March 16, 2010 08:33 PM UTC

Ballot Amendments 60 and 61 aim to undermine civic structure

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• by: Bowman for Senate

Forget Osama Bin Laden.

Anyone interested in efforts to bring the American way of life to a screeching halt in Colorado need look no further than ballot Amendments 60 and 61. Presented as a package with Proposition 101, these initiatives are intended to drive a knife through the heart of funding sources for two of the most critical functions government serves: education and infrastructure.

Changes that Amendment 60 seeks to make include the repeal of hundreds of local voter-approved funding initiatives passed in the 18 years since the TABOR Amendment went into effect. Kiss local control over the TABOR initiative goodbye which, by the way, was supposed to be all about giving power to the taxpayer. The measure would also prevent state government from using revenues generated by economic growth and development – growth and development built with and upon state-supported infrastructure.

More dangerous, however, is the amendment provision which would cut by half the amount of property tax revenues allocated to Colorado Schools.

If the latter seems a little abstract, consider a few local numbers: Property tax revenues disbursed to Yuma County Schools in the current year totaled a little over $9 million (which does not include bond funds). Amendment 60 would slash that figure to $4.5 million. Logan County schools received $9.76 million this year, and property taxes accounted for $2.38 million in Prowers County school funds. Under Amendment 60, they would both have gotten half those dollars.

Amendment 60 proponents say the shortfall would be made up by the state. The irony here is that these are the same people who are bringing us Proposition 101, and non-partisan analysts have estimated that initiative would cut state revenues by nearly $2 billion.

And the timing for cuts in education funding could not be worse.  

Our state’s per-pupil funding is about $1,400 below the national average, and considerably lower than four of Colorado’s bordering states. Figures from the National Center for Education Statistics indicate our per-pupil funding is $1,000 less than New Mexico’s, $1,700 below Kansas’, $2,500 below Nebraska’s, and $5,600 less than Wyoming’s.

Moreover, in the current legislative session, the joint budget committee is mulling per-pupil funding cuts of 3.9 percent, and school administrators are facing overall cuts of 6 percent to 10 percent from the state.

Amendment supporters such as Marty Neilson, president of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers, have offered a fairly cavalier response to concerns over these budget-busting bills. The Denver Post quoted Neilson last month as saying: “I know the schools’ mantra: ‘It’s for the children.’ But many of our graduates going on to college have to take remedial classes. These schools need to perform a bit better and do it on the funds they have.”

Essentially, she is saying our schools are so bad, they don’t deserve another dime. What’s more, even the suggestion that they “do it on the funds they have,” is ludicrous since the foundation of these proposals is to cut those very funds.

Then there’s Amendment 61. Having attacked state and county revenue sources with the aforementioned initiatives, this proposal would severely curtail public financing of state infrastructure. Further, the viable system of lease-purchase agreements that has long been used to build Colorado’s schools and prisons would be off limits. In addition, according to the Secretary of State, passage of this initiative would put an end to the Building Excellent Schools Today program, a system which currently funds the most critical capital construction projects in 65 districts statewide.

These proposals are all made under the umbrella excuse that dollars left in the hands of government are inevitably mismanaged. And while it would be ridiculous to argue that all legislatures and bureaucracies are consistent bastions of efficiency, consider the following: Most state governments have seen their credit rating fall in the last year; Colorado has not. In addition, Colorado has an investment pool of about $6 billion. State officials had the foresight not to have any investments in the sub-prime market, no stocks, and no holdings in Lehman Brothers.

Something else to think about: The validity of these initiatives has come into question because of concerns that financial information related to the process of collecting petition signatures has been under-reported in an effort to avoid disclosure of petition backers. Eight of the petition circulators have direct ties to Doug Bruce, author of the TABOR Amendment and a well-known polarizing figure in Colorado politics. Richard Coolidge, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office, said the case “which challenges portions of the campaign finance laws, is still being litigated.”

In the meantime, our schools, roads, and other lynchpins of Colorado’s social and civic infrastructure are under attack. It is incumbent upon those elected officials, chosen to protect and serve public interests, to take a public stand on these over-reaching initiatives. Either decry them for the budget-busting attempts to undermine legitimate government that many see them to be, or at the very least, attempt to make a cogent argument on their behalf. Either way, taking no stand at all – as many elected officials have so far been willing to do – keeps the majority of constituents uninformed in an effort to appease the strident few.