U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
June 18, 2007 04:10 PM UTC
20 Comments
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They’re the ones building the crappy buildings.
Most of the schools are 20 to 40 years old. They are falling apart structurally and desperately need to be updated. Most school districts have had to resort to asking local voters for increases in bonds and mill levies since education funds were consistently cut during Owen’s two terms.
You can’t blame a school board that has been elected in the last four years for buildings that have been falling apart for the last decade. That’s illogical.
But the boards for the last 30 – 40 years that have in some cases built structurally unsound buildings and in other cases have let them fall inot disrepair.
about what you are writing. At the time these schools were originally built, they met all inspections. Since some of these schools date back to the early 1960s’, we have passed laws that require much more of our schools, including handicap accessibility, new equipment and standards in biology and chemistry labs, etc.
I worked on a mill levy/bond increase for 23 million dollars last year for our school system. We had both Republican and Democratic state education board candidates visit our school and declare our biology lab to be one of the worst in the state. There has simply been no money in the last 8 years to repair the ongoing decay and both candidates admitted as much in their press statements.
This isn’t about school board members. It is about an education inspection system that is doing a piss poor job, it is about an education system that has been raided time and again (thus, Ref. C), until there were no funds left to repair years and years of needed upgrades and maintenance.
School boards continuously putting off addressing it until “tomorrow.”
Thanks for answering your own question.
Yes there’s money. Not as much as you would like but there is money there. The school boards consistently put off capital expenditures to the next term and it adds up.
aren’t your responses?
There is NOT the type of money you are talking about for the type of structural repairs, new textbooks that are less than 10 years old, salary increases, et al available. What part of this do you not get?
Do me a favor–before you spout off with more inane, unsupported statements, head over to a school board meeting…or ten…and learn about the complexities of a yearly budget, learn where your taxes are going (since you seem to be under some delusional impression that they are all headed into your local school system’s structural repairs) and why there is no money left over for the type of investment the rest of us are talking about here. Okay?
The school boards are not the problem here. Your ignorance on the subject is. You made a statement that you didn’t think out very well and now you’ve dug your heels in rather than admit you don’t know what you are talking about.
It’s okay to be wrong, David. It’s not okay to be unable to admit it. You love to point that flaw out in other people but it seems you are incapable of recognizing it in yourself.
I’m done here. Moving on…
And I’ve seen money wasted as well as things constantly put off till next year. I’ve also seen them bring up bonds to repair stuff as needed – we just passed a large one here in BVSD.
Yes it’s always nice to have more money. But there is money to get things handled. The problem is it’s always easier to put off capital expenditures until “next year.”
It used to be that schools were exempt from local building codes as a matter of state law. Seems like that statute was at least 30 years old. I remember friends who worked for towns and counties being frustrated that they had no code jurisdiction for either construction or inspection.
If that is still the case, this ticking time bomb has been ticking for a very, very long time.
Perhaps that is where the discussion should start.
I feel that you are correct re local inspections. I served as a member of our local Parks & Rec committee. We negoitated local inspection with the school district on a couple of projects thay we helped to fund. Otherwise city’s have no control over school buildings.
The Colorado Association of School Boards is the association representing the locally-elected school boards. They represent the boards building these schools…where are they?
All I know is this — public education receives a tremendous amount of tax money … PTAs spend all of their time doing even more fundraising for schools … and the student fees, sheesh.
Yet, there is never, never enough money.
I don’t know the answer, but it sure seems apparent to me that there is something structurally wrong with an education system that is solely focused on money as the problem … and obsessed with the notion that even more money is the only solution to its problems.
Money is a big problem in one area, TEACHERS. They have one of the most important jobs in society yet are under paid. The building stuff is unacceptable and we shouldn’t just sink more money into it. But if this country doesn’t start paying good teachers what they are worth, there won’t be any good teachers. As for the crappy teachers, get rid of ’em and with your new pay scale recruit the best and brightest to teach.
Perhaps if you were starting with a brand new system that had no legacy buildings, outdated laws, and sometimes hide-bound attitudes.
Building repairs were part of the failed Referendum D – $190 million worth, IIRC. Previous Legislatures, Governors, and local school boards have not been rising to meet the funding needs to maintain these buildings, nevermind to keep them within modern safety codes.
It might look like money is the hammer used for every nail of a problem with the school system, but to some extent it needs to be. When school districts regularly use 8 year old texts that are falling apart at the seams, meet in buildings that are rotting around them, and pay their teachers wages matching the scale of a Quality Assurance Tech in the computer industry, money is a valid issue. Our local rural school district recently tried to pass a bond issue for a simple and much-needed IT upgrade; it failed because people didn’t think it was warranted… If we don’t want good schools, we can keep neglecting them like we have over the past umpteen years.
In the sticks, where I live, the school district provides health insurance to its employees and families. Those costs are 25% of the school budget. The district regularly chooses between fixing the furnace or paying the increase in health insurance premiums.
Can’t be. At my last job, my (single person) health care was about 10% of my rather modest salary.
I’m sure your observation about HC being a huge burden is correct; I’m only disputing the number. As we all know by now, HC is a huge problem for the auto industry and costs about $1500 per car, more than any component as raw material.
The 25% figure is from the school budget. The health insurance premium covers employees and their families. It’s scheduled to increase 17% in August. For small groups — like schools and other employers in the sticks — health insurance premiums are substantially higher than urban areas.
The economic choice is hard — pay the premiums and cut back on school services, cut back on health insurance for employees or raise taxes to give more money to insurance companies who have absolutely no presence in rural communities.
Not trying to be arguementive, just that the blocks don’t stack up.
Even if health insurance was 25% of salary, 2 1/2 times what my last employer paid for me, your number would have no room left for anything other than employee salaries and health care.