Local school funding ballot measures were a mixed bag. Will Polis be crowing about this? The El Paso election results show you that your vote matters!
Local school funding ballot measures were a mixed bag.
The longer story is in the Chalkbeat article below, but a fair synopsis would seem to be that local ballot issues to raise money for schools largely succeeded or failed according to whether the ballot measures asked for more money or whether they asked to (for lack of a more precise term) simply asked to borrow and/or move money around.
This is typified by the quote in screenshot 1 attached.
Kind of not surprising to me. I am open to judicious and thoughtful proposals to put more money into schools, but I also don't really feel like I have a bunch of extra money hanging around.
And this outlines a problem I think school districts, particularly the smaller, cash-strapped rural districts, are going to face. If you want to generate new revenue to pay teachers more or to update aging school buildings and technology, how do you do it? I mean, perhaps outside of asking when people feel flush with money.
Good question. If I knew a definitive answer, I wouldn't be here writing this, I'd be selling to the highest bidder.
I can tell you what I'd like to see, what would help convince me to vote yes on a question seeking to raise my taxes.
--I'd like to see a past history of effective use of taxpayer money. The money goes to students and not to waste. It helps students instead of feeding the district.
--I'd like the ask to be temporary. I'm happy to update buildings and technology. This shouldn't raise my taxes in perpetuity. Make the ask time-limited.
--Make the ask go directly to what you say it will. Don't ask for more money only to turn around later and say you spent it on something else.
Those three would up my chances of voting yes. How about you? What would help convince you to vote for a raise in taxes for schools?
Related:
New report out calling for a change in how our state grades its schools. More in the article below.
And, hope that what is adopted won't just be moving the goalposts so failure is now called success.
https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/12/school-grading-system-overhaul-task-force-report/
Will Polis be crowing about this?
Our governor recently bragged about how he managed to cut insurance costs, leaving out pesky details like the fact that it was only for some in the single payer market and also that by "cut" he means blunting the increase a little. See the first link below for more context if you want it.
One wonders if Polis will be as eager to tout the increases in Medicare coverage for PERA retirees detailed in the Sun article linked second below.
It turns out that PERA retirees had a pretty good deal with Medicare Advantage providers (a secondary insurance that covers up to the actual cost of medical care which Medicare alone doesn't). There was a 3 year contract with the insurers which began in 2021, and so it is set to run out.
And just like you've heard multiple times over the last few years, inflation has taken its toll; the price has to take a big jump to keep up with the (LARGE) increase in prices over the last 3 years.
I mean, it's not Polis' fault that the Medicare rates are going up, just like it wasn't his fault for rates for anyone else.
I guess I just figure that if Polis can twist a story about individual market health insurance rising at 3x the rate of inflation into a success story, surely he could do the same for PERA retirees right? I mean, all it takes is courage and an ability to completely unselfconsciously and credulously lie to people. Jared, you can do it!
On a more serious note, I shudder to think what a new level of price increases is going to do to the already struggling people in PERA who are on a fixed income and thus apt to be hit hard by inflation.
Put that with the fact that PERA is nowhere near self-sustaining and will either need to get more money from taxpayers or cut benefits (or both) to stay afloat and you get a pretty grim picture.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/11/06/colorado-pera-medicare-advantage-prices/
Your vote matters.
The screengrab from politics reporter Marianne Goodland's twitter account here says it better than I can.
Your vote matters. Period. End of sentence.
Vote every election. Encourage others to do the same.
Vote regardless of whatever you think the outcome will be.