On the Move With Sen. Mike Johnston

Lawmaker eyeing plan B, C or D for education funding

By Cara DeGette

It’s been two months since Colorado voters resoundingly rejected Amendment 66, a measure to raise taxes by nearly $1 billion a year to pay for education.
Greater Park Hill News caught up by phone with the proposal’s chief architect and cheerleader, Sen. Mike Johnston, a Democrat who represents Park Hill and surrounding areas. While running errands, from getting locked out of his office at the state capitol to a pit stop at the governor’s office for a meeting, Johnston talked about what he called his greatest sore spot – working so hard on Amendment 66, only to see it go down by a 65-35 margin. Johnston, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and serves on the education committee, also weighed in on what’s next for education funding and other previews to the upcoming legislative session, which kicks off Jan. 8.
GPHN: Were you surprised that Amendment 66 was defeated so definitively?
Johnston: I was completely shocked. The polling data showed us close, and it wasn’t until the Monday before the election that we realized it was down, and down significantly. The scope of the defeat showed us that certainly we need to scale down what we’ll be able to do to fund education. Some of the feedback we got was that we had to be bipartisan, and get bipartisan support. Well, I’d talk to my [Republican] colleagues on the other side of the aisle and they’d say ‘the reason I’m here is because I promised my constituents I would support no taxes ever.’ Those are the kinds of things that made us step back and say maybe we need to consider plan B or C or even D to try to look at an incremental approach to funding education.
GPHN: What do those plans entail?
Johnston: The short answer is, we don’t know yet. I think the immediate answer is there is no grand bargain at this time, no long-term solution to Colorado’s constitutional crisis. It’s clear that one comprehensive package is not possible, so we need to go back and talk about long-term plans and shorter-term steps. We’ll need to figure out how much we can do at the legislative level with existing revenues, and how and when we can fund [the school finance law]. We’ll have to look at how to take all the components from Amendment 66 and do them in, say, five years instead of one big thing.
GPHN: What bills are you going to be working on in the upcoming session?
Johnston: I’m going to work on multiple avenues to address needs on K-12. I want to try to find ways to find more dollars for K-12, including increasing the number of preschool slots and full day kindergarten, and addressing increased needs for technology. I’m also working on a bill to address chop shops and car thefts, which are a problem in northeast Denver.
GPHN: What else needs to happen in the 2014 legislative session? If 2013 was about an ambitious agenda that included gun control and civil unions and the ASSET bill and energy efficiency, what will the theme of 2014 be?
Johnston: I think the theme of 2014 is economic development, job creation and bipartisan problem solving. I think you’ll see much more workmanship efforts to solve problems.
GPHN: Your website mentions that you have a Citizens Cabinet. Who are they? And what do they do?
Johnston: Anyone in the district who wants to be on the cabinet can be on it. It’s a group of community advisors who have passion for a policy area – like healthcare, criminal justice and the judiciary, education, transportation, local affairs, constitutional reform. Sometimes the groups meet separately, sometimes together. It’s really good to have independent policy experts to hear from, instead of always relying on the lobby at the capitol to hear about the issues.
GPHN: How do people sign up?
Johnston: They can email me at mike@mikejohnston.com.