It’s hard to imagine what state legislators might do to balance the budget if Colorado’s largest teachers union successfully challenges the proposed $260 million in cuts to K-12 education.
Colorado Education Association officials say they’ll work during the next legislative session to stave off the cuts, and could possibly sue the state for violating Amendment 23, which requires certain levels of education funding.
We hope legislators don’t, in an effort to avoid a dust-up with educators, instead revoke more tax exemptions. Gov. Bill Ritter already has turned that ground, finding $132 million in proposed revenue increases. Doing much more could hurt businesses and therefore prolong the recession and make the budget problem even worse.
Todd Saliman, Ritter’s budget director, and other key Democrats, including Rep. Mark Ferrandino, a member of the Joint Budget Committee, believe they are on solid legal ground in the way they have constructed the cuts to K-12.
We hope so, and not because we want to see education funding suffer. But it’s not fair to whack higher education any more or cut social services funding further without asking K-12 for sacrifice.
The state is facing a $1 billion shortfall in 2010-11, and the governor’s budget-balancing plan is fair, we think, in spreading the pain.
The Colorado Education Association contends the education spending reductions would violate Amendment 23, and the drumbeat for a challenge has been increasing since the governor pitched his budget plan last week and the effect of the cuts became more clear.
Educators and the union have formed a group they’re calling Honor 23, an effort they say is intended to defend the state constitution.
Ritter’s plan includes asking K-12 schools to give back $110 million the legislature “froze” last year. The administration also proposes to revamp the “factors” in the complex school finance formula.
Ritter proposes cutting the cost- of-living factor, but creating a new “equity” factor that is supposed to ensure no district takes a disproportionate budget hit.
The tweaking of the factors is likely what would be at the heart of any legal challenge. Amendment 23 requires per pupil K-12 education funding to raise by inflation plus 1 percentage point through 2011, and inflation after that. But Ritter’s plan would result in a 4.6 percent cut to education funding.
We wondered how Attorney General John Suthers viewed the issue, and whether he would defend the Ritter administration if the state was sued.
Through a spokesman, Suthers said the cuts are legally “defensible,” leaving unanswered the question as to whether he would defend them. Suthers has issued memos on other matters in the past, such as the proposed Pinnacol fund raid, saying they were indefensible.
It’s an interesting parsing from a top Republican state official that lends some weight to the Ritter plan.
Still, the road to balancing the state budget will be a rocky one and everyone, including K-12 education, should have to share in the rough ride.
