{"id":129578,"date":"2026-05-18T13:54:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T19:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-house-passes-bill-to-send-k-12-funding-initiative-to-november-ballot\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T13:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T19:54:19","slug":"colorado-house-passes-bill-to-send-k-12-funding-initiative-to-november-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-house-passes-bill-to-send-k-12-funding-initiative-to-november-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado House passes bill to send K-12 funding initiative to November ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Colorado House of Representatives passed legislation addressing funding for K-12 public schools. (David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Colorado House of Representatives has approved legislation that would ask voters to allow K-12 school funding to stay on par with the state\u2019s economy, rather than remaining bound by the state Taxpayer\u2019s Bill of Rights revenue cap.<\/p>\n

This legislation, Senate Bill 26-135, would pose a ballot question about allowing the state to retain and spend a portion of existing revenue on public education. It passed with a 42-21 vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, our schools and teachers have been asked to do more with less. And with this bill, teachers will soon be able to ask voters a simple question: should school funding grow alongside Colorado\u2019s economy or continue to be constrained by the TABOR cap,\u201d Rep. Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, assistant House majority leader, said in a news release.<\/p>\n

If approved by voters in November, retained funds would be used for K-12 education and other services for youths. This includes hiring more teachers, reducing class sizes, bolstering special education, other children\u2019s services and more.<\/p>\n

Requirements for public schools would include a public audit, reporting on how much excess revenue is received and how it is allocated.<\/p>\n

Colorado House Democrats said in the release that K-12 education accounts for roughly 1\/3 of the state\u2019s entire budget. They added that Colorado has a severe education underfunding issue, with the state ranking 40th in the country for teacher pay and retention, falling short of about $4,600 annually per student.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a teacher, I have seen kids who have deserved more than we are able to give them financially, and many teachers are leaving the profession altogether,\u201d Rep. Meghan Lukens, D-Steamboat Springs, said. \u201cWe\u2019re asking voters if they\u2019d like to increase K-12 funding by allowing it to keep pace with Colorado\u2019s strong economic growth. When we adequately fund our public schools, students can reach their full potential. I\u2019m proud to carry this teacher-backed measure to boost funding for every school district in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

bduran@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

currently limits school funding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":129579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5735],"tags":[14,28,60,29,1351,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-129578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-colorado-state-house-of-representatives","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-public-finance","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129578"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=129578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}