Mapleton opposes “the bad three”

The Mapleton Public Schools Board of Education has come out against a group of measures that will be on the November ballot.

The board voted unanimously June 22 on a resolution expressing members’ opposition to Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101, which aim to change taxes in Colorado.

“Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101 are so very dangerous and would attack how state and local governments, like our school board, are able to fund services,” Mapleton School Board President Norma Frank wrote in an e-mail interview. “Times are tough now in so many sectors. But if people don’t become educated on these issues and they pass, they will cause irreparable damage.”

Together, the three ballot measures would overall enact new Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) provisions, reduce taxes statewide, and limit the amount of debt allowed for local governments like cities and school districts. (For more on the impact to cities see page 1A).

School districts receive some funding from specific ownership taxes, and Proposition 101 would lower those fees considerably, said RJ Hicks, lobbyist for the Metro North Chamber of Commerce, which is opposed to the ballot measures. Currently, those fees are as high as $800 for new vehicles and $300 for older vehicles, Hicks said. Proposition 101 would lower those fees to $2 for new vehicles and $1 for old vehicles, according to the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute.

“Broomfield and Adams Counties would lose hundreds of millions of dollars,” Hicks said, adding 1/3 to 1/2 of revenue for the county general funds would be at risk.

Amendment 60 deals with property tax, also a source of income for school districts. Adams County School District 50 Chief Financial Officer Sandy Rotella said this amendment would require school district’s to reduce their property taxes by half, with the state filling in the rest. For District 50, that would mean about $7.5 million the state would have to fill-in, and Rotella said “that’s going to be on the small side for total impact.” It is also not clear whether the state would actually be able to meet its obligations to fill that gap, Rotella said.

The amendment also mandates that capital projects be financed over 10 years instead of the usual 20-30 years, Hicks said. In District 50, for example, Rotella said the district’s 2006 bond was financed over 20 years, so had Amendment 60 been in play, taxpayers would be paying double what they are now.

Amendment 61 deals with debt, which is how school districts fund many of their capital projects, like building and fixing schools. The measure would “prohibit state debt and seriously curtail local debt, and sever the related payment streams by lowering taxes,” according to the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute.

Rotella said school districts sometimes use loans to meet payroll during the early months of the calendar year, before property taxes are collected.

While other area school boards like those in Adams 12 Five Star Schools and District 50 have not passed resolutions like that in Mapleton, they may not be far behind.

District 50 School Board President Vicky Marshall said the board has not yet had formal discussions about the ballot issues, but will take them up when the board meets again this fall.

District 12 Board Member Fred Schaefer serves as the board’s legislative liaison. He said he would support a resolution in opposition to the ballot measures, but the board has not yet drafted one.

“It would be really, really bad for public education,” he said of the three ballot measures. “It would be disastrous for our budget in Adams 12.”

The district cut $22 million this year and is projected to cut another $16 million next year, without the ballot measures in play.

Still, Schaefer said, there is some validity in what those who support these measures are after, and their perspective should be taken seriously.

“It’s also about accountability,” he said. “But it’s the wrong way to do it. You don’t get accountability by strangling the funding for public projects.”

Those who oppose the measures say they are worried the changes will look good on paper, and people won’t think about the impacts.

“Some of these measures may sound good on the surface, but they are deceiving and destructive,” Frank wrote. “Our school district needs so much support. These measures would send districts – not just ours – into the poorhouse.”