Support K-12 Education in Boulder Valley

Boulder Valley School District needs your help in passing Ballot Measure 3A.  The Colorado Legislature cut over $260 million from education in their latest budget.  The impact for BVSD during the 2011-2012 school year is estimated to be a reduction of $11.7 million when compared to the 2009-2010 school year. The 2010-2011 budgets will come out somewhere in between these two, thanks to one time funding from Federal emergency funds and reductions in the administrative costs to run the district.

Colorado continues to fund education at levels approaching the lowest in the nation.   Before the latest recession, in 2007, Colorado spent $1,500 per student below the national average and ranked 40th in the nation in public funding for K-12.   Today, spending is even less, with Colorado falling to 42nd in public funding for K-12.  With economists predicting Colorado’s budget shortfalls to continue, we are looking to go even lower. 42nd and falling!  According to the Denver Post, in 2007 Colorado ranked 49th and was stingier than all but Florida, spending only $34.35 of every $1,000 in personal income to educate our children.  This compares to a national average of $43.02. We should do better.

Last spring, each school in the BVSD gathered administrators, educators and parents together to deal with the budget shortfall.  Likely, many of you attended one or more of these meetings.  If you did, you may have seen what we saw in our budget meetings.  There were a few things that could be cut and would save a few dollars.  Some of these may have been budgeted but unspent in the latest budget or even over the past few years.  Others were nice to have programs and activities that would not really be missed.  But after 2, 3, 4% in cuts, reductions impacted the classroom and the learning experience.   We’ve already made the easy, painless cuts and any additional cuts will be to our kids’ educations.  We should do better.

What has BVSD done to address this budget issue?  The central district administrative expenses were cut by 13.5% while school budgets were cut by 3.75%.  Some of this 3.75% was reinstated using the federal emergency funds mentioned earlier.  Some people will argue more can be done to cut the district’s overhead and if they are correct, it should be done.  However, hoping for or even getting additional cuts in overhead are not going to be enough to fix the problem.

This mill levy would be used in three primary areas.  The first is to restore the classroom funding reduction from the state.  $12 million would be allocated to replace funds lost from the state.  Superintendent King has vowed none of this money would be used to replace central administrative spending cuts.  $5.5 million would be used for teacher and staff compensation to hire and retain the best teachers in the region.  $5 million will be invested in early childhood education programs.

You can read more about the ballot measure, why we need it, what it does and find ways to help support its passage at Vote Children First.

Read the text of ballot measure 3A and see it as it appears on the Boulder County ballot – go to page 3.

Endorsements:

Investing in the economy through education By Helayne Jones and David Harwood

Impact on Education

The Community Foundation of Boulder County

Boulder Chamber of Commerce

Dennis Berry’s Letter to the Camera’s Editor

Jane McConnell’s Letter to the Camera’s Editor