With Prop 101, damage easy to see at county level

The potential devastation of Proposition 101 can be measured in millions and even billions of dollars at the state level, but at the local level, the damaging effects would be felt by each student in a school district.

Under Prop 101, headed for the 2010 ballot, ownership taxes would be reduced to $1 for used vehicles and $2 for new ones. Every school district in the state gets a share of those taxes.

Based on an analysis by the Bell Policy Center, that that means funding from ownership taxes for each student in Denver would plunge from $434 to $6.08. In Mesa County, the drop would be from $490 to $6.87. In Alamosa County, funding would fall by more than $250.

Those are punishing cuts of about 98 percent.

But Prop 101 won't just harm students. All Colorado residents will be hurt as counties and cities and towns have funding slashed for general funds, water, sanitation and recreation districts, fire departments, pension funds and expenses such as weed and mosquito control.

Conejos County, one of the poorest in the state, will see its share of ownership taxes drop from $227,571 to $4,711. Denver's share will fall from about $12 million to $171,268.

As for maintenance and construction of roads, highways and bridges, we would take a giant step backward there, too. License fees, most of which go to the Highway Users Tax Fund, would be cut by about 85 percent, and FASTER fees, designed to help us catch up, would be eliminated completely.

The Bell Policy Center is analyzing Proposition 101 and its companion measures, Amendments 61 and 60. On Prop 101, we want to dig into the impact down to the local level, on students and schools, on libraries and hospitals, on fire departments and other special districts.

So far we have completed partial analyses for Alamosa, Conejos, Denver, Douglas, Jefferson and Mesa counties, and we will keep working on Colorado's other counties.

Click here for completed analyses, and please check back for updates.