Restore Funding to Public Education in Colorado

 

Currently, Colorado consistently ranks as one of the top 5 state economies in the nation, and our citizens enjoy all that entails. However, in 2010 the Colorado Legislature borrowed $1 billion dollars from public education, thereby creating the Budget Stabilization or B.S. Factor, to help solve the consequences of the Great Recession.

 

This means that Colorado educators' salaries and services to children have slowly declined, causing public education in Colorado to be ranked at the bottom in the nation and resulting in a retention and hiring crisis even prior to the pandemic.

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The action by the legislature bypassed the will of the people through Amendment 23, which was enacted to protect Colorado students from the funding crisis we now face. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the issues caused by the legislature's willful underfunding of public schools. Many school districts, especially rural schools, have already been decreased to a 4-day school week.

 

Colorado school districts, staff and students can no longer operate under the yoke of the B.S. factor. We, the undersigned, demand that the legislature pay its 14-year debt and what is rightfully owed to the educators and students of this state.