Schools spared in state budget cuts
K-12 funding gets an increase, but university tuition costs rise
K-12 students could see an increase in state education funding in the coming year under a school financing bill advancing through the state legislature.
Lawmakers plan to slash various programs, particularly health care, to close a $1.5 billion budget gap. But education has been largely spared since the state constitution requires education funding to increase each year in line with inflation.
The new budget would provide $10.2 billion for K-12 education, an average of about $12,314 per student. Although that represents an increase compared to this year, Colorado still spends less per pupil than many other states.
Still, some education programs are being cut, including a teacher recruitment program, grants for math instruction, bullying prevention, and school counseling. And beyond K-12 education, the state’s universities plan to raise tuition next year in response to budget shortfalls.
Need to Know
🚏 The Denver metro area’s public transit system, RTD, could see service slashed under managers’ plans to close a budget gap and avoid a credit downgrade. Some RTD directors questioned the proposed cuts – between 20% and 36% of bus and train service – saying they could create a spiral where reduced service leads to less money flowing into the system as fewer people use it. Alternative funding could come from the state government as well as fare increases, worker furloughs, overtime restrictions, advertising, debt refinancing and stricter fare enforcement. (Denver Post)
🛢️ A fracking company can build a drilling site near the Aurora Reservoir, a state oversight commission decided this week. Homeowners and environmental activists had strongly opposed the project due to concerns about the health and ecological impacts of oil and gas drilling just over a half-mile from hundreds of homes and the city’s main water source. But the commission voted 3-2 that the company’s proposal met state standards. (Sentinel, Denver Post, Colorado Sun)
💰 Betting on specific events within sports games will remain legal in Colorado, after lawmakers dropped a proposed ban so as not to lose the tax revenue from so-called proposition, or prop bets. Prop bets vastly expand opportunities for betting on sports, since they make it possible to bet on almost any aspect of the game rather than just the final outcome. By the same token, they open the door to corruption since it’s far easier to fix small features of games compared to fixing the outcome of the entire contest. (CPR, Axios)
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Something Good
💥 For much of my career, I reported on organized crime, and I still love a good crime story, like this recent article from the New Yorker about an insurance scam that involved people intentionally crashing their cars into big rig trucks. The author, Patrick Radden Keefe, is one of the best crime journalists out there, and he does an incredible job of laying out how the scheme came together and how it unraveled.