An 11th-hour amendment creates a new education fund in Colorado with millions of dollars more for K-12 schools

Senator Barb Kirkmeyer (R-Col) and Chris Kolker (D-Col)

With a week left in the legislative session, a hearing to finalize school funding took an unexpected turn. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a new education fund Thursday at the State Capitol that will include $233 million more for K-12 schools.

The money will come from income taxes — the same as the State Education Fund, which is not impacted. The change affects next year’s budget and will mean less money for other expenditures.

State Senators Barb Kirkmeyer (R-Col) and Chris Kolker and Chris Kolker (D-Col) say it’s all about priorities.

“Sen. Kolker and I put down a marker that said we are going to fund education first,” Kirkmeyer told CBS Colorado.

For years, she and Kolker have listened to colleagues claim school funding is a top priority. They say it’s time to walk the talk. “Education is the one thing in our constitution that provides a permanent source of funding,”  Kolker told CBS Colorado. “We just haven’t fulfilled that promise.”

Funding for K-12 schools should be growing by inflation every year, but for 15 years, lawmakers shortchanged it by billions of dollars. Last year, they finally met their constitutional obligation, while also passing a new School Finance Act that promised even more money.

A year later, Kirkmeyer says, they’re already backpedaling, “We can’t keep going down this path,” she said.  She and Kolker decided to blow things up. They brought an amendment to the School Finance Act during an Appropriations Committee hearing. It creates a brand-new education fund.

“We named it the Kids Matter Trust Fund for a reason — because kids do matter and so does their education,” said Kirkmeyer, who dared her colleagues to oppose it. “If you can’t agree to this, it tells me you don’t think we should be funding education first.”   She says the $233 million can only be spent on per pupil funding and programs like special education.  “We are done with the time when we don’t fund education, and we balance the budget on the backs of students,” Kirkmeyer said.

Kolker says the new fund will be embedded in the State Education Fund, which he says will be insolvent within a few years without additional money. “My message to kids, parents, teachers, schools, everyone involved in public education is, ‘We see you, hear you,'” Kolker said. “All of us want to increase funding for education. Everyone down here wants to do that. We have to find the right methods to do that, and we believe we have.”

Kolker and Kirkmeyer say they didn’t intend to blindside anyone with the amendment to the School Finance Act. They had a bill drafted that would have set up the fund, but were told it was too late in the session to introduce it, so they found a different avenue.

Both say they are confident the amendment will stick when the bill goes to the Senate floor.

By: Shaun Boyd/CBS Colorado