Two important conclusions were reached at last weekend’s unprecedented, two-day summit of higher education leaders.
If Colorado is ever going to sink more money into its colleges and universities – which are central to its economic future – the schools need to act as a community, and not backbite each other in a mad grab for cash. They also need to prove to taxpayers that they’re getting more bang for their bucks. More efficiency, more degrees conferred, more access.
Now, the real problem: How to get more money out of tight state coffers.
Higher ed leaders had ideas there, too. University of Colorado president Hank Brown wondered about tapping into a potential $2 billion in federal mineral lease money from Colorado’s natural-gas boom. Mesa State College president Tim Foster floated the idea of selling the state lottery to a private enterprise and setting up a trust fund with interest going to schools.
There’s even been talk of going to voters with a tax hike tied to K-12 funding, which would be an easier sell politically than seeking money solely for academe.
But those are merely patches on a broken system – or, as we’ve called other budget fixes in the past, “golden gimmicks.” Coloradans and their elected leaders need to steel themselves for bold changes in how the state budgets its money.
Only Stephen Jordan, president of Metropolitan State College, got close to fingering the problem. He favors revamping Colorado’s constitution to repeal the yearly 6 percent limit in spending – the pre- Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights spending cap.
Colorado schools need $832 million more each year to meet the average funding of national peers, according to the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. The shortfall includes tuition as well as state money.
Money already is flowing into state coffers that could begin to backfill that shortfall, but it’s earmarked for items such as transportation. Spending mandates in the constitution limit lawmakers’ ability to set priorities and divvy up general fund money.
A constitutional overhaul would alter policies that tie up funding for higher education, including Amendment 23, which mandates increases for K-12, and TABOR.
Former congressman David Skaggs, who is now director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, is fond of citing Article 4, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution when he talks about Colorado’s budget mess. It guarantees each citizen a representative democracy. With each new mandate and initiative that’s been cemented into Colorado’s constitution over the past two decades, we move further away from representative democracy.
House Speaker Andrew Romanoff recently floated putting a pair of measures before voters: The first would waive the constitution’s “single-subject rule” to get voters’ permission before trying to change more than one part of the state constitution in the second ballot measure. It would alter those conflicting constitutional provisions that limit state revenues while mandating K-12 spending increases.
We were glad some Republicans, including Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, didn’t immediately rule it out.
It’s a serious and complex discussion that must be had about our future – no matter the political consequences.
