State senator proposes tax to help pay for school maintenance

State Sen. Click Bishop remembers his first paycheck as a teenager in Fairbanks in the early 1970s. His boss explained the $10 deduction for the state’s “school head” tax.

“That pays for your education,” the boss told his young employee.

“I’ve never forgotten that,” said Bishop.

The Legislature in 1980 abolished the small education tax, along with Alaska’s personal income tax and a tax on business gross receipts. The state was getting rich from oil…