Local ballot measures, Colorado

School bonds fared lower approval ratings with nearly $8 billion voted on in 2011

Click on any state for information about its laws governing school bond and tax votes 2011 elections School bonds & taxes (Part 1) & (Part 2) 2011 Election stats County website evals.

By Bailey Ludlam

The number of state ballot measures that appeared before voters in 2011 was certainly on the slim side. Local measures, however, skyrocketed. The number of measures more than doubled in 2011 from 1,490 to 3,778.

Despite the vast increase in ballot proposals, the total average approval rating of measures stayed practically the same as 2010's 72.5% rating. It dropped slightly by 0.8% in 2011.

Of the thousands of local school issues observed in 2011, a grand total of 993 were school bond and tax issues. School bond questions carried $7.79 billion in bonds. Roughly 38% or $2.95 billion was approved.

"Despite the increase in local measures up for a vote, it's clear that residents favored passing proposals unrelated to school bond and tax issues. Those issues saw a much lower approval rating in 2011," said Johanna Herman, the lead researcher for the study.

As a whole, school bond & tax measures when compared to all local measures (city, county, school bonds, etc) that were up for a vote in 2011, had a lower approval rating. Local measures were approved by 71.7%, while school bond & tax measures had an average approval rating of only 66.3% for the year (46.6% for August-December 2011).

In 2011, a total of 658 school bond & tax measures were approved, 335 were defeated. The total approval rating for school bond and tax measures is roughly 66.3% for the entire year of 2011.

Compared to bond questions that appeared before voters during the period of August and December in 2010, 2011 certainly saw a small increase of +4.8% in approval ratings. The approval rating is also a shift from the January-August period in 2011 when the rating was -7.4% compared to the same period in 2010.

In order to provide a consistent look at local measures, Ballotpedia analyzes the same 11 states every year. According to Herman, the 11 states included in the study were chosen because of their relative ease of access to information about school bond and tax elections.

States included in the study: Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin.

However, it must be noted that in some states, although detailed coverage of local measures is not available, at time results are in state government databases. In such cases, we supplement our statistics with the additional information in order to provide a better picture of local measure approval ratings.

School bond and tax votes

See also: School bond and tax elections in Colorado

Colorado has two different types of ballot measures that are required under two different laws. The first is the Taxpayer Bill of Rights from 1992, which became Section 20 of Article 10 of the Colorado Constitution. Under TABOR, local voter approval is required if the school district wants to exceed its tax levy above the normal rate of inflation set by the consumer price index. The second law is the School Finance Act of 1994. Under the act, voter approval is required when a school district wants to exceed the limit for raising its Total Program Budget. The Total Program Budget is a combined budget that includes the district's general fund, special education and other costs. A school district that wants to exceed the previous year's Total Program Budget by more than 125% must put a plan before the voters. This type of ballot measure has rarely been used; it is considered to be a last resort option. Colorado law imposes limits on when school districts can hold special elections. Colorado only allows special elections in even numbered years on pre-established general and primary election days in May and November. In odd-numbered years, special school district elections can only occur on the first Tuesday in November. School districts that want to exceed their TABOR limit can sometimes combine this request with a city TABOR request.