What Question WILL Be On The November Ballot?

Many people, myself included, have assumed the East and West Grand School Districts will be asking for a half or full percent county sales tax increase this fall. I think there's another, more insidious, plan afoot.

In 1999, Grand County asked for a temporary one percent sales tax in order to finance infrastructure projects they had at the time. Once these projects were paid off, voters approved a permanent extension to the sales tax. Since then, the county has been building a sizable slush fund--$14 million dollars. Nine million dollars of that is discretionary, which means the county is currently sitting on nearly $750 dollars for each of its 12,000 citizens.

So what is the county going to do with all of the tax revenue it's not spending? Instead of saving it for landfill mitigation, I think the East and West Grand school districts--along with the county, towns (excluding Kremmling) and Grand Foundation (Ad Hoc Committee), have come up with a plan to get voters to divert those funds to the schools.

Imagine the PR spin... "Hey, we're using existing money to bail out the school districts; not asking for more. This way, we can keep being irresponsible with the budget, blame the state, and continue the status quo."

In the next few weeks, I expect the "Ad Hoc Committee" to announce that they've come up with a solution very similar to what I've just pointed out above, and that they're going to be putting it on the November ballot.

As the Mayor of Kremmling said in a letter to Nancy Karas opting out of the Ad Hoc Committee,  "The Public School Finance Act provides a mechanism for school funding - property taxes... While the County may, with voter approval, impose a sales tax, it is not authorized to fund public school operating expenses with these revenues."


How about we vote to eliminate Grand County's one percent sales tax? That's a plan with merit.