After failure of Proposition CC, the would-be beneficiaries of the measure consider their options

Proposition CC, which would have repealed the revenue cap built into Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights, promised to help fund three of the state's most notably underfunded buckets: K-12 education, higher education and transportation infrastructure.

But the truth is the money that was anticipated to have poured into those three critical mouths had CC passed — it decidedly did not — was in amounts that, while welcome, might not have made the difference advocates had hoped for.

"In truth, we don't really know exactly what the financial impact would have been," said Greeley-Evans School District 6 chief of communications Theresa Myers. "We knew it was some additional dollars, but there were restrictions on how that could've been used. And it wasn't a stable funding source."

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According to Myers and others, the yearly influx was essentially one-time, inconsistently sized amounts.

"We could've only used those dollars on one-time expenditures," Myers said. "That said, any dollars we receive are greatly welcomed, and would have been an impact."

University of Northern Colorado president Andy Feinstein had a similar take on the problem with the not-so cure-all that would have been Proposition CC.

"It was one-time money," he said. "I can't hire faculty members with one-time money. Can't give them raises," Feinstein said. "Understand, that's not base funding, it may or may not be there the following year. It was changing in amounts."

Feinstein said that, as such, the revenue cap repeal wasn't going to solve the fundamental budget issues with which he and other university presidents across the state are wrestling.

The other issue, besides consistency, was quantity. As it was understood by folks both local and Denver-based, like Colorado Department of Transportation communications director Matt Inzio, the amount of money that would've come in was not a sliver bullet by any means.

"I think the analysis or estimate was about $60 million dollars to CDOT," Inzio said. "That's certainly substantial, but I should note, our annual budget is about $2 billion. That might give some sense of scale here."

Each entity deals with similar issues of a general lack of funding relative to need as well as relative to the rest of the nation. Colorado funds K-12 and higher education as poorly as almost any state in the U.S. Transportation is in a constant state of underfunding, roughly $2 billion budget or not.

"The problem with Prop CC is it's three starving entities fighting over limited dollars. Not that any of us wouldn't have welcomed those dollars, but it was limited," Myers said. "I think people think these measures would solve the bigger issue. They don't.

"We are still one of the lowest-funded states for public education in our nation, and that is a problem."

CDOT would have shared its windfall with local public works departments, but in amounts with which Greeley's public works director Joel Hemesath was unfamiliar. In an email, Hemesath said his department budgeted with the assumption that nothing was coming. They were ultimately right.

CDOT essentially did the same, though it had a better rough idea of how much would have been coming its way.

"We recently concluded a planning process that lays out generally our 10-year pipeline of projects we'd construct were resources to become available," Inzio said. "In any case, whether CC or another infusion of resources came, we have plans ready to accommodate extra resources should they become available."

CDOT doesn't rank its potential projects to determine who would be in a "first one in/last one out" sort of scenario. But there are plenty of projects that aren't getting done with the current budget.

Inzio did say that, while in theory a hypothetical perfect world of funding might exist, CDOT doesn't bother with that imaginary threshold.

"It's something our executive director resists very specifically," he said. "In part because you get at a number when it comes to maintenance for our current system. But part of the issue is when we talk about adding additional capacity to anticipate future growth, there's multiple ways to do that, so it becomes too hypothetical to say 'This dollar amount, everything would be great.'"

He does say it's perfectly fair, however, to characterize the department as underfunded.

The vast majority of CDOT funding comes from the gas tax, which Inzio quoted at 22 cents per gallon. Almost none of the funding comes from the general fund, Inzio said.

For District 6, a huge chunk of funding, recently, is coming directly from local taxpayers in the form of a mill levy override and the recently passed bond measure.

"We're very lucky our communities have supported us in our last two asks," Myers said. "Without that, we'd be in a world of hurt."

That's because, Myers said, the student need in the district is quite high, but the state funding is not.

"We think about (having enough funding)," Myers said. "It'd be a lot of things. It'd be equity and access, it'd be our ability to use all the best instructional practices that we know work, to hire and compete for the best teachers, hopefully get more people interested in going into teaching, because we can offer competitive salaries.

"We're one of the lowest-paying states for teachers, and there's a national teacher shortage. It'd look like lowering class sizes and providing adequate facilities, being able to provide experiences and wraparound services for students who need it. Yeah, we think about it a lot. But we bite off chunks with measures like the mill levy override and other local measures. Without a significant increase in state funding, that's not going to be totally addressed."

For higher ed and UNC, funding gaps are made through significant budget cuts and through increased tuition -- essentially raising the price of a diminished product.

"The explaining of how money will directly impact and support higher education is very important," Feinstein said. "(CC) wouldn't help me with my fundamental going-forward base concerns, which are, simply, we're not funded."

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