You could change Colorado's school funding woes in November

Kelly Ragan | The Coloradoan

Show Caption Hide Caption Sacrificing Our Schools: Poudre School District teachers commute to work Some Poudre School District teachers can't afford home prices in the district, so they commute to work.

Colorado voters will most likely have the chance to decide whether to increase public school funding come November.

After a statewide push, proponents of the Great Schools, Thriving Communities ballot measure, or Initiative 93, announced Wednesday that they collected enough signatures to get the proposal on the November ballot.

Poudre School District school board member Cathy Kipp said proponents delivered more than 170,000 signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office Wednesday — more than the required 100,000 signatures.

The state will have 30 days to validate the signatures. If at least 100,000 are valid, the initiative will be assigned an amendment number and be added to the ballot.

Initiative 93 is a ballot initiative that would raise state income tax for folks who earn more than $150,000 a year. The money collected would go toward implementing full-day kindergarten and increasing public school funding.

It’s a proposed constitutional amendment, so petitioners had to collect signatures from at least 2 percent of voters in all 35 Colorado Senate districts — a new rule put in place after voters approved the Raise the Bar amendment in 2016. Raise the Bar made it harder to amend Colorado's constitution.

Kipp spent the last month traveling through the Western Slope region to collect signatures from the necessary districts. She spent time in Grand Junction, Salida, Buena Vista, Leadville, Montrose, Gunnison and more.

“They valued their public schools," Kipp said.

The tax could bring in an additional $1.6 billion to public schools across the state. That would mean about $43 million for Poudre School District.

“It would wipe out the negative factor,” Kipp said. “That would be huge.”

Tom List, president of the Poudre Education Association teachers union, said local school districts would be able to decide how to spend the extra money.

That autonomy would allow PSD to invest in early childhood education, mental health and staffing, he said.

Initiative 93’s advancement comes on the heels of statewide teacher protests calling for increased education funding. More than 1,000 PSD employees attended a protest in Denver in April.

The protests brought a lot of attention to the issue, Kipp said. She thinks the next challenge is making sure folks understand how to get more money into schools.

“We can’t just ask the Legislature to give us more money,” Kipp said. “The money isn’t there. ... I think (Initiative 93 is) our shot at increasing school funding."