The Big Issues: Finance, assessment and flexibility
Finance
Budget Process
The budget approved by the Joint Budget Committee during last week's figure setting sets K-12 funding $140 million higher than the Governor's request and doesn’t rely on the increase in marijuana taxes or the partial repeal of the senior homestead exemption to generate additional revenues. Under the proposal approved by the JBC, K-12 funding would remain flat in 2017-18 though committee members were skeptical as to where they would find the revenues necessary to honor this preliminary commitment. We will have a clearer sense of the K-12 funding picture after the March 17 economic forecast and many (if not most) still expect to see an increase in the Negative Factor.
TABOR
HB 1187, sponsored by Representative Thurlow and Senator Crowder, refers a proposition to voters in November 2017 that would change the computation of the excess state revenues cap under TABOR (for FY 2017-18 and all subsequent fiscal years. Under current law, the cap is grown annually by changes in the state's population and the Denver-Boulder-Greeley consumer price index. Beginning in FY 2017-18, the bill grows the cap annually by the average rate of change in state personal income for the five previous calendar years. Most economists agree that personal income growth is a better measure and the change is expected to decrease the state's TABOR refund obligation by $132.8 million in FY 2017-18 and $209.3 million in FY 2018-19. The Rural Alliance supports HB 1187, which made it through the House last week. The bill is expected to meet strong opposition in the Senate.
Charter school mill levy sharing
SB 61, which requires school districts to share mill levy revenues with district charter schools was approved by the Senate earlier this week and is now headed to the House. The bill was amended in the Senate to allow districts to phase in the new sharing requirement. A second amendment approved by the Senate allows school boards to seek voter approval not to provide their charter schools with an equal share. The Rural Alliance opposes the bill because it will result in cuts to our member districts' budgets and, we believe, the issue of revenue sharing is best decided by locally elected school boards and their voters. Thank you to those of you who reached out to your local legislators to urge their opposition for the bill. We will need your help again in the House!
Vision and Study bills
Two prominent school finance bills have yet to be introduced. The first, sponsored by Representatives Lundeen and Garnett, creates a legislative interim committee to study school finance and create a new school finance funding formula. The structure of the study outlined in an early draft of the bill aligns with the superintendents' funding formula and the group is meeting with the bill sponsors to determine if there is a way to combine the two efforts.
The second bill, championed by Representatives Rankin and Hamner, creates a legislative task force and several advisory committees tasked with creating a vision for public education. This vision will, in turn, provide the foundation for a campaign to generate the revenue necessary to adequately and equitably fund public education in Colorado. Superintendents and school board members received a request for information around state and local visioning from a group of legislators several weeks ago. The Rural Alliance joined CASE in drafting a response highlighting CASE's education visioning work. We are grateful to CASE for their leadership on this effort.
Uniform Mill Levy
We still have not seen a bill detailing the uniform mill levy proposal recommended by JBC staff early this session. The proposal was presented to the House Education Committee last week and many still expect to see a bill this session.
Read more about the funding inequities built into our current formula
Colorado School Finance Project:
Colorado: Did You Know 2017?
details the impact of Colorado’s K-12 funding on our students, districts and ultimately our state.
Flexibility and assessments
Flexibility
We continue to work with key stakeholders on Rep Wilson's flexibility bill,
HB 1178. As introduced, the bill seeks moderate flexibility for rural districts to hire unlicensed persons to teach in their classrooms but only if they cannot find a qualified, licensed teacher to fill the position and only after the board passes a resolution declaring a critical teacher shortage. The bill also creates a simplified Rural waiver process, designed to provide clearer direction to CDE and the State Board when they review waivers from rural districts. We are grateful to Rep. Wilson for his willingness to take on these difficult issues and will keep membership posted on the status of the bill which is scheduled for its first hearing before the House Education Committee on March 20th @ 1:30 p.m.
Assessments
The state assessment issue seems to be settled. The last surviving assessment bill is
HB 1181, which eliminates 9th grade PARCC and replaces it with an assessment aligned with the 10th grade assessment, currently SAT. The Rural Alliance supports this bill, though it does not go as far as
SB 101, sponsored by Senator Todd and Representative Carver, which was killed by the Senate Education Committee. HB 1181 has bipartisan support in both houses as well as the support of the Governor. The bill was approved by the House and will (we expect) be approved by the Senate in the coming weeks.
The Rural Alliance also supports
HB 1160, another bipartisan bill authorizing local education providers to determine the language in which an English language learner takes reading assessments in kindergarten through third grade. Under the bill, the school district or charter school in which the student is enrolled will decide whether the student takes the reading assessments in English or in the student's native language (if there is an approved assessment available in the student's native language). If the student takes the assessments in his or her native language, the school district or charter school may also administer the assessments in English if requested by the student's parent. The bill was approved by the House and is scheduled in the Senate Education Committee on March 23rd.
HB 1176, sponsored by Representative Becker and Senator Sonnenberg, eliminates the 110/140 day limitation on PERA retirees who return to work as a teacher, bus driver or cook in a Rural school district. The bill faces strong opposition from PERA, due to a perceived (and we believe inflated) actuarial impact. The Rural Alliance supports this bill and we thank CASE and CEA for their hard work in the face of PERA's opposition. The bill will be heard in the House Finance Committee on Wednesday, March 15th.
HB 1201 authorizes a high school diploma endorsement for students who demonstrate mastery in STEM. As introduced, the bill sets a high standard for students to earn the STEM endorsement and we heard from many members concerned that rural students will be disadvantaged due to the lack of access to STEM (and other advanced coursework opportunities) in rural schools. We have worked with the sponsor and other stakeholders to provide more flexibility for local districts and have taken a neutral position on the bill at this time. The bill will be heard in the House Education Committee Wednesday, March 15th.
HB 1003, sponsored by Representative Mclachlen, requires the department of higher education and the department of education to prepare a strategic plan to address teacher shortages. The bill is being championed by Robert Mitchell from CDHE who has already begun to look at these issues with a number of rural and urban educators/experts. The Rural Alliance supports the bill which will be heard in the House Education Committee on Monday, March 20th.
Here is a sampling of some of the other bills we are tracking:
SB 40, which modifies the 'Colorado Open Records Act' by creating new procedures governing the inspection of public records that are stored as structured data;
SB 123, creating a biliteracy diploma endorsement; and
HB 1210, prohibiting expulsions and limiting suspensions for students in grades Pre-K-2.
