It’s disingenuous to assume that the suggested cuts won’t have a ripple effect on the overall quality of education and the well-being of educators,” she wrote to the governor.Ĭonsidering that D51’s per-pupil funding will still rank 174 out of 178 districts in Colorado, we think Haitz makes a strong point. The intricacies of budgeting for school districts are far more complex, and your proposal oversimplifies the potential consequences. “The notion that such reductions won’t affect teacher pay or classroom instruction is optimistic at best. His proposal drew a quick and critical response from District 51 Board of Education President Andrea Haitz. That, in our estimation, is an appropriate local solution.īut Polis has asked school districts to consider lowering mills for non-instructional bonds or mill levy overrides since the property tax relief bill backfills school districts and the proposed budget increases per-pupil funding. “We are looking at all our options to save our residents the maximum amount of money possible, and lowering the mill levy will be considered,” said Commissioner Bobbie Daniel. This year, higher valuations are expected to provide the lion’s share of excess revenue, so a reduction in mills is a possibility. It did that because most of the excess stemmed from sales tax. Last year, for example, the county issued refunds to taxpayers through direct checks to all registered voters in the county. Mesa County Commissioners are no strangers to dealing with the prospect of excess revenues under TABOR. But some critics feel any burden on local governments due to a failure to provide permanent and equitable property tax relief is unfair. On one hand, circumstances have dictated local control and local solutions - generally considered an improvement over the Legislature’s propensity for statewide solutions. Reaction has been interesting to say the least. So now elected officials have to decide if they can get by on less than what they’re entitled to by adjusting mill levies downward. Stay up to speed: Sign-up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Fridayīut unlike HH, the stop-gap legislative bill that passed did not include a provision to backfill all budgets - only school districts and certain special districts, such as fire and ambulance services. Voters were clear that they didn’t want any alteration of the current TABOR formula. Prop HH called for using surplus state TABOR revenue to backfill all local governments for a 10-year drop in the state’s assessment rate and an increase in the exemption. We noted that Prop HH’s failure would likely result in more discretion for local taxing districts.
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