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April 05, 2009 05:38 PM UTC

The Kids Are Not Alright

  • 23 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel reports:

A move by the Joint Budget Committee to cut $300 million from spending for higher education marks “one of the most important policy shifts this state has seen in a very, very long time,” Associated Student Government President Adam Davenport said Thursday as about 70 Mesa State students gathered in Houston Hall. “It will alter the higher-education landscape for decades to come.”

Mesa State officials said they would have to consider tuition increases to make up for the rounds of cuts, if the budget committee’s proposal to reduce spending on colleges and universities by $300 million, or half of what had been budgeted, is approved by the Legislature.

Houston Hall was built by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression, “when government invested” in its people, Davenport said.

Davenport and several other Mesa State students plan to rally Monday at the state Capitol as the Senate takes up the budget proposal.

And the Pueblo Chieftain reports:

Colorado State University-Pueblo student leaders will help spearhead a rally Monday at the state Capitol to protest the Joint Budget Committee’s decision to make deeper cuts in the higher education budget.

In December, the JBC agreed to Gov. Bill Ritter’s recommendation to slice a combined $52 million from the state’s 2008-09 and 2009-10 higher education funding.

In March, the JBC approved another $50 million in cuts to higher education followed by the decision this week to cut a whopping $350 million, for a total of $452 million from the 2009-10 budget.

“We will see complete devastation at CSU-Pueblo if these budget cuts pass,” Steve Titus, chief of staff for the Associated Students’ Government at CSU-Pueblo, said Friday.

And the Fort Collins Coloradoan reports:

CSU officials had been bracing for cuts that were already likely to force furloughs and have forced layoffs at Larimer County’s largest employer. The new cuts, if implemented, would be far deeper than expected.

“There’s almost no way to react to it,” said CSU system CFO Rich Schwiegert. “It’s a lot worse than I expected. I’m a little amazed that anybody would vote for cuts this deep in higher ed.”

He added: “(This) will be a very, very long conversation within our organization on to how to deal with that.”

The funding cut is not set in stone. It is still a recommendation made by the Joint Budget Committee and must be formally debated by lawmakers before heading to Gov. Bill Ritter for his review. That process is expected to take several more weeks.

The JBC backs a bill to take $500 million from workers-compensation insurer Pinnacol’s reserves and leave it with $198 million, or $85 million more than regulators require. That money would be funneled to higher education…

Schwiegert said he expects students and administrators from the Fort Collins campus to visit with lawmakers next week to press their case for alternatives. [Pols emphasis]

Once can expect that those won’t all be the most, you know, cordial visits. Returning to the Grand Junction Sentinel, we see the real problem at the heart of the Joint Budget Committee’s brinksmanship with higher education in the balance–can they even pull it off?

Raiding the reserves of one of Colorado’s largest suppliers of workers’ compensation insurance might be a novel approach, but it has yet to win his support, Gov. Bill Ritter said Saturday.

Legislators have suggested that the state use $500 million of the $700 million in reserves of Pinnacol Assurance to help balance the state budget and offset cutbacks by colleges and universities.

“I appreciate the fact that the Legislature is trying to be very creative,” Ritter said in an exclusive phone interview with The Daily Sentinel.

“I have not said I support going to Pinnacol, but at the same time I am looking for any way I can to avoid making cuts to higher education,” Ritter said, noting he “has put more new money into higher education than any governor in the history of this state.”

The Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee last week slashed more than $300 million from higher-education spending, cutting the amount it previously had allocated for colleges and universities by 35 percent.

To make up for the cuts, the committee proposed using $102 million in federal stimulus funds and $300 million from Pinnacol’s reserves.

The committee also proposed using $200 million from those reserves to shore up the state general fund.

Whether Pinnacol even has those reserves remains to be confirmed, Ritter said. It’s also not clear that the state can take the reserves, he said.

We get that the JBC strongly believes they can take these reserves, and that may well be the case in the end–but they have yet to make that argument convincingly, and as you can see they haven’t even convinced the Governor. The whole gamble at work here will rest on the ability of proponents to sell the public on the plan to “backfill” these massive cuts with Pinnacol money. That’s not an easy job, full of dense legalese and ‘inside baseball’ explanations that make the public’s eyes glaze over within seconds–but they’d better get on it, and right now.

Because 30% tuition hikes and community colleges shutting down have a way of getting the voter’s undivided attention, but like Gray Davis can tell you, it’s not the kind of attention you want.

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23 thoughts on “The Kids Are Not Alright”

  1. Even if it can be done, it merely puts off the problem for 1 year. They need to come up with a permanent response and that probably includes a tax increase on the November ballot – maybe one that is temporary until the recession is over.

  2. to assert that he’s done a good job with higher ed, when he couldn’t even get a tax increase approved on the oil companies that would have been $20 million more than the current figure they’re talking about cutting.

    If A-58 had been written well, and if the campaign for it had been run on something other than lies (it’s not a tax increase!) than we wouldn’t have to worry about it as much.

    This is has been typical of the Governor’s leadership style:

    “I have not said I support going  to Pinnacol, but at the same time I am looking for any way I can to avoid making cuts to higher education,”

    Basically, “I’m working on it”. Well, Governor, you’ve been working on it for quite a while, and it appears that the JBC has been the only one with any solution. Governor Ritter enjoys telling others that their ideas won’t work, but he rarely comes up with ideas of his own. It’s been that way with health care, and now it’s happening with higher ed. He could very well have injected all this new money like he claims, but the fact of the matter is that we’re still at in impasse.

    Perhaps a blue ribbon commission could solve all our problems.

    All I know is that this isn’t exactly getting me psyched up for 2010.

    1. With the drop in oil and gas prices, the state’s projected take in industry taxes is falling sharply. If Amendment 58 had passed, there wouldn’t be near enough money next year to help higher ed.

      If the JBC had real guts, they’d cut prison funding.  

      1. Cut prison funding so we can be like CA and have the federal government make the state spend the money to properly fund the department of corrections?

      2. Amendment 58 would have raised severance taxes by $320,000,000. This was the tax credit the industry received in the 70s. That number wasn’t a guess on how much they would be collecting, it was a real number that the O&G companies would have been forced to come up with to properly pay their taxes.

        Considering how poorly written the amendment was, you’re right, Gertie, in saying that it might not have been the immediate solution to the higher ed funding problem. However, I don’t think that you’re correct in assuming that severance taxes wouldn’t have been the same amount they are every year.

        1. Severance tax revenues have fluxuated wildly over the years. With the reduction in production due to over supply, you can bet the revenue stream from this source will be going down drastically for the next few years.

          1. So it wouldn’t have been the entire $320,000,000 that it was claiming it would raise. It still would have been something helpful, and it could have potentially protected college students from the tuition hikes in the form of the scholarships it would have provided.

            Gas prices are going to be back at $4 a gallon sooner than we think, and that increased revenue would have helped greatly.

            1. as when the proposal was first introduced but due to the reduction in production caused by the glut of natural gas on the market and falling oil prices it probably wouldn’t have reached $300 million if the proposal had passed; but your correct it would have helped higher education.

              All of this is another reason why TABOR and the other budget restrictions must go. We have a revenue and budget system that absolutely shreds some of our most basic and important programs, like higher education, when ever there is an economic downturn. This is no way to run a state but our legislature and Gov. Ritter are stuck with a system put into place almost twenty years ago that couldn’t have possibly foreseen the future. Our state budget system lacks all flexibility.

              As I’ve campaigned for in the past, we need to repeal TABOR and all of the budget gimmicks and return to representative government, like the founders of our state and federal governments put into place in 1787 and 1876 respectively. For example in the late 70’s and early 80’s, Colorado state government ran surpluses and the legislature and the governor returned the money in the form of tax rebates to our citizens. Yes, contrary to what the right-wing fanatics have told everybody, representative government can be and has been good stewards of our tax dollars in the past without any need for TABOR or other such silly policies.  

      3. Prison funding cannot be addressed until we reform out laws in such a way that non-violent offenders aren’t continuing to crowd the correctional system.

        Unless there are fewer prisoners in the system, then what Dabee is saying is exactly right.

        Prison reform needs to come from the entire legislature, not from the JBC alone.

        1. and not just the JBC.  Thankfully many of the right people are now discussing how to holistically help our criminal justice system in CO.

          Sentencing reform is an essential part and the coming bill is not bad (although, yes, the DAs will shit the proverbial brick from their litigious rear ends).

          The problem continues to be funding for diversion and transition options as well as other remedies such as drug courts, mental health courts, mental health beds…Without funding for programs that reduce recidivism, sentencing reform is a necessary, but solitary step.

  3. Been hearing about a late bill from Morse and Levy that will lop off a small amount from the top end of sentences.  Have also been hearing that even a modest change will be decried as the end of the world as we know it, but could save millions. Look for the DAs to say we will all be killed and the world will no longer be safe. Whaddaya bet Ritter joins ’em. I will be surprised if the Gov. has the political courage to sign it, even if the legislature has the courage to pass it.  Ritter continues to wear his DA hat as Governor and has not been able to take it off to look at the big picture of what is needed for the entire state.

    Today the POST reports that many other states are considering this or have already done something similar.  Notable exception is California, where the story states that the liberals in the legislature are afraid of being seen as soft on crime.   Given that there is no documentation that the sentencing we have in Colorado now is “evidence based” it will be interesting to hear the DAs, and the Guv, say that we can’t make these minor cuts because they are not “evidence based.”

    1.    If only Nixon could go to China, and only Clinton could sign welfare reform, then maybe only ex-D.A. Ritter could reduce non-violent offenders’ sentences.

  6. Assuming if he goes for sentencing reform, it will be in his second term, but yes, he has to get there first, and I am not assuming he gets there.  There are a lot of variables at play.  Though if I had to bet today I would bet on him, just because he is the incumbent.

      1. with this caveat:

        It should be noted that tuition increases could be minimally offset by tuition reductions for any affected student who is currently paying nonresident tuition.

        Still working under the assumption that our tuition covers our costs.  We can fill every seat at every community college with kids and it won’t keep them open.

        I don’t know if that’s a reason to vote for the bill or not, but the positive revenue stream theory is killing me.

        http://www.leg.state.co.us/cli…

  8. Most of the state budget is on state constitutional or practical autopilot.  Higher education is one of the few moving parts that can lawfully and practically be cut in hard times.  

    The other lawful and practical option is to raid cash funds (case law have given the Colorado General Assembly great authority to do so).

    Some combination of the two seems almost inevitable.

     

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