I’m excited about the upcoming “Waiting for Superman” film – it will be great to stimulate more discussion and action around education reform.

At the same time, the deafening silence around Colorado’s education funding in the next fiscal year is troubling.   The September revenue update is in, and it isn’t pretty.   With current projections, another $257 million will have to be cut from the current year state budget, and a $1.1 billion gap is looming starting July 1, 2011, just 9 months from now.

And this is all part of the “rosy” scenario that assumes the 3 fiscal ballot initiatives don’t pass – if any pass, all bets are off.

Another movie analogy might be “Groundhog Day” – this seems like a slightly different version of the same bleak fiscal picture the state has faced for nearly a decade.  Except, now the stakes are higher – the possibility of zero state funding for higher ed is becoming more realistic, as other options for cuts and/or new revenues have already been exploited.

And, in some ways, this slow moving train wreak scenario is even more bizarre now.  The governor is a lame duck, though history suggests that he will surely do his best to try to shelter education from bearing all of burden of cuts, in his last proposed budget.   We won’t know who will control the state legislature until after November 2, and a new legislature and a new Governor will need time to figure out their priorities, and budget options.

Given few other budget options, it is likely that K-12 will take additional multi hundred million dollar cuts and higher ed cuts will likely wipe out at least half of the current (48^th in the nation) funding, perhaps all.  But given the current antipathy to taxes, no candidate, even the most likely winners, can talk about any solutions to this dilemma, prior to the election.  I don’t see a concerted business/nonprofit/responsible institutions coalition coming together at the level needed to address these problems, as happened with Ref C.   State higher ed strategic plans, while important to develop, seem quite out of touch with the fiscal reality that starts in just nine months.

Meanwhile, I am reminded that we are not a stagnant state – our population, including K-12 and higher ed students, continues to grow, even as our funding does not.  An issues brief from the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute shows that, even before we make these draconian cuts, the total state General Fund (GF) budget was about the same in 2010 as it was in 2001, but the state is now serving 700,000 more new residents, including 70,000 more K12 students, and 35,000 more students in higher education.

As the adage goes, I guess we’ll plan to make up for our losses with higher volume.

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