April 30, 2009 05:22 PM UTC

Denver Post gets it right on SB291

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• by: MADCO

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

The Colorado Constitution requires the state legislature to provide a uniform and free system of public schools throughout the state. The School Finance Act is the vehicle that attempts to close the gap between rich and poor districts when it came to per pupil funding.

The act has been amended numerous times over the years, but its overarching goal is to augment local revenues with state funding so the financial resources don’t vary so widely district-by-district.

Problems began to arise after voters approved TABOR in 1992. That’s in part because TABOR’s revenue limits meant school districts collected less money, which resulted in the state paying a larger and larger portion of the cost of K-12 education. In 1994, local districts raised 47 percent of the cost of educating students. By 2007, that proportion was only 36 percent.

At the same time, local school districts came to realize that because of TABOR, they were increasingly unable to keep revenues from the School Finance Act and other sources, such as some grants.

Of the state’s 178 school districts, 175 of them went to voters and asked for a TABOR waiver, colloquially called “de-Brucing,” a reference to TABOR author Douglas Bruce.

Now, at least one county is talking about “re-Brucing,” which would shift more K-12 costs to a state already struggling with huge deficits.

SB 291 quite simply says that districts that re-Bruce would get no additional state money. Districts could still re-Bruce, but it’s hard to imagine any would if this passes.

As always, the real solution is to clean up the state constitution and remove the revenue limits and other provisions that so frequently put lawmakers in a Catch-22. But in the short term, SB 291 is a reasonable move to discourage local districts from unfairly passing the buck on K-12 education costs.

I dislike quibbling, but the one statement  I would perhaps differ with is that it  is hard to imagine any District would still re-Bruce if SB291 passes. I like to think they are right, but I know voters who vote no on every increase in funding to public schools, and I feel confident that they would vote to re-Bruce anyway. Though that may not be enough to get it passed.

But if SB291 can make it, then we’ll see which districts and elected officials and party leadership are true to their ideology and which were just squawking under cover of the School Finance Act.

As it is, if a district does re-Bruce and then lowers their mill levy resulting in less local funding for the school district, then the State budget has to make up that loss, up to a point. (The SFA is not as simple as we might wish. But per pupil funding is preserved to some minimum which no district is currently close to.)

So advocates for re-Brucing and lowering local taxes are saved form having to stand behind a resulting funding loss for the district since the per pupil number will have to be made up by the state.

I get the logic of some equalization across the state. But why should I pay my property tax to support my district and then pay  income tax and sales tax and whatever else I pay to the state to  support the other districts that don’t want to support their schools? Why should anyone?

That this is a Democratic proposal should mean it has wide bi-partisan support. I mean the Republicans are about local control and less taxes, right?  But wait, the mini-fillibuster (CSB) staged earlier this week and the insistence on referring to it as punishment for districts which choose to re-Bruce challenge that ideology.

I guess the Republican ideology really is that they want to be able to lower local taxes, but only if some other source will make up the loss of funding.