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%
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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*
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CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
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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*
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80%
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CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
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CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
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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 10, 2012 02:02 AM UTC
4 Comments
Not that Nelson Garcia would publish anything against the desires of JeffCo R1 Administration, what JeffCo really needs is to stop abusing and wasting tax dollars. There is more waste that could have been spent in the classrooms and on teachers.
JeffCo R1 is too heavy adminsitratively, and many are way over paid. Do we really need a $500M (annually) communications department who has to outsource hundreds of thousands of dollars more in work? Do we really need 100 administrators making over $100k per year? I don’t think so.
Teachers are not paid enough. However, times are tough and most of us are not getting paid what we are worth; most have not seen pay raises, and our incomes are surely not in line with the rise of inflation. However, most teachers only work 185 days a year and they contribute 8% to their retirement while taxpayers (also hurting financially) contribute 15%? Time for teachers to suck it up with the rest of us and start putting in their own money into their retirement plans.
NO ON THE BOND/MILL. Dumping money into a broken system, won’t fix the system and bankrupting parents won’t help the children.
Jen – please correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I understand, not only do you not have any children in Jeffco schools, but you don’t even live in the District! So what is your agenda with regard to your continued rampage against the Jeffco School District?
Jeffco is not too heavy administratively – they are as lean as they can get. Remember, you get what you pay for. W/regard to waste, 57 cents per dollar goes to classroom instruction, 10 cents for instructional support, 9 cents per dollar goes to special education, 11 cents for buildings to hold the classes in, 8 cents for principals and support staff, and district-level administration 5 cents. So doing the math, 95% of Jeffco revenues stay right in local schools, if you want to hold classes in a building and have a principal.
With regard to your comments about PERA (the retirement plan), the Jeffco Board of Education is required by law to pay into PERA at the rates set by the State legislature. So you can complain all day about what Jeffco pays vs what the teacher pays, but the District has no control over it – take your complaint to the State legislature. Don’t punish 86,000 kids by withholding support for 3A and 3B in November because you don’t like the employer PERA contribution – that’s just plain irresponsible.
Finally, it is clear that you do not value teachers or public education, and in fact feel that teachers are paid too much, which is ridiculous. I would like to think that voters in our District will research the facts for themselves as I have done and will discover that the Jeffco District continues to do an amazing job educating our children despite the continued budget cuts from the State, but there comes a point when the taxpayers have to step in to help with a short-term solution while we work on other long-term solutions.
For more information and to find out how you can help support 3A and 3B (and help to combat the negative and false information out there), please visit http://www.supportjeffcoschool…
Jraiffie asks that voters reject the mill levy, gut the Jeffco school system, and shoot their own property values in the foot in order to make an ideological point. Amazing.
A quality school system is what makes Jeffco an attractive place to live, and we’ve already been living on 8 years of underfunded, borrowed time. We’ve been eating the seed corn. Homeowners will lose far more than $34 a year in property value when the reputation of the Jeffco school system tanks in the coming years.
That doesn’t matter to the anti-tax crowd, though. They’re all about cutting off the nose to spite the face, even when it costs them and the voters in the long run.
It’s a simple fact: we need to pass the bond and mill levy if Jeffco is going to have any hope of staying in the top tier of places to live in the metro area.
Too many political insiders, lack of innovation, absence of vision … a ‘no’ vote on a Jefferson County School District property tax hike issue this coming November is an easy call.
Education is so important to living a satisfying and contented life, yet a governmental institution charged with imparting this quality to our children that is so stuck in the same old tired way of doing things should not be enable to keep practicing ‘the same old tired way of doing things’.
Parents and students may have to struggle a little bit more by deciding to not give the educrats at the Jeffco school district a cash infusion; but perhaps a rebuke by taxpayers will tell the insiders on the Board of Education and the long-in-the-tooth superintendent that the time for real change is finally at hand.
Before we give them any more money, taxpayers should look to see movement towards real change: the Jeffco school board could pass a resolution to state and federal representatives voicing opposition to high stakes standardized testing; they could direct its legal team to find whatever ways might exist to curtail and/or minimize the current extent of standardized testing; they could move towards a policy of freeing teachers from the constraints of micromanaged state and federal curriculum mandates, and re-empowering teacher to be more creative within their classrooms. On the fiscal side, the board could explore privatizing competitive varsity sports to companies that could, for example, lease fields and courts from the district, but run those programs in cooperation with, yet independent of the schools.
There are many bold, creative ways to finally get our education system on track to impart real learning, knowledge and experience to our kids, but apparently the Jeffco district wants more money to simply prop-up the ‘reform’ status quo that has demonstrably failed.
Now, it would also be a positive development if for once teachers would make common cause with parents and concerned taxpayers to demand from the education establishment in Jefferson County the kinds of innovations that would benefit everyone (except the insiders and their corporate sponsors). As a supporter of the labor union concept it pains me to observe, however, that the teachers’ union here tends to be as stuck in the mud of the past as the school board.
Perhaps a dedicated opposition to this proposed tax hike will develop and articulate why a more futuristic, fundamental restructuring is essential before hard-pressed working class Jefferson County residents should vote to give-up more money to Jeffco schools.
http://www.davechandler.info/2…