SB 17-061: Distribution of Additional Operational Funding to Charter Schools

The bill mandates that local school districts distribute revenue from ongoing local property tax mill levies on a per-student basis, to the district charter schools regardless of whether those schools were in existence when the original mill levy initiatives that voters decided to support. The only way already cash-strapped districts can retain local control over those mill levies is to run and pay for a costly initiative campaign on the November 2017 ballot. Going forward local districts will have no say at all.

Legislative procedure in Colorado requires every introduced bill to have a hearing in committee. The committee members will either support the bill and vote pass it out of committee for consideration by the full body, or kill the bill and vote to “indefinitely postpone” it.

A pro-education vote on SB 61 on the Senate Floor was a “no” vote. However, the motion in the House Education was to “indefinitely postponed” the bill so the pro-education vote was a “yes” vote.