DENVER7 -- Colorado teachers say they need more money for their classrooms. The head of the Colorado Education Association says getting that money is no easy task.
“Colorado is the only state in the nation that has to go to a direct vote of the people in order to increase the revenue for schools,” CEA President Kerrie Dallman told Anne Trujillo on this weekend’s Politics Unplugged. “Colorado is behind $828 million in school funding they don’t have the ability to make up unless it’s a year like this year where revenue forecasts have come in more positively.”
Many people are under the impression that marijuana taxes go to schools. They do, just not to classrooms or to address the teacher shortage.
“Marijuana tax money, when Colorado voters passed that, was reserved specifically for helping school districts with capital construction,” Dallman said. “That’s the money that school districts can access in order to update their boilers, fix their roofs or build a new school.”
Politics Unplugged airs Sundays at 4:30am & 4pm on Denver7.