Colorado state senators recently engaged in more debate over Senate Bill 135, ultimately passing the measure and sending it over the House for consideration.
The bill sends a ballot measure to voters this November, exchanging billions of dollars in Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) refunds for a relatively small increase in education funding.
The Senate debate was enlightening in showing which amendments the bill sponsors supported and more importantly, those they did not.
For the Kids (But Not Too Much)
One might think that the logical mechanism of a bill titled “State Public K-12 Education Funding” would be to increase revenues and direct the new money to Colorado’s public K-12 education.
That is, after all, how SB-135 is being marketed to voters.
Instead, as previously explained, only a small portion of the expected revenue would be directed to education, while the rest would likely be used to “stabilize” the budget, i.e., fund healthcare and thereby possibly fund fraud.
Unfortunately for the bill’s proponents, it is not that easy for voters, the Title Board, and even other legislators to deny the evidence of their own eyes and ears.
That is likely why Senator Byron Pelton proposed an amendment to the bill requiring all retained revenue be directed to the “Kids Matter” account rather than used for “any other purpose,” as the bill calls for.
Senator John Carson showed his support for Pelton’s “truth in advertising” amendment, saying, “This bill sets in motion a process, if it is approved by the taxpayers of Colorado–this will be by far the largest tax increase in the history of Colorado.”
The reasoning behind the amendment is that if the legislature is going to sell the bill as a K-12 funding bill, they should actually direct all retained revenue to education, especially given that such a substantial tax hike is no small ask of their constituents.
One might think that the bill’s proponents, who work tirelessly to increase education funding, would be ecstatic to receive Republican approval to direct all retained funds to education.
Instead, the amendment died at the bill sponsors’ behest.
So, What is the Goal?
I don’t doubt that the bill sponsors want more funding for education, but what’s a mystery is why they don’t do not want as much as they could actually get for K12 should the measure pass.
It appears that SB-135 is actually designed to give legislators a short-term “win” for education (and a major win over Colorado taxpayers), while also leaving enough plausible deniability if academic achievement, teacher retention, and teacher pay do not improve significantly with the new funding.
In other words, if legislators did amend the measure to make all $1.1 billion in expected first-year retained revenue be directed to education, yet desired outcomes didn’t materialize, it would be more difficult to convince voters that education has a “funding problem” or that TABOR is why the state can’t “fully fund education.”
