DENVER-
The governor’s plan to bring in $84 million more a year in tax dollars for schools appears to be running into trouble at the state Capitol.
Sen. Abel Tapia, the chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said Wednesday that support for the politically charged plan is “sporadic” even among majority Democrats.
“I don’t think it will go anywhere this year,” said Tapia, D-Pueblo, who supports the plan.
Ritter has proposed blocking a projected drop in property tax rates in all but three of the state’s 178 school districts to fund full-day kindergarten and pre-school and shore up the state education fund.
The fund is expected to run out of money by 2012, which would force the state to cut out other programs, including higher education, because a voter-approved law requires education funding to increase every year.
The plan would mean homeowners would pay more taxes but another state law—the Gallagher Amendment—would shift more of the property tax burden onto businesses.
Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald also raised doubts about the proposal, which she said would drive some people out of their homes if the properties have risen in value. She said she warned the governor’s office to delay the unveiling of the plan at a school press conference last week because of legal questions.
“On the second floor we definitely understand that it’s a flash point,” Fitz-Gerald said, referring to the Legislature’s location in the Capitol. The governor’s office is on the first floor.
Fitz-Gerald was among a majority of senators who backed a similar proposal in 2004 but she said no one had raised the issue of whether voters needed to approve it.
Colorado’s tangle of tax laws is further complicated by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a constitutional amendment that limits government spending and requires voter approval of tax increases. Legislators have asked whether Ritter’s school funding plan would violate the amendment, known as TABOR.
The governor’s office doesn’t think so. It sent lawmakers a copy Wednesday of a new legal opinion saying the proposal doesn’t violate TABOR.
Right now, even though voters in 175 school districts backed relaxing TABOR limits, the state finance act has been interpreted to prevent revenue in those districts from growing by more than an amount equal to inflation plus student enrollment growth. To fit under that limit, school districts have lowered their property tax rate so they don’t collect too much, leaving the state to pick up more of the tab for schools.
State Treasurer Cary Kennedy said the state’s share of school funding is 64 percent this year and the figure will continue to rise without a change. Kennedy said school districts haven’t been hurt because the state has stepped in to make up the difference.
“But we can’t improve funding for education in Colorado when every new state dollar is going to backfill the loss of a local dollar,” Kennedy said.
Fitz-Gerald, who is considering running for Congress, said Ritter’s proposal makes sense logically “but logic and politics don’t always go hand in hand.” She declined to comment when asked if she thought Ritter was foundering.
Another budget committee member, Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, said something needed to be done and he had an open mind on Ritter’s proposal.
“At a certain point we cannot sit here and say no to all the proposals. That would be irresponsible,” Buescher said.
Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said the governor would continue to push for the plan, which he said was a well-thought out policy proposal to avert a “fiscal crisis.”
“He was elected to solve problems and this is a very practical approach to solve a very specific proposal,” Dreyer said.
Colorado State University political science professor John Straayer said it’s not surprising that not everyone is in synch since it’s both a murky legal area and it’s politically sensitive to support something labeled as a tax increase. He said Ritter and lawmakers are both restricted in what they can do because of TABOR and Amendment 23.
“He (Ritter) gets credit for at least trying to do something in an extremely difficult fiscal environment,” Straayer said.
