State officials say proponents for Amendment 68, which would bring casino gambling to an Arapahoe County horsetrack, intentionally mischaracterized a recent state audit of education finances in order to drum up support.
In a sharply worded three-page letter to the two former lawmakers behind the amendment, the Colorado Office of Legislative Services said proponents wrongly interpreted a state audit’s findings and used that misinformation to promote the ballot initiative.
The letter, sent Sept. 19 to former Rep. Vickie Armstrong, an Akron Republican, and former Sen. Robert Hagedorn, an Aurora Democrat, points out how online advertising insinuated State Auditor Dianne Ray’s office supports the measure, when she is precluded by law from doing so.
In the online ads, Amendment 68 proponents said the audit determined state schools “need funding” and imply support for the ballot measure would translate into those dollars.
“Nowhere does the audit report state any conclusion of either the (Office of the State Auditor) or Auditor Ray that ‘Colorado Schools Need Funding,’ ” according to the letter signed by Sharon Eubanks, deputy director of the legislative services office. “It’s simply a false reading of the report to use its objectives and limited factual findings to draw the (self-serving) conclusion supporting Amendment 68.”
Eubanks called the efforts “false or reckless statements that are illegal under state law.”
Officials with the campaign disagreed with the characterization, but relented nonetheless.
“The Yes on 68 campaign provided only accurate information detailing the state auditor’s report about the poor financial health of many Colorado school districts,” spokeswoman Monica McCafferty said in an e-mail. “Yet in order to not prolong any confusion or controversy, we promptly removed the online banner ad.”
Opponents said it’s not the first time they’ve seen issues with accuracy in advertising.
“This is the second time supporters of Amendment 68 have been caught lying in their advertising,” said Bill Cadman, chairman of the No on 68 campaign. “If they take this many liberties with the truth before the election, imagine how they’ll deal with us after the vote, after they are locked into the Constitution.”
of Colorado school districts and uses a variety of benchmarks to determine how districts are doing.
The report found a number of school districts had missed some of the benchmarks — only one missed all three — indicating some questions over whether they could weather their obligations through the next three years.
Of the state’s 176 school districts, 20 missed at least two of the benchmarks, the report found. All 20 districts explained the problem in part as a spending-down of their reserve monies “due to reductions in state funding,” the report shows.
The ad used Office of the State Auditor’s official logo with the headline “Auditor says Colorado Schools Need Funding” beneath other text that says “Amendment 68 Will Help.”
at horse racetracks in Arapahoe, Mesa and Pueblo counties. Currently, Arapahoe Park in Aurora is the only horse racetrack operating in those counties.
Rhode Island-based Twin River Casino, which owns Arapahoe Park, is the chief backer of Amendment 68.
David Migoya: 303-954-1506, dmigoya@denverpost.com or twitter.com/davidmigoya
