Face The State Staff Report
Following the defeat of two measures on the statewide ballot, a joint effort by Colorado's three largest education lobbying groups to alter the state's tax system has been left in a lurch.
CEA anti-TABOR video
The "Believe in a Better Colorado" Web site - part of a collaborative campaign by the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Association of School Boards, and Colorado Association of School Executives - urged members of the respective organizations to vote Yes on Amendment 59, known as the Savings Account For Education or SAFE, and Referendum O as "the first major steps...to adopt[ing] a new tax system before 2011."
More than 52 percent of Colorado voters rejected Referendum O, while nearly 55 percent voted down the SAFE initiative. SAFE was marketed as a proposal to remove conflicting existing constitutional provisions mandated under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, which limits government spending, and Amendment 23, which requires increases in school funding on an annual basis.
"I don't think we're making all that much progress," said Ken DeLay, executive director of CASB. DeLay said the campaign's partners are focused on repealing TABOR, a measure he characterized as "indefensible" and "absurd".
But Aimee Rathburn, a leader of the campaign that successfully defeated Amendment 59, said that the education lobbying groups are simply upset by TABOR's requirement that every tax increase be approved by a vote of the people. "People who like spending other people's money don't like to ask first," she said.
Rathburn believes the defeat of the proposal is a sign that Colorado voters have awakened to the need to once again consider limiting government spending. "Colorado voters aren't fooled by a wolf in sheep's clothing," she added.
Prior to the election, Believe in a Better Colorado made available an online toolkit for school districts to share with employees that provided pro-59 & O talking points and form letters. DeLay said the toolkit was developed by a communications agency contractor and paid for solely by CEA, but that partners CASE and CASB contributed directly to earlier educational efforts.
The coalition launched in 2007 with a "Phase One" outreach to school employees explaining the case for a major overhaul of different fiscal elements in the state constitution. DeLay says Believe was created to raise awareness of the combined impact of TABOR, Amendment 23, and the Gallagher Amendment, which fixes the ratio between residential and commercial property tax rates.
DeLay says coalition partners are looking for a "comprehensive" answer but have not come to any particular solution to address the complex issue. "You can't fix a piece of it," he said. "You need to fix the whole thing."
While DeLay said no data had been collected to measure how many schools and employees the Believe campaign reached with its "Phase One" outreach, Jefferson County teacher Leslie Thompson said she attended a staff meeting where a colleague presented the "Phase One" DVD and other materials to teachers without any sort of balanced response.
"They weren't interested in sharing the full facts," Thompson said, admitting that she was upset and left before the meeting concluded.
According to election law attorney John Zakhem, the district's legal obligation, as a taxpayer-funded entity, is to present a balanced approach on political issues including pending ballot measures. "If any government agency is to expend funds in relation to the review and deliberation of any ballot question, it is incumbent upon them to provide both sides of the issue," Zakhem said.
The online toolkit urges members of the three partner organizations to "talk to friend and colleagues" about Amendment 59 and Referendum O, but no cases have been reported of Believe or its member partners campaigning directly for the two measures using official school times of resources. While teachers and coalition members were encouraged to circulate campaign materials in on-campus locations, the toolkit specifically cautioned district employees not to advocate a "Yes" vote during school hours.
DeLay said Believe's partners were very careful to abide by legal requirements. "We're not unaware of those issues," he said.