Senate Education Committee approves fining "Indian" schools

A bill to impose heavy fines on schools that use unapproved Indian mascots won approval on April 1 from the Senate Education Committee.

Senate Bill 116 is sponsored by Senator Jessie Danielson, D-Wheat Ridge, who is also the sponsor of the farmworkers bill of rights measure that is awaiting action from the Senate Appropriations Committee.

About 25 schools in Colorado still use Indian mascots, including several with images considered offensive and derogatory. That includes Lamar High School that uses the Savages as its mascot.

Under SB 116, schools that refuse to stop using Indian mascots could face a $25,000 per month fine. 

A 2016 report from a gubernatorial task force on schools using Native American mascots listed Arickaree School in Anton (Indians), Yuma High School (Indians) and Weldon Valley schools (Warriors).

In the past three months, both La Veta High School and Cheyenne Mountain school district decided to drop the use of Indian mascots. 

The bill was amended to allow two schools to continue using their Native American mascots, as those were part of agreements between the schools and the Northern Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. Those schools are Arapahoe High School in Centennial and Strasburg High. 

The hearing on April 1 drew dozens of Native Americans to the State Capitol to testify on the harm that using Indian mascots does to young people. 

Brody Walker, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and a seventh grader, told the committee, “I’m not anyone’s mascot and I’m no animal, a savage or anyone’s good luck charm.” Schools are supposed where students can learn about equality and how racism is bad, he said. “But schools with native American mascots are teaching my peers that it is okay to be racist and that I don't matter.”

A group called Lamar Proud, which includes 130 alumni of Lamar High, also spoke in favor of getting rid of the school’s mascot. 

Blake Mundell of Lamar Proud said some of the alumni have opposed the mascot for decades. “We stand beside those American Indian members of our community in Lamar who are forced to watch their peers dress up in sacred attire or in mocking displays.”

One Native American family from Yuma spoke in favor of keeping their school’s mascot. The Roubideaux family — Lee and Teresa, and son Travis, all told the committee that the mascot, the Indian, is a source of pride and that they have not faced discrimination. 

Lee and Travis Roubideaux are Rosebud Sioux. Lee said the Yuma Indian is “positive to me and our town. People love the name, the headdresses and the sculpture,” he said. “It’s tribe pride.”

SB 116 won a 4-1 vote and is now headed to the State Senate for debate. 

However, this week, the Senate’s biggest job will be dealing with the 2021-22 State budget. A March 19 revenue forecast from state economists showed that the budget-cutting in last year’s budget may have been more than was necessary and that leaves more than $13 billion in general fund — that’s revenue from individual and corporate income taxes and sales taxes — that can be spent in the next budget. But about $2.3 billion is one-time only money, meaning it can’t be spent on continuing programs. 

The six-member Joint Budget Committee, which crafts the budget, decided to take a lot of those one-time only dollars and set them aside for future obligations, sort of a prepayment.

That included $380 million for obligations to the Public Employees’ Retirement Association. In the current year budget, an annual payment of $225 million had to be canceled for lack of funds. The prepayment will cover the obligation in next year’s budget, when revenue forecasts are not expected to be as good. 

Another $124 million would pay off bonds for the Colorado Department of Transportation. But the biggest investment is to build up the state’s rainy-day fund, known as the general fund reserve, to $1.7 billion. That fund was all but wiped out in last year’s budget cutting. An analysis of state rainy day funds by the Pew Charitable Trusts has said Colorado’s rainy-day fund is well below the national average, with enough money to pay less than a month’s worth of expenditures in a fiscal crisis. The investment for next year’s budget would hike that 13.54 percent of the State budget. 

The other good news: K-12 education. While the Joint Budget Committee doesn’t set the K-12 budget — that’s in the School Finance Act — their recommendation is to pay back the huge cut to K-12 in its entirety, about $572 million. That would reduce the debt to K-12 from $1.16 billion to where it was in the 2019-20 budget year. 

The budget does not anticipate increasing K-12 per pupil funding in the next year, but lawmakers also didn’t cut K-12 per pupil funding when they shored up the 2020-21 budget. Enrollment declines showed fewer students in many districts, but lawmakers decided to hold the funding stable, which could leave extra dollars available when schools resume in the fall.

The 2021-22 Long Appropriations Bill will be in the Senate this week and the House next week.

Representative Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells, is the sponsor of a bill scaling back public art projects that won approval from a House committee last week.

As introduced, House Bill 1056 would raise the threshold for the Department of Transportation projects that would have to incorporate public arts projects from $150,000 to $500,000. The bill’s biggest impact is expected to be on maintenance projects. 

Current law that dates back 40 years requires one percent of state-funded capital construction to go for public art. 

HB 1056 also limits when CDOT has to pay prevailing wages in a local community for those art projects. That will save CDOT money on labor and training for those projects. 

However, the higher threshold didn’t win a lot of fans from the Democratic-led House Transportation and Local Government Committee, which amended the threshold to $250,000.  The bill cleared the committee on a 9-1 vote on March 30 but instead of going to the full House was sent to the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee.