Public Education Funding Defender

Good Jobs First Seeks Public Education Funding Defender

Virtual Position – Anywhere in the United States

Good Jobs First, a non-profit research center based in Washington DC and operating virtually across the United States, now seeks a Public Education Funding Defender to lead its work protecting school districts from revenue losses caused by corporate tax abatements.

GJF is a virtual organization and work meetings take place mainly between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern Time. The candidate must be based in the United States.

Founded in 1998, Good Jobs First is the nation’s leading resource center promoting corporate and government accountability in economic development. GJF has set dozens of research precedents while leading the movement to win company-specific, deal-specific subsidy disclosure by state and local governments, as well as safeguards such as clawbacks and Job Quality Standards.

This position capitalizes on Good Jobs First’s most significant national disclosure victory, Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement No. 77 on Tax Abatement Disclosures, a municipal finance landmark. Since FY 2017, it has required most independent school districts (and other local governmental bodies) to report annually how much revenue they lose to tax abatement programs.

Good Jobs First has issued a string of studies using this new data and collects it in Tax Break Tracker, one of GJF’s six unique databases. GJF has birthed a new cottage industry of education advocates, academics, unions, and journalists using Statement 77 data. You’ll help grow it.

What You Will Do

Education Advocacy, Especially Around GASB Statement No. 77

• Represent Good Jobs First in education policy circles;
• Monitor and engage selectively with education advocacy groups and events;
• Perform constant outreach to advocates, news media, and academics about the usefulness of tax abatement disclosure data;
• Identify places where tax abatement losses present opportunities for winnable reform;
• Maintain GJF’s website tools for Statement 77 research and advocacy and develop toolkits, one-pagers and other resources for policymakers, labor groups, and education justice coalitions seeking to rein in costly economic development incentives.
• Create and show connections between our work and adjacent education efforts, i.e. adequacy, equity, vouchers, charters, etc.
• Speak to and train, in-person and via Zoom, diverse audiences to engage them on using and advocating around the data.

Oversee and Participate in Research

• Supervise and work with another staffer who adds new Statement 77 disclosure data to Tax Break Tracker;
• Lead new research projects on local, metro area, and/or statewide studies;
• Work with researchers on related projects, including ones involving our broader incentives and corporate accountability work.

Coordinate with the Rest of Good Jobs First’s Efforts

The defense of public education funding is integrated with — and integral to — Good Jobs First’s mission promoting economic development incentive reform and corporate accountability. For example, GJF’s Subsidy Tracker database is heavily used by those seeking to investigate tax breaks from many angles, including their impact on public budgets. GJF’s Violation Tracker database is used by those investigating privatization, public contract abuse, and workplace law violations.

Qualified applicants will have:

• A demonstrated commitment to racial, social, and economic justice
• Knowledge of municipal finance generally and preferably education finance specifically;
• Proven policy-organizing skills;
• An extroverted/campaign-style working history; and
• Strong communications skills for writing, editing, and speaking.

Additional positive qualifications include:

• Knowledge of organized labor, tax justice, and education defense movements;
• Knowledge of economic development incentives;
• Knowledge of education advocacy organizations and/or education equity debates; and
• Knowledge of how state tax-policy legislation interacts with local practices.