A case that has been lingering in Colorado courts since 2005 arrived at an important and historic threshold last week when a Denver District court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. In her ruling, Denver District Court Judge Sheila Rappaport said that the State funding system of K-12 education is not “thorough and uniform.”

While that seems like a basic judgment, Judge Rappaport went on to frame a much larger ramification in her decision, and delivered the reasons why this case is almost certainly headed to the Colorado Supreme Court.

In her ruling, Judge Rappaport wrote that “there is not one school district that is sufficiently funded.”

She also wrote that, “There is not enough money to permit school districts across the state to properly implement standards-based education and to meet the requirements of state law and regulation.”

In a nutshell, she has ruled that the Colorado State legislature must find a way to fund K-12 education in Colorado at a much higher level, at least a level to meet these standards, but must also do it in a way that is constitutional.

Without stating exactly how much funding would be adequate, Rappaport has asked the legislature to either ask voters to raise taxes, which voters just turned down by nearly a 2 to 1 margin, or find more funding in a state budget for a line item that already eats up more than 40% of the general fund.

While Judge Rappaport may have expected that her ruling would be appealed, if for some reason the State of Colorado decides against the appeal, Rappaport has set an impossible standard without setting any financial guidelines.

Essentially, the legislature is being told to arrive at a magical number that they know is bigger than the one they currently use, but don’t know how high they really need to go.

So, in order to stay constitutional, the legislature must either convince voters to increase taxes, a move that recently went down in flames, or arrive at a large number of cuts from other programs like health care, transportation or prisons.

And if this decision is upheld, how long will it take for someone representing prisons or health care or even transportation to file their own lawsuit after cuts make the funding in their programs unlawful?

The concept of education funding deserves vigorous debate within the legislature and from voters. But a court ordered mandate to fund education at a mysteriously high level, seemingly ignoring the fact that the state is asked to fund a variety of services is shortsighted at best and disastrous at worst.

About The Blogger

- Dominic Dezzutti, producer of the Colorado Decides debate series, a co-production of CBS4 and Colorado Public Television, looks at the local and national political scene in his CBSDenver.com blog. Read new entries here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Dezzutti writes about federal, state and local matters and how our elected leaders are handling the issues important to Colorado. Dezzutti also produces the Emmy winning Colorado Inside Out, hosted by Raj Chohan, on Colorado Public Television.