Michael Fields penned an inaccurate, slanted, and misleading screed about the school funding issues that will be on the November ballot in Douglas County.

First, he stated that elected officials in Arapahoe County will not put school funding requests onto the ballot this November, and then lavished praise on them for this decision. His obsequious fawning failed to mention that these ballot issues have a much better track record in Arapahoe County than they do in Douglas County. According to the Arapahoe County Elections website, voters in Cherry Creek School District have approved school funding issues every time they were on the ballot — in 2020, 2016, 2012, and 2008.

The last time school funding ballot issues passed in Douglas County was 2017; prior to that, 2006. Issues 5A and 5B failed in Douglas County in 2022, thanks in part to misinformation like that disseminated by Mr. Fields in his recent guest column.

Cherry Creek does have funding needs, but nowhere near as dire as what we are facing in Douglas County, because our voters rarely approve school funding. This is why a DCSD teacher can transfer to Cherry Creek and get paid at least $10,000 more per year for doing the same job. Is it any wonder our district has so many open positions?

Mr. Fields also pontificated at great length about how school funding will skyrocket because of increased property tax revenues. He is correct that property taxes for just about everyone will go up, and yes, a significant portion of these monies are used for school funding. However, he neglected to include that per-pupil-revenue is comprised of two components — the state share and the local share. The state share comes from the Colorado Department of Education. The local share comes from the county. When the local share increases — as it will this year due to higher property taxes — the state share decreases by the same amount. There is no overall increase in funding. The state contributes less, and total funding remains the same.

Whether these omissions were due to being unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Colorado school funding or a deliberate misstatement intended to advance a position aligned with a specific political agenda is anyone’s guess.

Voting “no” on 5A and 5B is certainly your right. But make sure that decision is based on accurate, complete information. I’ll be voting “yes.”

Juli Watkins

Castle Rock