If Colorado could go back in time, it would pick 1992 as the year to do over. THE DEFEAT keeps Colorado’s schools behind in funding. Today, funding is 7.1 percent less for K-12 education than before the recession hit in 2008, despite a substantial increase in student population.
That’s when voters approved TABOR, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which has effectively strangled the state’s ability to adequately fund its commitments.
TABOR legislation put the power of the purse in voters’ hands. No monies for local, county or state purposes may be raised without voter approval. The change to the state constitution also mandates governments may make expenditures only in small increments. A city, for example, is allowed to spend each year only what it spent the previous year, plus an amount equal to inflation and population growth.
If tax receipts exceed those benchmarks, they are refunded to taxpayers. During the boom years of 1997-2001, the state refunded $3.25 billion in “excess” revenue to taxpayers as required by TABOR.
The result, no surprise, is a restriction on investment to the state’s roads, prisons, schools and other valuable services.
When the country experienced an economic downturn in 2001-03, the measure allowed a “ratchet-down effect,” which cut spending drastically — and stayed there. Services cut during the downturn were not restored when the economy rebounded.
In 2005, Coloradoans reversed a portion of TABOR, saying its limitations were too strict. Referendum C raised the spending cap for five years.
To add insult to injury, Colorado also has on its books the Gallagher Amendment, passed in 1982, which ties the rate of a personal property tax assessment to that of commercial businesses. Whenever statewide total residential property values increase faster than business property values, their property tax rates drop accordingly.
Take one look at the fast-growing cities of Boulder, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs, and you can see why the assessment rate for residential properties have declined by more than two-thirds over the years.
Both TABOR and the Gallagher Amendment have drastically limited potential funding.
An election Tuesday included a measure to raise state income taxes by almost 4 percent for the specific purpose of aiding its schools.
It was defeated, soundly.
Had it passed, the $1 billion raised would have gone to the Colorado K-12 school system as well as removed the constitutional requirement that K-12 funding adhere to the TABOR formula.
Opponents said the measure would hurt the state’s chances for economic recovery.
Proponents said the state remains unable to provide an adequate education for its students. They also had hoped to implement preschool and all-day kindergarten with the funding.
Not that we have any room to talk. Kansas funding for K-12 education is now 16.5 percent less over the same period. We rank third from the bottom in per-pupil funding.
Still, Colorado offers a valuable lesson on how an ideology like TABOR can hamstring a state’s budget, closing doors to possibilities and growth.
In Kansas, we need all revenue streams going at full bore — just to keep afloat. With the elimination of the personal state income tax on the horizon, comes the sound of a slow hiss. That’s a hole in our life preserver.
— Susan Lynn
Rocky Mountain low
