Re-de-Bruce the schools

School finance crisis looms

Clint Talbott, for the editorial board

Most Colorado voters have agreed to “de-Bruce” their school districts — allowing the schools to keep revenue that exceeds an arbitrary cap. A state law shouldn’t force them to “re-Bruce” — refunding property-tax revenue even as state finances suffer.

If you’re confused, take heart. Confusion is a natural byproduct of the labyrinthine Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, brought to you by the anti-government activist Douglas Bruce. But the bottom line in the latest budget brouhaha is simple: Most Colorado voters have de-Bruced their school districts, and Colorado’s governor only seeks to have the law recognize the voters’ intent — by re-Brucing.

It’s lucky, if such a word fits in this context, that the last state budget calamity is so fresh in the state’s memory. That might help Coloradans understand this latest unintended consequence of the state’s bizarre budget system, and it might prod them to avert the next looming crisis.

Gov. Bill Ritter is pushing a plan to freeze (and in some cases cut) property-tax rates across the state, in the hope of keeping the state education fund from tanking.

Because of the unanticipated interplay between state law and the Colorado Constitution, the local share of public-school financing has been dropping, which means the state’s share has been rising. If the trend lines don’t change, K-12 education will require funds that are needed by higher education and human services.

That would very much resemble the budget crisis from which Colorado just emerged, with the help of a 2005 statewide referendum. Now, as then, the definition of key terms is only loosely tethered to the common meaning of English words. Namely, foes equate taxes that fail to fall with a “tax increase.”

Ritter, the newly elected Democrat, is taking a second stab at stabilizing school funding. He first floated the idea of freezing property-tax rates several weeks ago, but the talk of “tax increases” shot it down.

Now Ritter is trying again, this time suggesting that property-tax rates be cut in 33 districts and be frozen in 145 others. He is armed with a new advisory opinion from the non-partisan legislative legal staff, which concludes that Ritter’s proposal “clearly does not constitute a new tax, tax-rate increase, mill levy above that for the prior year, valuation for assessment ratio increase for a property class, or extension of an expiring tax.”

Legally speaking, then, freezing or dropping property-tax rates is not a tax increase. As the Rocky Mountain News reported Thursday, however, the plan might result in higher tax bills for those whose assessed valuation rises.

Rep. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican, told the News, “If I am paying more property taxes next year with the passage of this than I would be paying without the passage of this, that’s a tax increase.”

Even if that were true, the fact remains that the voters have already consented to such a quasi “tax increase.” A 1994 state law is thwarting the voter’s will. The alternative to the Ritter plan is fiscal distress.

In a recent statement, Ritter noted that failing to act would mean that the State Education Fund will be broke by 2011. “As a result, every corner of the state budget not protected by the Constitution or a federal mandate — every service provided to the people of Colorado — will suffer. This includes higher education, health care, human services and the courts.”

We’ve just traveled that road. And since the voters have already given their consent, it’s hard to imagine why we wouldn’t shift course.

Editorial: When worlds collide

Education funding in Colorado is a complicated world.



It is a place where imposed funding limits collide with school needs and/or wants.

In Moffat County, this complicated world comes down to this simple statement: We have problems.

Well-intended amendments have cut, overlapped, created loopholes and complicated school funding, bringing the Moffat County School District's future to a crossroads.

Currently, we are in a wait-and-see mode.

We are waiting to see if the Board of Education decides 2 percent in cuts need to be made and what that would entail.

Waiting to see if the state Legislature will reform a funding formula that took MCSD from one of the top-funded districts in the state in the early 1990s to the lowest funded in the state per pupil this year.

Waiting to see how the financial puzzle will be pieced together during the next couple of years, and waiting to see the future impacts of our decisions today.

And we can't afford to wait.

On Thursday, the School Board discussed options of how to keep its budget on target. Problems the district faces include, but are not limited to:

• The cost of operating district schools is going up, but the rate of funding is not increasing at the same pace

• A big portion of funding comes from student enrollment, and Craig's enrollment level is declining

• The money the school district has saved through an override levy is dwindling to a critical level.

Because the school district currently has $6 million in savings, it could be argued nothing needs to be cut. That statement could very well be true.

At least for next year.

But that leaves very little, if any, room for emergencies the district might face, notably capital improvement issues, which warrant another editorial altogether.

After meeting with school district officials, the editorial board has come to this simple truth: With the current system, the school district either makes cuts today or makes cuts tomorrow.

What does that mean to you? With 86 percent of the budget tied up in personnel, it could mean fewer teachers, electives and extracurricular activities as well as bigger class sizes.

Thus, the vicious cycle begins.

People moving to the area compare schools in Moffat and Routt counties. If nothing changes, what will they see? One district offering more electives, teachers and extracurricular opportunities as well as smaller class sizes and better test results.

Which district would you choose for your child?

If more people do move to Routt County, Moffat County school funding decreases even more because of declining enrollment; therefore, more cuts need to made. Then, the cycle repeats.

Despite how complicated it sounds to unravel a legislative mess that has tied up the district, there is one simple solution.

You.

You need to get involved.

You need to educate yourself on the situation. Attend the School Board's community meetings, and make your voice heard at the April 26 meeting.

With the current set up, the editorial board cannot see how the School Board solves the issue without going for another levy. That may not be a bad thing. We cannot wait for the state to give us money to fund our children's education or wait for the state to unravel a mess that, frankly, may never be resolved.

We have to do it.

Whether that is through a levy, cutting classes or finding another alternative, you need to have a voice in this.

You need to contact your legislators. State Rep. Al White should be credited for the job he has done pushing for school funding reform, and the school district is doing what it can to help. But more legislators need to be made aware, and you can do that either through writing letters or making phone calls.

The long-term solution is curing the disease of an unfair system, and only changing legislation can do that. That's why you need to contact state representatives.

But we still have to address the symptoms until a cure is found. That is why you need to make your voice heard and offer solutions to the immediate problems.

If we do nothing, our education system -- our kids -- will simply be on life support, as the rest of the world passes us by.

Area school districts favor property tax "freeze" proposal

Chris Casey, ccasey@greeleytrib.com

March 25, 2007

Windsor would get an additional $140 per student, while Johnstown/Milliken would gain about $20.

That's what a couple area school districts stand to gain under a legislative measure that -- by freezing current mill levies -- nudges up the share of school funding from local property taxes. It's not a permanent fix to school funding problems, local school officials say, but a move in the right direction.

The Colorado Constitution requires our school system to be "uniform" across the state. To do that, we use the School Finance Act to make sure each school district spends an equivalent amount of money on each student.

But there's a quirk in the Finance Act that has left a few districts behind as overall funding has increased over the years.; If we can stabilize the local share, we'd like to use some of the money to help these "floor" districts.

With four of the state's lowest-funded schools on a per-pupil basis located in northern Colorado, school officials are watching the measure, which quickly sparked opposition in the statehouse. The amendment to the school finance bill is sponsored by Sen. Sue Windels, D-Arvada, and Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder.

Most of the estimated $84 million provided by the amendment would go to kindergarten and preschool programs, but an estimated $6.3 million would go to 11 school districts now at the funding floor.

Most of the money from stabilizing the local share would ultimately go toward preserving the State Education Fund. Without help it will bust in 2010 or 2011. But we'd also like to use some of the money for kindergarten and helping the floor districts.

Johnstown/Milliken Re-5J District is near that floor with per-pupil funding of $6,001. If the amendment passes, it would provide about $20 more in per-pupil funds to the district, said Superintendent Marty Foster.

Johnstown/Milliken ends up on the low end due to factors such as growing enrollment, lower-than-average at-risk student population, and moderate cost-of-living and personnel costs.

The efficiencies that come with a growing enrollment -- "the bigger the pot is the less it costs an individual in property taxes because it's spread around more" -- are helpful in Johnstown/Milliken's case, Foster said. Nonetheless, he believes equity is lacking in the school finance formula.

"Why should we receive less money than a district right next door to us?" Foster said. "There's really no rhyme or reason other than how they set their categories up" and how the funding formula works.

The current school finance system is a complex tangle of constitutional amendments and laws. Much of it limits how much local property taxes can go to school districts -- the Gallagher Amendment limits the amount of burden that can put on residential property owners -- leaving the state to make up for the lowered local share. The tax rates are set to decrease next year in most of the state's 178 school districts, in accordance with the 1994 school finance law.

Before Gallagher passed in 1982, Greeley-Evans residents funded roughly 60 percent of the Greeley-Evans School District 6 budget through property taxes, said Marlene Schuman, current school board member. Now the local share of the district's annual budget is about 30 percent, while the state kicks in 70 percent.

"So when we talk about local control, we don't have the dollars attached," Schuman said. "Local control is really at the state level. They can tell us what to do."

This is an interesting and important point. It's not why we're trying to stabilize the local share (it's already dropped too far to reverse the shift toward state funding and state control), but it's one of the long-term reasons why the state has taken so much control of local school districts.

Districts got some relief with the passage of Amendment 23 in 2000, which requires the state to increase K-12 spending 1 percent annually along with catch-ups for inflation. Meanwhile, the Gallagher Amendment and the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights serve to ratchet down the share of local property taxes to schools.

Some school officials say an overhaul of the funding formula is needed.

Windsor Re-4 District is currently the state's lowest-funded district at $5,869 per pupil, said Superintendent Karen Trusler.

"The funding gap is getting wider, and these funds (from the property tax proposal) would help keep the gap from increasing," Trusler said. "However, a full review of the finance formula and the factors needs to be considered."

This is true, but unlikely. The School Finance Act is so complicated, and money is so tight, that we haven't been able to make any significant changes. I've been planning to write a blog entry on this, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Jerry Wilson, superintendent of Poudre School District in Fort Collins, said Poudre would receive about $252,228, less than two-tenths of a percent of its general fund budget, under the proposal.

Poudre is also among the 11 floor-funded districts -- joining Windsor, Johnstown/Milliken and Thompson R2-J in Loveland as regional members of the list. With per-pupil funding of $6,237, Greeley-Evans School District 6 is not in that group.

"While the district will effectively utilize any increases in revenues, the hope for our district is that further equalization will take place over time," Wilson said.

The property tax measure was recently unveiled at a press conference hosted by Gov. Bill Ritter, who views it as a way to fulfill a key campaign pledge -- to cut the state dropout rate in half within 10 years -- and to prevent the state school fund from becoming insolvent by 2011.

The measure faces long odds, though, because it manipulates property taxes. It was voted down Wednesday as an amendment to the school finance bill in the Senate, and Sen. Abel Tapia, chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said most Democrats view the proposal as "too hot" to support.

While Ritter called the measure a mill levy "freeze," many lawmakers were quick to assert that tax bills will go up if property values rise in future assessments.

At least one northern Colorado lawmaker sees the proposal as a burden to property owners.

"Under Gallagher, any increase in local property tax support for K-12 really hits small businesses hard," said Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Fort Collins. "Plus, I think this should go to a vote of the people to keep faith with TABOR."

Steve brings up a good point, but it's a bigger issue than this. Stabilizing the local share doesn't increase property tax rates; by preventing the TABOR refunds, it would bring in more money by keeping the tax rate from going down. This article helpfully includes some sample mill levies at the end. Take a look at them and remember that the School Finance Act was originally based on a statewide school levy of about 40 mills. Some poorer areas in the state are still paying close to 40 mills. It's the more affluent areas that have had their mill levy pushed down. As far as TABOR goes, this proposal only applies to districts where the voters have already voted to take themselves out of TABOR's revenue limitation -- a local school district version of what Referendum C did statewide for sales and income taxes.

Foster said that, as a homeowner, he can understand concerns about the proposal.

"But I'm also pro-education," he said. "It does mean more back to the local share of funding vs. what the state is paying. I would be in favor of that."

BREAKOUT CHART:

Current mill levy rates for school general funds and per-pupil funding amounts for some area school districts:

* Windsor Re-4 District: 27.323 mill levy, $5,869 per pupil.

* Thompson R2-J School District, Loveland: 22.360 mill levy, $5,988 per pupil.

* Poudre School District, Fort Collins: 27.704 mill levy, $5,990 per pupil.

* Johnstown/Milliken Re-5J District: 18.414 mill levy, $6,001 per pupil.

* Greeley-Evans School District 6: 29.788 mill levy, $6,237 per pupil.

* Denver Public Schools: 25.541 mill levy, $6,794 per pupil.

Dems eye Net schools' funding

By Jennifer Brown
Denver Post Staff Writer

Democratic legislative leaders, upset about giving an extra $10 million this week for a tiny school district's online-education programs, want Colorado to tie funding to the district where students live.

It's a move that would strip millions of dollars flowing through rural districts with statewide cyberschools.

The legislature's budget committee doled out the supplemental money this week to the tiny Vilas School District in southeastern Colorado because of an unexpected increase in online students - many of whom are not Vilas residents.

Vilas has about 7,000 students, but only about 100 of them are not online.

Districts with online schools get $5,865 in state and local funding for each online student. How much of that the state covers depends on the wealth of the local tax base. The state chips in 99 percent of the cost for Vilas students but about 50 percent for Denver students.

That means the state is spending thousands of dollars more for Denver students who are enrolled in Vilas instead of Denver Public Schools.

Colorado's funding system for online education favors poorer, rural districts, which are less capable of monitoring statewide cyberschools, said state Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder.

"That's a big flaw," he said. "That sets up statewide online schools for failure, and to me, they are failing."

House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, said Thursday that she will introduce legislation that says the state will pay the state's share in the district where a student lives.

"Let's not pretend here. If kids are in Denver, then Denver needs to kick in its share," she said. "I can't imagine a straight- faced argument opposing this."

But critics of the idea say it's a cheap shot aimed at charter and online schools.

"There are people out there that want to squash online schools," said Jim Griffin, executive director of the Colorado League of Charter Schools.

House Republican leader Mike May of Parker said the measure would "cut funding for at-risk students" and "abandon them back to the traditional school system."

"A child shouldn't be relegated to second-class status because of the neighborhood where their parents live," May said.

A recent state audit could not determine how many online students are at risk.

An underlying issue in the debate over school funding is a district's ability to raise property taxes, said Vody Herrmann, Colorado Department of Education school finance director.

The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights limits property-tax increases to inflation plus the number of new students. When a district loses kids, the district's ability to raise property taxes and mill levies is ratcheted down.

Madden's proposal is one of several clean-up bills this legislative session after a scathing December audit of Colorado's online education system.

The audit said the state would have saved $6.7 million if all online students attended schools within their districts last year.

Vilas approved a charter application for Hope Co-Op Online Learning Academy, which has 81 learning centers across Colorado. Half of Hope's learning centers are in Denver, some right across the street from troubled city schools.

Hope has about 3,800 students this year, its second.

Vilas, which also has its own online school, receives $5,865 in state funding per student. The district and Hope keep part of the money and the rest, $3,577 per student, goes to the learning centers.

Vilas has an annual budget of $25 million. If Madden's measure becomes law, the district's budget would drop to $15 million.

Hope spokesman Steven Shapiro said Thursday that he would not comment on Madden's proposal until it is introduced.

Vilas Superintendent Joseph Shields has said he is developing a "corrective-action plan" so the district has more oversight of Hope learning centers.

A Denver Post investigation found that in at least 17 religious schools that host Hope learning centers, students were spending about two hours in a Hope computer lab and the rest of the day attending private-school classes.

DenverPost.com - Dems eye Net schools' funding - www.denverpost.com/...

Lawmakers scrutinize school funding costs

John Fryar
Daily Record Denver Bureau
DENVER — Several key lawmakers expressed concerns Monday over the state’s annually escalating share of responsibility for covering a majority of the present multibillion-dollar system of funding Colorado’s public schools.

None of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee members or any of the other lawmakers attending a Monday morning JBC briefing objected to the overall projected $5.1 billion price tag of Public School Finance Act distributions to Colorado’s 178 school districts in 2007-08.

However, some of those lawmakers indicated that sometimes-conflicting fiscal mandates and constraints within the Colorado Constitution continue to require the state to absorb increasing portions of the cost of paying for most of the day-to-day expenses of operating the state’s public schools.

Carolyn Kampman, one of the JBC’s staff analysts, said that of the nearly $5.1 billion in spending that the Public School Finance Act might amount to in 2006-08, more than $3.2 billion would have to come from various state budget accounts.

The other $1.8 billion would come from property taxes and specific ownership taxes paid directly to the local school districts.

Kampman reported that since 1993-94, when the basic framework of the state’s school funding law was first adopted, and the current 2006-07 budget year – when funding under that act is expected to total nearly $4.8 billion – the state’s annual share of that funding package has grown from 54.3 percent of the total to about 64 percent.

“The local-share issue is huge,” Boulder Democratic Rep. Jack Pommer said after Monday’s meeting.

Amendment 23, a measure Colorado voters approved in 2000, ensures annual increases in the base level of the Public School Finance Act’s per-student funding, but other constitutional provisions have meant the Legislature might face having to cut other state programs and services to meet that school-finance mandate, said Pommer, a JBC member and Amendment 23 supporter.

House Education Committee Chairman Mike Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs, another staunch Amendment 23 fan, said the shifting of school-funding burden to the state budget is a concern, “but what can you do about it” without voters approving changes to things like the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights?

Revising TABOR or the Gallagher Amendment, a 1982 constitutional change intended to protect residential property owners from some of that era’s growing tax burdens, are provisions that voters alone could change, noted Boulder Democratic Sen. Ron Tupa, soon to be vice chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

Tupa, though, said he didn’t know any solutions to the state-local share situation “that are viable.”

“We still haven’t cracked that nut,” Tupa said.

Merrifield said, “We have to bite the bullet and talk to the public about how they want to finance public education” in the future.

Agreed, Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Sue Windels, D-Arvada: “The only real solution lies in getting public support” for one or more school-finance-related ballot items.

Note created January 3, 2007

Cañon City Daily Record - Lawmakers scrutinize school funding costs - www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/...

School repairs languish

By Allison Sherry, Denver Post Staff Writer

In rural Colorado, thousands of students in run-down school buildings attempt to learn despite exposure to conditions that are unsafe and unsanitary. Four years ago, after a lawsuit by parents, the legislature

pledged $190 million by 2012 to improve schools. But only $51 million of that has been allocated. Critics say Colorado has reneged on the bargain, but lawmakers reply that the state is broke.

Those lawmakers don't mention that they voted to cut taxes to make the state broke.

Dilapidated schools in Colorado's poorest communities are still falling apart - and in some cases making students sick - four years after the state legislature pledged $190 million to improve them.

Elected officials have allocated only $51 million of that brick-and-mortar funding, allowing only about 20 major projects in poor districts to be finished. Critics say the state's budget crisis has made it easy for lawmakers to renege on promises to help mostly rural school systems repair or replace crumbling buildings. Others say the money simply isn't there - and because the state is so broke, the funds can't come from the legislature.

Meanwhile, thousands of Colorado pupils continue to endure inadequate school buildings, sometimes in unsanitary and unsafe classrooms.

In San Luis, for example, sewage backs up and spills into the hallway. There are no smoke detectors in schools in Kim. In Aguilar, there was so much bat feces in the old school's belfry that several sixth-graders fell ill.

"These are schools no one in the metro area would go to," said Vody Herrmann, who works at the Colorado Department of Education's Capital Construction Grant Program. In 1998, parent John Giardino led a list of plaintiffs who sued the State Board of Education because of inadequate funding for school construction. The Leadville school his son attended was literally falling to the ground. Three days before school started, the roof in the kindergarten classroom collapsed.

The parents claimed that the way Colorado financed school construction "denies some school districts the funds necessary to provide adequate facilities," according to the original complaint.

A little background: The state constitution makes us responsible for setting up a "thorough and uniform" system of schools. We used to pay for schools almost entirely from local property taxes. Since property values vary across the state, that gave some districts a lot more money than others. Some parents sued us back in the 1970s saying that the unevenness in funding violated the "uniform" part of the constitution.

The legislature wrote the School Finance Act to fix the problem. It uses state money to supplement school districts' budgets so that the amount we spend on each student across the state is more uniform. But the SFA only deals with operating money -- capital money (for repairs and construction) still comes from local taxes. And it's still not uniform.

Per-student funding in the state varies wildly depending on assessed property value. For example, if Aspen residents want to raise property taxes to build a new school, there's potential to garner $1.1 million per student. When people in Conejos County go to voters, money-raising potential is only $11,000 per student.

The parents in the Giardino lawsuit represented six of Colorado's poorest districts, areas where more than half the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches in towns scattered across the San Luis and Arkansas valleys and the Western Slope.

Two years after the filing, a judge approved a $190 million settlement to repair and maintain public schools. And lawmakers set out a sensible and, by some accounts, easy plan to follow, agreeing to pay out the $190 million in incremental chunks through 2012. But a caveat in that law says lawmakers have to pay only when there is an $80 million state surplus. Though there has been sufficient money twice since the settlement, lawmakers have underfunded the program at least twice in the past two years.

Last year, the state Department of Education received $10 million for capital school construction. This year, education officials received $5 million.

Also, some rural superintendents and legislators argue, lawmakers often have used the wrong money to fund the program, loaning money from education-funding Amendment 23 dollars and lottery proceeds rather than using general-fund money, as the law requires. Rep. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, among other lawmakers, says the state is broke. But advocates and rural superintendents say the state has chosen to fund other projects over new schools for kids.

"The fact is, the state doesn't have any money," said Spence, chair of the House Education Committee.

Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, agrees to a point. But he said his colleagues in the legislature have chosen to fund other projects, such as capital construction for charter schools, rather than schools in the Giardino case.

"We've turned it into a liability in this state," Pommer said. "We entered into an agreement where we could have fixed this very real problem for $20 million a year. But by not upholding that part of the bargain, we're in danger of being sued again for $4 billion."

Even with extra Powerball money, the legislature has not met what Senate Bill 181 asks: $20 million each year for school construction.

"I still consider us down $20 (million), $30 million," said Ted Hughes, who drives around the state to analyze rural needs for the state Department of Education. "We don't get enough money; we can only partially fund projects most of the time."

Despite efforts by Vody Herrmann and others at the Department of Education, there aren't enough resources or people to keep track of the needs and projects all over the state.

There is only one man in charge of analyzing needs and educating rural superintendents about the program. He spends some of his time on the road, canvassing rural areas and taking pictures, but there are still places he hasn't been. In some areas, projects have been funded in the planning stages, but not for construction.

This frustrates Kathy Gebhardt, the lawyer representing the parents in the case. "It was always my hope that the state would step up to the plate and fulfill its obligation," she said. "Good times and bad."

Even during economic hardships and severe budget cuts, other states have received much more money from their legislatures for similar projects.

In Arizona, for example, the state has spent close to $3 billion during the past decade to bring schools in rural areas and wealthy city neighborhoods up to code.

In Wyoming, lawmakers have spent $700 million since 1998 to help local districts with school construction after districts sued in 1995.

On Thursday, the Massachusetts governor granted $1 billion to fix its schools. Across the country, 45 states were sued by parents or advocates because of poor capital construction. Of those, 24 lawsuits are still pending, according to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a New York-based advocacy group.

Colorado's budget forecasts don't call for any general-fund money to be given to the state's capital construction grant program for rural schools in coming years, according to the Legislative Council's fund overview.

Until more money comes though, a dismal waiting list of projects fills an inch-thick blue book sitting at the Department of Education.

This year, the committee that decides which needs deserve priority had such a paltry amount of money to work with - it had $5 million, and a new school can run about $11 million - that it sent letters to districts, beseeching them to hold back on requests.

Still, 71 school districts asked for money. The state has money for about 18.

John Giardino, now a lobbyist for Colorado Mountain College, acknowledged that even at the time, no one thought $190 million would be enough. A state audit last year estimated the state's school construction needs at $4.7 billion.

The Centennial R-1 School District in Costilla County in southern Colorado asked for $11.5 million this year for a new school. On top of the sewage that spills into the hallways, some of the classrooms have no ventilation, and temperatures can run 80 to 90 degrees in the winter, said Superintendent Emily Romero.

The district, where more than 70 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, didn't get a dollar from the state this funding cycle.

"I'm disappointed that they're willing to put us on the back burner," Romero said. "Kids in affluent communities wouldn't ever go to school here. No parent would allow their kids to attend school with sewage in the hallway."

Lawmakers, even those who know the needs intimately, say there is a delicate balance between local and state control within these districts. There is a strong belief among many at the legislature that individual communities raise their own money for new schools, Spence said.

"I personally believe that the local communities should be responsible for building and maintaining their own, but I do know in some of the rural districts the income is very low … and it's virtually impossible," Spence said.

Impossible, both financially and ideologically, for places such as Aguilar. Teachers Mary Nicol and Shelly Wagner went door to door in Aguilar, in western Las Animas County, shopping for votes to increase taxes to build a new elementary school. Twice voters turned it down.

"This town is full of retired people," said Nicol, a fourth- grade teacher who graduated from Aguilar High School in 1966. "And they say, 'If this school was good enough for me, then it's good enough for my granddaughter."'

In 2001, by about 50 votes, residents did finally approve a tax increase to replace the school with the bat-feces problem. But property values in Aguilar are so low that the vote raised only $900,000.

"I cried when I went to Aguilar," said lawyer Gebhardt. "I went out to my car and cried. There was no learning going on there."

The state gave Aguilar $1.4 million to build a new school. That was out of $15 million it had to spend that year.

The students still use English textbooks from the 1980s, and teachers haven't had a raise in two years. But kids now are basking in an air-conditioned space with working plumbing, ventilation and a computer lab.

Education officials decided last month to give Aguilar a new junior-senior high school aswell. Construction will start this fall.

Wagner said she knows Aguilar is one of the lucky ones. "I feel sorry for the other guys, but I'm real happy for us," said Wagner, who teaches music and physical education. "I know what the kids have gone through because we've been going through this, too - the bad steps, the smelly bathrooms, the leaky everything. I've been here for 24 years."

Short of a law change, the only answer to the state still underfunding schools may be another lawsuit, Gebhardt said. She may file another one this year.

"They have not fulfilled a constitutional obligation to every child in this state that they go to school in an adequate facility," she said.

William Moloney, the state's commissioner of education, said suing a second time is "a leverage point" for advocates.

What a great advocate for public schools. Maloney blames the parents who got so frustrated with the horrible condition of their schools they sued the state.

"But you have to measure it against reality. They're underfunded compared to what? You've got to prioritize money. Maybe they give money to capital construction, but then you take it away from special needs or other causes," he said. "It's got to come from somewhere."

And that "reality" Maloney talks about is the special interests he so strongly supports. If we helped poor kids in poor districts, the money might come from well-funded charter schools serving affluent students in the suburbs.

asherry@denverpost.com

Copyright 2004, Denver Post. All rights Reserved.