- Dolores Re-4A School District has lost millions in funding as a result of a state legislative measure.
- Dolores County School District seeking some budgetary help from voters in November.
- Colorado Department of Transportation and State Patrol launch fall DUI crackdown.
Four million, seven hundred thousand dollars. That’s how much the Dolores Re-4A School District has lost over the past seven years as a result of a state legislative measure that some consider a budgetary sleight of hand. On Thursday night, Superintendent Scott Cooper and the Dolores school board discussed a measure that will be put before the district’s voters in November seeking an eight-year extension for an existing mill levy that is due to sunset in 2016. The seven-mill levy has provided approximately three hundred ninety thousand dollars a year to the district for classroom supplies, staff salaries, and technology upgrades. However, over five of the past seven years, the legislature has taken back from the district twice as much money as the additional levy brought in. If the levy is extended, it would sunset in 2024.
And the Dolores County School District is likewise seeking some budgetary help from voters in November. The school board voted September 2nd to put on the ballot a question seeking a three-mill tax override, or increase. Superintendent Bruce Hankins told the Dove Creek Press that the legislature has taken two point three million dollars from Dolores County schools since it implemented the budgetary measure known as the “negative factor”, which took money from schools to balance the state budget. If passed, the Dolores County override, or increase, would provide monies to update curriculum, acquire new books and technology, address facilities needs, and make teacher salaries more competitive. It would sunset in seven years.
And the Colorado Department of Transportation and State Patrol are launching a fall DUI crackdown beginning September 11th and continuing through October 26th. The campaign is intended to address an autumnal increase in impaired driving due to alcohol-related events such as football season and Oktoberfest. Enforcement periods such as this can include sobriety checkpoints, saturation patrols and additional law officers dedicated to impaired-driving enforcement.
