Colorado school funding lawsuit
Re: â€śColorado’s next school funding suit,â€ť June 1 Vincent Carroll column.
If, as Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll insists, Colorado voters â€śdrank the Kool-Aidâ€ť when they approved Amendment 23, then they were surely awash in the delusional substance when, in 1992, they approved the TABOR Amendment, the complicated fiscal measure which includes a mandate of voter approval of all tax increases, something the stateâ€™s frugal electorate is often reluctant to do.
TABOR, in conjunction with the constitutional requirement for a balanced budget, has consistently resulted in inadequate financial resources to properly fund numerous facets of state government, including public education.
â€śUnconscionableâ€ť education funding â€” the term used by Judge Sheila Rappaport in the original Lobato school-funding case â€” has tragic human consequences and is an important aspect of the â€śpipelines to prisonâ€ť epidemic which plagues Colorado.
Kudos to Kathy Gebhardt [who was the lead attorney in the Lobato lawsuit and is preparing another school-funding suit] for understanding that money saved on schools now will be spent later in the stateâ€™s â€ścorrectionalâ€ť system.
Frank Tapy, Denver
This letter was published in the June 8 edition.