take many, many months (possibly years) to finalize. All to say, we’ve come a long way and we will continue to work with the IRS over the months ahead to make sure public charter school employees, both current and future, are protected. But, the regulations will not be finalized in the short-term; as such, the eligibility of charter school employees to enroll in their respective state plans also will not change in the short-term.
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