Denver's immigration problem: a town hall. If you are paralyzed running from the cops, who's at fault? Does CO really underfund its schools?
Denver's immigration problem: a town hall/panel discussion.
I was intrigued by the panel discussion about the problems Denver has had with immigration lately, and I thought you might be too. The link to it is below.
In contrast with other panels about other issues in other news outlets, I thought this was pretty balanced and worth a listen--including those you might not agree with.
Link is below and the video is embedded in the article.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/denver-gazette/denver-immigration-town-hall/article_f181b15c-0cef-11ef-b032-2bcd75d79ed0.html
How much care should and/or can the police take of you if you're running from them?
The article linked first below is a little short AP feature on a police chase that didn't end well for the suspect; as the result of a fall after being hit with a taser, the suspect is now paralyzed.
And he is suing the officer** that tased him for $100 million because, to quote the article, the officer "... fired a Taser at his back without warning which incapacitated him and prevented him from using his hands or arms to break his fall to the ground."
In addition to reading the article, I would urge you to watch the entire bit of body camera footage shared with the reporter (and linked second below for convenience's sake) so that you can have a fuller understanding of the situation than the single quote you'll get in the article.
Thinking this one over brought up a whole bunch of issues for me and I would welcome your thoughts on it. Feel free to add a comment if you'd like.
I don't think being paralyzed for life is an appropriate punishment for stealing a car (or joyriding in one you knew was stolen, it's not quite clear at the exact sequence of events here). That is, I don't think the man who was running from the police deserved this outcome.
Being undeserving doesn't automatically mean that someone else should be responsible, however.
If you do watch the entirety of the bodycam footage you will see that this gentleman was warned to stop running. He may not have been warned about the taser, but the police identified themselves and told him to stop. He was told more than once that the K9 was going to bite him if he didn't stop. And he didn't stop until tased.
Would it be nice to be warned before being tased? Would it be nice to be tased in an area where you'll land on soft grass? Probably. Never been tased, but it's reasonable to say a faceplant on pavement vs. grass are two different things.
The officers didn't choose where he was when the one with the taser caught up. They didn't choose which direction he ran in. They obviously didn't choose to have him continue to flee lawful detainment DESPITE being warned/told to stop.
So I return to the top: how much care do the police owe you when you are running from them?
How much is reasonable? How much is even feasible (you have to remember we are all finite creatures and cannot put our attention to everything all at once)? I can't help but wonder how many pursuits would be successful if they had to worry about things like this.
There are cases where continued pursuit is more of a harm to society (the police and suspect included) than a benefit, but this was not that kind of case. There are legitimate boundaries to put on pursuits, but having to warn a suspect about being tased, having to think through where and how they land ahead of time is too much.
The suspect deserves some pity and sympathy for the outcome, but that's about it. The officer was not irresponsible or negligent. I don't think it's reasonable to foresee a bad outcome here and if the young man wasn't running, he wouldn't be where he is today. I also seriously question whether being warned about being tased would have stopped him. If the threat of a police dog latching onto your arm isn't enough ...
Those are my thoughts. What do you think?
**Interesting wrinkle here, the suspect is suing the officer individually, not the department. I can't help but wonder at that choice and also wonder at who approached who here (did this man seek out counsel, did one find him).
My cynicism tells me that trial lawyers (think someone like Frank Azar) figure Colorado, with its laws and progressive attitudes, might be good hunting grounds for lawsuits against police. If that were the case, though, why not sue the department, they have deeper pockets.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/05/10/man-paralyzed-taser-running-coloradpolice-lawsuit/
How much are we putting into education and what are we getting for it? Part 1: are we shorting our schools, and where does the money come from?
This will be part 1 of a 2 part series, part 1 today will offer some counterpoint to the idea that Colorado is terrible about how much money we put to schools.
It may appear that way if the discussion stays at the level solely of the School Finance Act, the big school funding bill that makes it into the papers and is hammered on by politicians.
This is, I believe, due to a combination of things. It's due to the insatiable appetite that government has for your money, and politicians trying to please their union paymasters.
A fuller look at school funding, one that includes more of the actual monies going to schools paints a different picture. Perhaps a less politically expedient one for some, but a fuller picture nonetheless.
The report I link to first below came from a reader. He had prepared it for the Colorado House Republicans.**
There's a lot in there and I'd recommend poking around in the table of contents so you can see what it covers.
I won't be covering the whole thing here, of course. What's feasible for me is what I mention above. One more quick note before proceeding: I would not have used this report as a source were it not for the fact that the author used government numbers and then gave his sources.
For example, much of what I cover here comes from a part of the report which leans heavily on the "FY 2022-23 District Funding Calculation Worksheet – December 2022" report by the Colorado Dept of Education. I linked to where you can find that report second below. Know where people get their info and trace it back.
I won't go into huge detail on school funding (have tread that path once), but I can summarize the important parts for us here so you'll have some quick context. More detail on the process, should you want it, is in the report on p 36.
--The state tells districts how much money per student they must provide (the thinking here was to try and "level" the education funding across the state).
--The and local districts look at how much money the local districts CAN provide, almost always mainly through the mechanism of property taxes. If a county can fund on its own, great. If not, the state will make up the shortfall.
--The state then adjusts how much money they will give the district through what are called "factors" and "categorical funding". You likely already know one: the BS--budget stabilization--factor is a notorious one because it was what the state took out of funding to skirt Amendment 23 (where voters amended the constitution to require a specific increase in school funding).
It is those extra sources of funding that I want to zoom in on here because, with the exception of the BS factor, there are lots of extra funding sources outside the short list above.
Let's start with factors. As suggested by the name, factors take the usual amount money a district would get and multiplies it by a number bigger than one. That way the money grows.
E.g. let's say we were looking at a district with lots of students whose first language wasn't English (English Language Learner, or ELL students). That district would get extra money from the state because it takes more resources to teach ELL students.
If you want to see the various factors for school funding (almost all created by a 2021 bill), I took a screenshot from p 38 of the report and attached it as screenshot 1.
This money from factors adds up. Take a look at screenshot 2 showing table 3 from p 39 of the paper. These are the top per-pupil funded school districts. Looking at the counties and districts mentioned, it's pretty clear these are not rich districts. Oh, and by way of comparison, the author states, "...the lowest after-factor per pupil funding level was $10,015 in El Paso County’s Academy 20 school district."
Categorical funding is not exactly the same. It is the same in that it's extra money from the state to a district, but it differs in that it serves particular needs or one group of students (e.g. paying for busses).
Screenshot 3 attached shows both the categories and the increases since 2018 of the various kinds of categorical funding our state is sending to schools. In terms of totals a 62% increase since 2018.
What about local governments? What are they doing to fund schools beyond the usual property taxes? How have they increased?
For a more detailed rundown, see the report starting on p 41. The two main sources covered here (there are others, but usually they're much smaller contributions than these two) are Mill Levy Overrides and selling bonds. I'll leave it to you to read up on those details and will simply quote results here.
A quick but important note: take the time to read the bottom of p41 to the top of p 42. The author here discusses an important point on his numbers. He includes capital costs for things like school buildings as part of yearly-per pupil funding. Not everyone agrees on this. Know what you're getting.
The last table is table 5 from page 42 of the report and it's screenshot 4.
Two things are notable in this table. First, I want you to note the discrepancy between the "Total Average District Receipts Per Pupil" (6th column) and the "Average Per Pupil Funding Per [School] Finance Formula" (11th column).
In other words, the far right column is the number oft heard in debates at the capitol and in the press. The 6th column, however, is the actual per-pupil amount COLLECTED (verified by state audit) by the district.
That is, while the School Finance Formula says that the fiscal year 21-22 (last year for which there were audits) per-pupil funding was $8991, the actual per-pupil amount of money that came in was $18,456.
Just about double the number that the politicians and press talk about!
Second, Notable in the table is that, while total students have grown by 5.5% for fiscal years 2014-15 up to 2021-22, the actual amount collected per pupil rose by 48.2% in that time. Yet another discrepancy.
Remember these numbers when you hear the press and politicians discussing how much Colorado is putting to education.
Remember them, too, for part 2 where we ask: what are we getting for our (extra) money?
**There are people who take time to prepare information for elected officials and share that with them so as to help the elected officials be better prepared for debates. There are people who do this for Democrats and people who do it for Republicans.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QKonOPR7Uc0uG1j1Yd-5gIQGZZnh7UPD/view?usp=sharing
https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdefinance/fiscalyear2022-23schoolfinancefunding