Ritter ready to reveal education fund plan

Governor's proposal likely to seek halt in drop of mill-levy rates

By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News
March 13, 2007

Gov. Bill Ritter is expected to announce today a plan that would stave off bankruptcy for the state's education fund and provide more preschool and full-day kindergarten slots.

Ritter no longer is looking at tapping money from federal mineral-lease royalties for education - an idea that outraged the Western Slope.

The legislature, however, could still introduce a bill eyeing that pot of money.

And should. Tax money collected along the Front Range gets spread out all across the state. Since Front Range Taxpayers pay most of the income tax, sales tax and fuels tax, we wind up

subsidizing the rest of the state's schools, higher education, transportation, health care and everything else.

The only taxes paid primarily on the Eastern Plains and West Slope are related to energy: the Severance Tax and Federal Mineral Lease payments. State law keeps most of those revenues in the counties that generate it.

We should either keep tax revenue in the areas that generate it, or distribute them statewide.

Instead, Ritter's administration is looking at stabilizing the local share of K-12 education finances by halting the drop of mill-levy rates.

Ritter's spokesman, Evan Dreyer, would not offer specifics Monday. He said Ritter would announce his proposal at a news conference at 1:30 p.m. today at Northmor Elementary School in Northglenn.

I couldn't make the news conference; had to be in a JBC hearing.

Sen. Sue Windels, D-Arvada, and Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, said that in 1994 when the state passed a school funding formula, it set every mill levy in the state at 40 mills, which is how property taxes are calculated. A mill levy is the number of dollars a taxpayer must pay for every $1,000 of assessed value.

But the mill levies began changing because of a stipulation in the Taxypayer's Bill of Rights that allowed them to be lowered if revenues were at a certain amount. The mills at various districts in the state range from 2 mills to 38 mills.

The state then has had to make up the difference. Pommer, who sits on the Joint Budget Committee, said lawmakers and the new administration have been looking for additional money for education, including for kindergarten and preschool slots.

"The governor promised to cut dropout rates in 10 years," Pommer said. "If you're going to do that, you need to do something right now."

Ritter announced his proposal last month to tap federal mineral-lease money for education, a move that Western Slope lawmakers and leaders criticized. They said the money is needed in the communities where oil and gas drilling has had an impact on roads, schools, health care service and the environment.

Windels also said she doesn't want to tap that money because an interim committee over the summer might study oil and gas taxes.

bartels@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5327