As I learned at a recent community-wide School Board meeting, voters will be asked to express their fears, greed and good fiscal sense next November when they mark their ballots “Yes” or “No” next to Proposition 101.
The Archuleta Board of Education had invited representatives from nearly every government board in the county, hoping to hear our other community leaders give their thoughts on a possible tax increase — perhaps a sales tax increase, perhaps a property tax mill levy? — to help mitigate a projected $2 million cut in local school revenues between now and 2012.
 Representatives from the Town, the County, PAWSD and the Fire District attended that meeting, and some of them did express their thoughts and feelings about asking local voters to approve a tax increase.
Of course, the school district is not the only organization experiencing fiscal challenges. The Town of Pagosa Springs, for one, has seen its revenues drop significantly over the past year — as have numerous local businesses and non-profits.
But this editorial is not about increased taxes or falling revenues, or about the financial worthiness of this or that organization. It’s about political propriety.
Near the end of that meeting — after the School Board had heard from several government leaders, none of whom were exactly encouraging the District to seek tax increases — School Board president Linda Lattin steered the discussion onto a slightly different but related subject.
“The other thing I’d like to bring up tonight — because the more people know, the more word gets out — are two of the propositions that have been approved for the November ballots.
“And if these things pass, government and school funding, and everything else as we know it, will be non-existent.
“You should all have copies of the packet we handed out — the Bell Policy Center report.”
The print-outs were reprints from the Bell Policy Center website, and gave information about Proposition 101 and proposed constitutional Amendment 61.
According to the Bell Policy Center, Proposition 1010 is intended to repeal Referendum C; reinstate the TABOR ratchet effect; and establish much lower limits on state and local spending. Proposed Amendment 61 would ban the use of any kind of debt by the state of Colorado, and greatly limit the amount of debt issued by local governments.
One of the key elements in Proposition 101 would be a dramatic lowering of vehicle registration taxes and fees — taxes and fees that currently help fund schools and county governments. I don’t know the numbers for the Archuleta schools, but according to the Bell Policy Center information, school funding in Durango, derived from vehicle ownership taxes, would drop from $2.68 million down to a mere $39,000, if Proposition 101 passes.
License fees collected in La Plata County would drop from the $3.97 million in 2009 to $713,000 in 2010. (License fees, however, go to fund state programs and do not remain in the county, as I understand it.)
“45 percent of vehicle registration fees go to funding school districts,” Lattin told the audience. “I mean, we are going to be looking at billions of dollars that are going to be taken away from government and schools and special districts."
Lattin continued. “So please. Look into these propositions. They are going to be on the ballot. It’s so easy to change our constitution in this state. And these are very scary. Please read this, and see what it’s going to do to funding. If you think things are bad now, things are going to be really bad if these things pass in November.”
Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County find themselves in an awkward economic situation, as Colorado’s taxpayers propose these tax reducing propositions. Our two largest employers are the school district and the County government, and both entities are funded largely through local property taxes. According to the figures I’ve seen, about 60 percent of the properties in Archuleta County are owned by people who do not live here — meaning that a large part of the salaries paid to teachers and County employees actually derives from outside the community. That money then circulates in the local economy, helping give economic life to local shops, grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses.
The immediate problem in this situation, however, is not declining revenues based on state propositions. The problem is government leaders conducting public campaigns on behalf of increased funding — or opposing revenue cuts.
Here in America, government is meant to serve the people. Unlike private corporations and other businesses, who are built on the concept of making a profit for their owners, governments are not expected, by those of us whom they supposedly serve, to actively campaign for higher taxes — or to actively discourage tax reductions.
When the chair of a government board — a person like School Board president Linda Lattin — hands out copied documents at a publicly noticed board meeting, and makes a public speech that brands an upcoming ballot proposition as “scary,” or makes a statement that “things are going to get really bad if these things pass in November,” she is overstepping her proper role as a government official.
We do not elect our board members to tell us how to vote on upcoming political issues. We elect them to take the money we give them, and do the very best job they can with what they receive.
It is up to each of us to demand that public servants remain as such — servants. Otherwise, we will increasingly find ourselves in the role of servants — and discover, much to our dismay, that our governments have become the masters. |