DENVER — One month from Saturday, Colorado voters will decide whether or not to allow the state to keep some or all of the revenue that the state's constitutional revenue limit, also known as the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR), would otherwise require to be refunded to taxpayers, up to the amount the state spends on public education.
On the ballot, it'll appear as Proposition NN. Supporters like Erica Atchison spent Saturday canvassing for voters.
Watch Tyler Melito's report in the video player below:
"We need to support everybody and all of our students," Atchison told Denver7's Tyler Melito.
Atchison is a special ed teacher for Denver Public Schools. She's been with the district for 15 years and told Melito her job, as well as the jobs of her colleagues, have changed a lot.
"As a teacher, my day-to-day is impacted with the implications of being underfunded in my classroom," Atchison explained. "For special education teachers — can range from 20 IEPs. Some schools I've heard are up to 40 on their caseload."
She added that a number of teachers she has worked with during her career have left the industry because of a lack of funding.
"If we aren't funding education, then we're not providing the future for the kids," Atchison said.
Prop NN has detractors as well, like Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute.
"NN stands for no no," Caldara told Melito. "It's a terrible initiative."
Caldara noted that there have been similar efforts in the past to increase funding for education, but said that Prop NN is different.
"This one's a little worse than all the other ones combined, in that this is a forever taking of our tax refunds," Caldara said.
He expressed worry over the fact that NN is only required to support education funding for a short period of time — should it pass.
"The earmark for education is for 10 years," Caldara said. "Do you know what's longer than 10 years? Forever is longer than 10 years, and this takes away your TABOR refunds forever."
Caldara shared his belief that this is an effort by the state to eliminate tax refunds for Coloradans.
"Unlike the previous attacks on our tax refunds, like Prop HH and Prop CC before, this one actually changes the state's spending limit," Caldara outlined. "What it means is it changes the formula. So, if sometime in the future maybe we could get a tax refund again, it empowers the legislature to change the formula at will."
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