After months of community input and discussion, school boards across the state are now facing the reality of the budget calendar. But even as boards start taking official action to slash their budgets, legislative staff broke the news on Wednesday that state cuts to K-12 will grow from the 6.12% originally proposed to 8.8%. From Ed News Colorado:
The Joint Budget Committee Wednesday afternoon was told it should set a target of $509 million, or 8.8 percent, for what the legislature should trim from the amount schools otherwise would have expected to receive in the 2010-11 budget year.
Some of the casualties so far? In a Tuesday vote, the Pueblo 70 board decided reluctantly to make the five-day school week a thing of the past:
Board member Bill Bregar, who voted no [to a four-day week] last year, said that with this year's deficit, the district had to deal with "an 800-pound gorilla in the room."
"Unless we make a big cut, we are not addressing the 800-pound gorilla. I don't like the four-day week. My guts tell me the four-day week is not the best decision we can make for kids. It's going to have to happen because we have to deal with this serious budget deficit."
Also on Tuesday, the Douglas County School Board gave preliminary approval to increased class sizes, furlough days, suspension of its pay for performance system, and transportation fees, among other budget strategies:
A total of $15.5 million in cuts is aimed directly at schools. Class sizes would increase on average by a handful of students per class, but the specifics would be up to the individual schools to decide how to best spend their money. . .
Employees would be required to take three furlough days during the school year, creating a savings of $3.8 million. Suspending performance pay for all employees for a year would mean an extra $4.2 million.
In addition, the district's central office would take a $7.8 million hit, and students would be charged a $1 daily fee for riding the bus.
And in El Paso District 11, action was delayed on many of the most difficult cuts, including ending summer school. The hearing was difficult:
With the JBC's action we know it's only going to get worse. Take action.
It has taken a few decades, a couple of constitutional amendments and a number of economic downturns to bring Colorado to this moment: $1900 behind the national average in cost-adjusted per pupil spending, struggling to cope with deep state budget cuts, anticipating the loss of thousands of teaching jobs. So, not surprisingly, it's going to take a broad array of tools and efforts to climb out of this hole.
One critical tool in the effort to provide adequate resources to our public education system is a legal strategy -- specifically, filing suit on behalf of children, parents and districts to vindicate the constitutional right to a "thorough and uniform" system of free public schools.
Here in Colorado, that lawsuit is known as "Lobato" and it was filed in 2005 by the public interest law firm Children's Voices. Though originally dismissed by a lower court, the Colorado Supreme Court reinstated the case in October last year, reaffirming that the thorough and uniform clause gives students a substantive right to a quality education and that Colorado courts have the authority and duty to determine whether Colorado's education system meets the requirements of the Colorado constitution.
On Monday, Children's Voices filed an amended complaint in the Lobato case, notably adding as plaintiffs Jefferson County -- Colorado's largest district -- and El Paso District 11. As summarized by EdNews Colorado:
As was the case when the lawsuit originally was filed, the core of the plaintiffs' argument is that Colorado public schools are so under-funded that students are denied an adequate education, in violation of that state constitutional mandate of a "thorough and uniform" system. . . .
"The state has persistently failed to fund public education in a rational and sufficient manner and at the levels required to meet constitutional and statutory standards of quality," the complaint reads.
"The Colorado public school finance system particularly fails to provide sufficient funding to provide a constitutionally adequate, quality education for the under-served student populations in the state." . . .
"Education reform legislation has established instructional and other substantive goals and mandates without analyzing the cost to attain those goals or providing the means to fund the accomplishment of those mandates. The General Assembly has enacted education reform legislation without corresponding reform to the system of school finance."
The suit seeks a court declaration that the current system isn't rationally related to the constitutional education mandate, doesn't provide enough funding to fulfill that mandate and violates the constitutional rights of school districts. It asks injunctions directing the state to fix the system and establishing continuing court monitoring of any such efforts.
Public education advocates (including Great Education Colorado and the newly created Great Futures Colorado Campaign) will continue to work aggressively toward improved investment in public education at the legislature and at the ballot box. Only with an accompanying and complementary legal strategy, however, can we ensure that the right of Colorado's children to a "thorough and uniform system of free public schools" will ultimately be vindicated.
School Boards, administrators, teachers, and most importantly, students are grappling with how to deal with at least 6.12% cuts across the state for next year. Higher education institutions, students, and parents face possible tuition increases, as state funding for higher education faces down the Cliff.
We're keeping close track of the impact of cuts across the state with local narratives (video and written), news articles, per pupil cut amounts, and specific cuts being considered. In fact, we're giving people a chance to take action and add their stories to the Map telling state leaders what these cuts mean for students, that they've got to do everything possible to minimize cuts and to support a long-term solution to the P-20 education crisis.
The school board is considering moving to a four-day school week next year, a change that could make up for about $50,000, or 25 percent, of the current necessary cuts. The four-day week would allow the district to reduce some personnel hours and transportation use, as well as save in food service and energy usage.
Increasing Class Sizes? There's a Map (and petition) for That too! Littleton
"There are already over 25-30 students in each classroom as a result of last years surrounding school closings. We took on those extra students. Now there are more proposed cuts which will reduce teacher headcount,para-professional headcount and specials headcount(PE, music and art)...our children are falling behind terribly."
(Source: M.L., Littleton, Great Futures Map / Petition)
Fewer Critical Support Services? There's Even a Map for That! Salida
"After waves of cuts over the past year, the school district is now considering charging for bus service in this large and mostly rural county. We've also been told that the music program will be cut at my daughter's elementary school."
(Source: E.A.W., Salida, Great Futures Map/Petition)
"As school nurse I deal primarily with the low income and the underinsured and uninsured...These kids usually turn to and rely on the school setting to meet their many needs: food, clothing, a community that cares for them. Our budgets are already stretched so thin that we scramble to assist these kids in crisis...any more cuts to our school system will be depriving these kids of basic services such as hot food for their hungry tummies and a chance for the extra help they need to succeed in school, in life and an opportunity to be productive adults....Children are our future- our hope for a better world - cut our funding and you most definitely will drastically reduce our hope for a better tomorrow."
(Source: K.B., Mancos, Great Futures Map / Petition)
A guest commentary by Carol Eron Rizzoli in Sunday's Denver Post Perspective section tells the story of how a school in Colorado's Mapleton district was saved by the generosity of a school in Maryland:
This sad situation came to my attention by way of my daughter, Amanda, who had landed her first teaching job in a Denver elementary school. Equipped with a master's degree and student-teaching experience in Detroit, she was nonetheless distressed. She had never heard of a school without a library. I suggested that she get busy and do something about it.
"Like what?"
I hesitated. Mothers are supposed to be a fount of constructive ideas, even in a late-night phone call. Then it hit me: Call up your elementary school and ask if they can help. To my surprise she did, and they did.
By luck, Amanda found her former fifth-grade teacher still on the job 15 years later, and together with students and their families at that elementary school 1,000 miles away, in Maryland, they created a library for Adventure Elementary School in the Mapleton School District.
Book drives have been the public service project of many an Honors Society and Sunday school class for years. And, as with those drives that so many Coloradans have sponsored, the efforts of Maryland's Carderock Elementary School have made a great difference in the lives of children in Mapleton's Adventure School.
That said, is this the Colorado we want? Where the availability of library resources for our children depends upon the charity of our kids' counterparts in other, better-resourced states?
Underlying this lovely story is yet another indication that, if Colorado is waiting for a true crisis before we address our budget mess -- we're there.
Colorado's budget continues to push legislators toward temporary solutions that would be unthinkable under normal circumstances. The latest:
State lawmakers are considering giving public universities the freedom to set tuition rates to make up for a looming drop in funding. . . .
"We are trying to figure out how do we give the higher education system flexibility that will allow them to survive the budget cuts that are inevitably coming in the next two or three years," Morse said. . . .
Morse said he's concerned about making a college education inaccessible for most residents.
The Denver Post editorial board weighed in on this difficult balance, noting that time is of the essence in finding a solution for higher ed funding:
Increasing tuition now, when the economy is in its weakest stages of recovery, will be a difficult burden for many families to bear. Higher tuition may allow schools to backfill scholarships for low-income students, but colleges need to be careful about pricing middle class students out of the market. . . .
The better answer rests in finding a dedicated state source of funding for higher education that doesn't get annihilated during the cyclical economic downturns.
That is, no doubt, a tall order in this state.
Gov. Bill Ritter has appointed dozens of people with impressive resumes to serve on panels that will study study the funding crisis as well as other large-bore higher ed issues. . . .
The down side, and it's a big one, is that these committees won't be done with their work until after higher education falls off the financial cliff. (Emphasis added).
The urgency of finding a solution to Colorado's education funding crisis couldn't be greater. We know the cliff is coming, and that irreversible, economy-harming cuts will continue for the foreseeable future unless statewide action is taken at the ballot.
It's as if Colorado is heading into a car crash in slow motion. But it's not too late to take control of the wheel.
With Colorado being ranked 42nd in per pupil funding, there aren't a whole lot of states lagging behind us. Arizona is one of them -- but perhaps not for long.
As we've reported before, Arizona is facing a serious budget crisis but the state's Governor, Jan Brewer has been fighting to prevent debilitating cuts to education. This week that fight paid off:
It took almost a year but Arizona voters will get a chance to decide whether they want to raise state sales taxes to help solve the state's multi-billion dollar budget crisis.
The Arizona House of Representatives passed bills Thursday that put a 1 percentage point increase to the state's 5.6 percent sales tax on a May ballot for a statewide vote. . . .
"At long last, the voters get a voice. It is a voice key members of the legislature, and I have fought for a voice for our children and our future, and it was worth the effort," [Governor Jan] Brewer said in a statement. . . .
Business groups back the sales tax increase hoping it will help avoid cuts to education and key services.
Alabama and Mississippi passed us years ago. Now Arizona is taking action to prevent cuts, while Colorado's cuts seem to just keep growing.
When the dust settles from this recession, some states will be more prepared to recover and thrive than others. Where will Colorado be on that scale?
On the Great Education Colorado website you'll find an interactive map that tells the story of what budget cuts mean to students, schools, colleges and universities. You'll also find a petition, calling on state leaders to look at the stories on the map and to consider every possible option -- including revenue enhancements -- to minimize the cuts.
Public school supporters from every corner of Colorado are adding their stories to the map.
From L.D. in Castle Rock (Douglas County) a story about why a transportation cut that is seemingly unconnected to the classroom has a profound impact on the academic future of at-risk kids:
My son, who is a junior, is in the IB program. Since they have cut the busing for the IB students, it limits the number of children (especially 9th & 10th graders, who do not drive yet) entering this wonderful program. IB caters to the children that excel and want to challenge themselves academically. . . .[I]t saddens me to think that children who had hopes of entering IB may not be able to so.
From V.P. in Ordway a story typical of rural Colorado:
When I started teaching in Crowley County, 26 years ago, there were approximately 20 teachers in the high school, today there are 10. We have cut every program, teachers, benefits, aides, support personnel, everything we can think of to cut and it still isn't enough. Coupled with decreased enrollment, we are going to be extremely hard pressed to survive.
From J.P. in Centennial, concern about higher ed funding:
We have seen a tuition increase twice in close to one year at CU Boulder. We have two nephews who can't afford to attend higher education full time. We are concerned about smart students being priced out of college completely and the lack of motivation for H.S. students if the goal of college is out of reach due to finances. We are concerned that the acceptance of out-of-state students becomes a priority to fund our Colorado colleges thus pushing Colorado residents aside. Greatly concerned that the best instructors, at any level will teach elsewhere, and worse, be forced out of their profession due to lay offs or low salaries.
Englewood District School Board President Scott Gorsky said it well after the Board ratified deep cuts to the budget.
"Everyone needs to notify their legislators that is time to quit talking about it and make public education a funding priority."
Colorado's budget crisis is so serious that the Legislature has taken actions that would have been unthinkable just a year ago. With the passage and signing of S.B. 65, which officially reduced K-12 funding by $130 million in the current school year, lawmakers have reinterpreted Amendment 23 into irrelevancy. From social services to mental health to the senior homestead tax exemption, the Legislature has made deep cuts to the safety net beyond what anyone could ever have predicted.
Those supporting the suspension of tax exemptions and credits (including Great Ed) point out that people's livelihoods (and lives) also depend on preventing deeper cuts to K-12, higher ed, Medicaid, public health, child protection services and other safety net programs. Every dollar that is not brought in through revenue enhancements, requires another dollar of cuts from these programs -- most likely K-12. As summarized by Andrew Bateman, President of the Associated Students of Colorado, supporters of the revenue enhancements seek "a budget that is balanced [between cuts and revenue enhancements], not just a balanced budget."
The unfortunate truth is, there are no budget fixes left that will not have a detrimental impact on someone. The immediate question before the Legislature is whether the entire burden of cuts should be borne by schools, colleges, kids, public employees, and people who depend on the safety net, or whether instead lawmakers should use all the budget tools available to them in order to fashion a budget that better reflects the values and priorities of this state.
And on this point, all parties should agree -- the Legislature needs more tools at its disposal to solve this budget crisis. As business points to the need for more broad-based sources of revenue, because of TABOR the legislature is limited in the new revenue sources that are available. Under a 2009 Colorado Supreme Court ruling, the Legislature's options lie primarily in eliminating and suspending tax credits and exemptions.
Unfortunately, the legislature's hands are largely tied on this one. And Colorado will not be able to emerge from this economic crisis in a thoughtful, fair and deliberative manner, until the legislature has more tools at its disposal.
Today's Denver Post tells the story of what is befalling the city of Colorado Springs after residents there defeated a property tax increase that would have replaced disappearing sales tax revenue.
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops - dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open.
Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.
For years, in the public discourse, the connection between taxes paid and services received has been increasingly forgotten. Colorado Spring's experience should be a stark reminder that taxes represent a community's decision to collaborate for a common good -- whether that be safety, sanitation, schools or parks.
The state of Colorado should look at Colorado Springs as the canary in the coal mine; with billions of dollars in cuts this year and last, the state is going down the very same path.
Now, Colorado's colleges and universities are struggling to cope with continuing cuts and a looming 2011 funding cliff. The Denver Post reports that part of CSU's approach will be tuition increases:
Colorado State University students will likely see a 9 percent increase in tuition next year, according to Rick Miranda, CSU's interim provost.
Colorado higher education institutions are scrambling to cut costs and find new revenue ahead of a funding crunch that will leave them short a collective $230 million - or more - in 2011, when federal stimulus money runs dry. . . .
A tuition increase would follow a 9 percent tuition hike approved for the Fort Collins campus last year for the 2009-2010 school year. . . CSU tuition has increased every year since 2001.
Over on the EdNews blog, Paul Teske, Dean of the UCD School of Public Affairs, asks the frighteningly relevant question, "How low can higher ed go?", documenting some of the real life consequences of our lack of adequate investment:
For example, the research evidence is clear that college students are more likely to stay in school if they are taught, in their freshman year, by tenure track, or at least full time faculty members, who have time to mentor them. And yet, due to limited resources, most institutions employ part-time adjuncts to teach the majority of freshman courses, who don't have time for mentoring. We know this isn't good for achieving our goals of students graduating from college, but we do it anyway, because we have to.
As school districts plan their 2010-11 budgets in the face of expected statewide cuts of $350 million or more, we know the likely impact on students will be great. Earlier this week, Joint Budget Committee Member Representative Jack Pommer highlighted another real and immediate impact of school budget cuts on our economy: job losses.
At a St. Vrain Valley School Board meeting reported by the Longmont Times-Call on Tuesday:
Based on an average teacher salary of $50,000, [Joint Budget Committee Member Jack] Pommer estimated 5,000 Colorado teachers will lose their jobs because of the funding cuts.
(For a sense of the magnitude of these losses, compare it to recent layoffs in the news, such as the loss of 129 Colorado jobs at Sun Microsystems, as part of a layoff of 3,000 employees globally).
Representative Pommer is right. The massive proposed cuts to K-12 will result in job losses, and, consequently, larger class sizes for students. And it's not theoretical. As the Denver Post reported today, layoff talks have already begun in Littleton Public Schools:
The district of 15,500 students is considering laying off at least 100 full-time employees - more than half of them teachers - to make up a $9 million budget shortfall projected for the 2010-11 school year.
"We're scrambling," said LPS Superintendent Scott Murphy. "I've never seen it this bad."
Of course, these job losses will harm local economies, especially in Colorado's small communities. It's the last thing districts want to do:
"It's one of the most difficult things we're facing," said [Littleton] school-board president Bob Colwell of the likely layoffs. "Now is not the time to tell people they need to look for jobs. I think we're probably going to have to cut more in the future."
You can take action and tell your story about current and proposed cuts here.
As state leaders do important work in promoting Colorado's application for federal Race to the Top education reform dollars, Colorado itself continues to gain ground in its race to the bottom when it comes to K-12 funding. Education Week's annual Quality Counts state school finance data study is out, and the news isn't good for Colorado. We're continuing "the Colorado trajectory" -- falling farther behind the nation and other states that are competing with us for jobs, economic development opportunities and educators.
Here's a comparison of the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Quality Counts data (note that because of the lag in available data, the new statistics are based on 2007 expenditures -- that is, before the current recession):
Per pupil funding, adjusted for regional cost differences: 2008: 38th nationally
2009: 40th
2010: 42nd
Per pupil spending (adjusted for regional cost differences) compared to U.S. Average: 2008: $1,034 below the national average
2009: $1,449 below the national average
2010: $1,919 below the national average
Rank in percent of taxable income spent on K-12 2008: 43rd
2009: 43rd
2010: 43rd (Hallelujah!)
Rank in teacher pay parity (i.e., how teacher salaries compare to salaries in comparable professions) 2008: 43rd
2010: 50th
The conventional wisdom is that Colorado isn't going to address its fundamental budget woes until there's a full-blown crisis. A torrent of articles from around the state (see for instance here, here,here, here, here, here, here and here) makes it tough to deny that we've arrived.
One must-read news story about the budget woes in East Grand, epitomizes the struggles of just about all Colorado's districts. The article lists all the possible cuts that are on the table:
Recruitment 100 percent
International Baccalaureate 100 percent
Dues, fees, memberships 100 percent
Food service 50 percent
Preschool 50 percent
Conferences 50-100 percent
Administrator 12.5 percent
Insurance increase co-pay 40 percent
Classroom materials reduction 20 percent
Textbook adoption rates 25 percent
Athletics reductions and eliminations 15 percent
Field trips 100 percent
Debt service 100 percent
Capital transfer 100 percent
7-12 teachers 10.4 percent
Summer school elimination 100 percent
Technology capital reserve 36 percent
Grounds/maintenance 24 percent
Elementary counselor reduction 100 percent
Food service outsource/vendor 50 percent
Operations/maintenance 15 percent
Custodial staff 25 percent
Media staff 15 percent
Secondary counselors 33 percent
Grounds 38.6 percent
Technology materials 50 percent
School nurse 50 percent1-2 furlough days
Technology staff 25 percent
Secretary staff 18 percent
Testing
Kindergarten tuition
Closure of Grand Lake Elementary School
Staff salary schedule, move or don't move
One teacher on the committee that will make recommendations about the cuts put it this way:
"What is heartbreaking, at least for me - and I cried all the way home from the DAC meeting last night because it's the community that has supported this school district to be as strong as it is, and has invested so much time historically in the people and programs to make the district what it is - and now, to a certain degree, we are disassembling what we have created. . . Whether it's a program, a tradition thwarted because of changes, whether it's people's livelihoods, it's heartbreaking, especially since it is so fiercely personal."
Yes, we're there, Colorado. You can tell your story about what the crisis means to students in your life here, and pledge to help turn the tide here.
After a two-week holiday, school boards and CFOs are coming back to harsh budget realities for the 2010-11 school year. Here's a sampling of what's in store from Grand Junction to Peetz (at the Nebraska border).
In Telluride, district officials are contemplating a $600,000 cut:
The first cuts will most likely come in professional services and other fringe expenses though there is little doubt that the culling will reach into classrooms, first as cuts to elective classes and then perhaps deeper. It would be hard for them not too: more than 80 percent of the school district's spending comes in the form of employee salaries and benefits.
Cherry Creek is bracing for $12-13 million in cuts and Aurora expects a $16.4 million fiscal hole next year. Meanwhile, Mesa School District 51 in Grand Junction, which struggled to keep cuts out of the classroom in the current year, faces an expected $8 million cut in 2010-11:
[School Board member Greg Mikolai] says these cuts will be tough because everyone in the district is already doing what they can.
"Much of the saving have been made due to the effort of the teachers themselves. And trying to cut and save on, you know on office use and supply use," says Mikolai. . . .
It's too early to tell what will be cut to make up for the 8 million dollar shortfall next year. District 51 is looking into offering early retirement to some staff members. An estimated 600 people are eligible. The district estimates saving around 2 million dollars if they decide to take the voluntary offer.
Great Education Colorado is a nonpartisan, statewide, grassroots organization of public school
supporters that advocates for adequate funding for K-12 education in Colorado.
1600 Downing St | Denver, CO 80218 | 303.722.5901
