Enough is enough: Proposition NN asks more from a business losing customers

By Mark Salley | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Imagine you are an investor in a business…maybe a restaurant. For the last six years you have been pouring more and more of your hard-earned money into the business to keep it afloat.

And despite your increasing investment, you lost more and more of your customers…for each of the past six years. On top of that, most customers failed to give the restaurant a passing grade.

What would you do? When would you say enough is enough? Is it time to stop pouring money into a failing business…that is losing customers and costing you more each year?

I, for one, say yes…it’s time to stop increasing funding for a failing business!

What business?

The business is our taxpayer-funded K-12 public education system.

Public education has been losing customers (students) for six straight years, according to the Colorado Department of Education. Since 2021-22, the cost-per-student of educating students has increased from $13,509 to $16,845 in 2024-25. Total expenditure for K-12 public education has grown by $2.9 billion in just the last three years, state spending data show.

We are paying more money each year…while enrollment declines.

“More than half of Colorado’s third-graders are still unable to read, write, or perform basic math at grade-level,” the Common Sense Institute, a nonpartisan research organization dedicated to the protection and promotion of Colorado’s economy, reports in Dollars and Data 2026. “[R]esearch shows that students not reading proficiently by the end of the third grade have major problems ever catching up.”

So, let’s repeat. Coloradans are paying more money to a business that is failing to meet its customers’ (students’) needs, and the business is losing customers each year.

Now is the time to say stop.

If you have yet to investigate Proposition NN on this year’s ballot, consider the following.

“Proposition NN is essentially a tax increase, permanently eliminating or reducing TABOR refunds,” reads the summary of arguments against the measure in the state’s annual 2026 State Ballot Information Booklet. “TABOR refunds are a taxpayer right. Eliminating or sharply reducing those refunds means that government will keep more of the money that families earn. …Before reaching deeper into taxpayers’ pockets, the government should demonstrate it has exhausted every avenue to reduce wasteful spending, eliminate redundant programs, and deliver existing services more efficiently.”

The Institute’s conclusion in the same report is blunter. “Public education in Colorado continues to post disappointing results as its funding levels increase and its enrollment falls. Colorado taxpayers might reasonably wonder whether all that spending really benefits them and demand better from the state’s public-school districts.”

NN would snatch $851 million in TABOR refunds through 2028, according to the Institute’s separate analysis.

“[A] nonpartisan legislative council analysis found by the third year, the money starts splitting between schools and the general operating budget,” the Denver Gazette’s editorial pages wrote. “In other words, a lot of the revenue will end up as more play money for lawmakers.”

The Independence Institute, dedicated to advancing policy that protects and advances freedom, puts the stakes plainly. “If passed, billions of dollars that would otherwise be returned to taxpayers will be taken out of the economy, ending TABOR refunds for the foreseeable future, exacerbating volatility in the state’s already unsustainable budget, and weakening the economy.”

I am voting “no” on Proposition NN.

Mark W. Salley of Arvada worked in the communications office of Jefferson County Public Schools from 1982 to 1984, served as communications director for Bethel School District in Eugene, Ore., from 1985 to 1989, and as communications director for the Colorado Association of School Boards from 1989 to 1990.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.