[caption id="attachment_4783" align="alignleft" width="120" caption="Tom Kovach (R)"]
Rep. Tom Kovach's is emphatic about his primary goal if he is reelected to the state House of Representatives—more work to encourage job creation. “That has got to be the absolute No. 1 priority,” said the incumbent from the 6th District (Brandywine Hundred South).
Small businesses are an engine of job growth in Delaware, Kovach says, and he proposes a number of measures to help them. He would reduce the state’s gross receipts tax, which he says hampers growth because it is levied on a business’s gross income—before deductions can be taken for business expenses—reducing the incentive to hire new employees or make capital investments. Kovach says the tax cost is passed along to customers, making it a “hidden sales tax.” He says he has bipartisan support for this proposal from the legislature’s small business caucus.
Kovach supports other proposals for tax relief and financial assistance to aid small businesses. He favor tax credits for landlords who rent to small businesses. He has been seeking bipartisan support for tax credits for new hires, which he says would be revenue-neutral and has succeeded in Maryland. He also would like to see the state provide collateral for business loans to qualified small-business borrowers. “We, as a state, can step in with limited risk” to make these loans happen, he said.
Another priority for Kovach is continued educational reform. He says the state made progress by adopting a more sophisticated testing system that assesses students at the beginning, middle, and end of the year so teachers can see where progress is happening and where change is needed. Kovach emphasizes that basing teacher evaluations on actual student progress, rather than students’ performance against a baseline standard, removes the disincentive for teachers to work in schools with lower-achieving students.
Kovach says public schools need a greater measure of autonomy to adopt practices that will help them compete with charter and private schools. “Why can’t we give our schools more flexibility to do that?” He also wants to implement statewide consolidation of school administrative functions such as information technology, procurement, and transportation, which he says the Department of Education has failed to do. The savings would free up more money for student instruction, he says.
Environmental issues are a “personal favorite” for Kovach, "not just for the sake of the environment, but also ... for creating jobs.” With a chemical engineering degree from the University of Delaware and a law degree from Rutgers, he worked as an enforcement officer for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and practiced environmental law. Kovach notes that conservation and renewable energy technologies can help the state’s economy grow. He sponsored three and voted for all four of the bills in the Clean Energy Jobs package passed this year.
Asked why voters in his majority-Democratic district should choose him over Democratic challenger Debra Heffernan, Kovach points to his 20 months of experience in the legislature, his efforts to create jobs, his endorsement from the state teachers’ union, and his record of avoiding partisan politics. “I represent the district,” he says. “I don’t have time for this partisan garbage.”