A bill for an ordinance extending the existing .12 percent sales and use tax (the “Denver Preschool Tax”) through December 31, 2026 and increasing the rate to .15 percent, dedicating the revenue derived from the tax to fund the Denver Preschool Program, subject to the approval of the voters at a special municipal election to be conducted in coordination with the state general election on November 4, 2014; and making certain changes to the Denver Preschool Program. (GOVERNMENT & FINANCE) Asks voters to reauthorize the Denver Preschool Program for 10 years, increase the sales and use tax supporting the program by .03 percent, and approve specified programmatic changes. The last reguarly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 8-25-14. The Committee approved filing this bill by consent on 7-17-14.
Tonight one nay, one extension. Council Resolution 647 has been adopted. Madam Secretary, we please take the next one. What should be four bills for introduction? 574 and we add three council members call this out, Fats Brooks and Lemon. I should ask Councilwoman Fox, is this for a vote or for a comment? Vote a vote. And I council members, brooks and layman comments or votes as well. Responding to that. Grab that councilman Lyman. That's fine. Okay. Councilman Lopez, will you please put 574. Ordered, ordered, published, please. Mr. President, move that council 547 series of 2014 be ordered published. 574. 574. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. It has been moved and seconded comments from members of Council. Councilwoman five Thank you, Mr. President. This is an ordinance that would refer a tax increase to the voters. It concerns the preschool tax. Now, since the July 16 government and finance meeting. I expressed many of my concerns about this program and tax increase. I made it clear that I'm a fan of preschool and an enthusiast about other currently existing programs through the state that target at risk children. I refer you to the committee discussion for my thoughts on a preferred solution. That was July 16th. But tonight, let me acknowledge, first of all, the passion of many of my colleagues for this program. Nonetheless, here's why I'll be voting no. Number one, it is a tax increase. It raises about $4 million more a year totaling there, $20 million annually. Number two, this proposal allows for higher administrative costs, which are already drastically understated. Stated administrative costs can go from 5 to 7% under this new proposal, but there's already another 10% in the budget amended from the legal definition that most of us would consider administrative costs. So from my perspective, I'm looking at do I want to raise administrative costs from what's in the what's in the ordinance from 5 to 7%. But I actually see it more as from 15 to 17%. Three, it extends the base program, which doesn't expire until December 2016, which is another ten years. Now, if this tax and this administrative increase fail, the program doesn't end. Preschool officials can bring reauthorization of the base program to people again next year. But you can go for another tax increase if they wanted to do it. But it doesn't end the program. What we're really voting on is higher administrative costs, higher taxes. The last concern I have is one that may be a little more subtle. But I went through this in other programs when I was at the state level. I believe subsidizing a program so heavily pushes the costs up. And this is one of the reasons I believe Denver has some of the highest preschool tuitions in the nation. So I am voting no on this, voting no on the tax increase, and I'm voting no for higher administrative costs. Thank you, Councilwoman Fox, Councilman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to bring everybody's attention to 574. This is a bill which I'm on the board of the different preschool program, and I'm bringing this initiative forward to refer it to the ballot before us tonight as an ordinance and also ballot language. And this is first reading, and we'll get a chance to go over this again on second reading, have a courtesy public hearing. Thank my co sponsor, Peggy Layman, as well. Wow. In 2006, Denver decided to fund the preschool program after three tries and getting it right and figuring out the right amount and how to really go after preschool in the city of Denver. One of the things that we've learned is this. This is not just the city of Denver issue. This is a national issue as we look at education reform. Most individuals say that you have to start with early childhood education and the data supports that. The data shows in this program that 31,816 young people, four year olds, have gone through this program. 31,816 folks who would not otherwise have if we wouldn't had this program in place. The data also shows that for those individuals that go through this program, they are kindergarten ready and they're outperforming their peers who would not be in this program. When I say kindergarten ready, let me be specific. 89% of 2% of them are have receptive vocab. 98% are our grading proficiency in literacy and 99% in math. This is this is a program that's proving its effectiveness and readiness in in the city of Denver. I want to address a couple of reasons of of why we're looking at the increase as a board. When I first came on as a board, all we were looking at was this sunset date, this this program's sunset meaning is over in 2016. And we wanted to see the appropriate time to go to the ballot. And through going and doing a poll and going in the field and looking, we believe that this is the appropriate time. One of the things that we've been looking at for the increase is the continue or the funding for summer programing. We know that there is a summer learning loss for all of our kids, but it's incredibly important that we fund that summer programing to keep that going. That's not free. You know, this also adds to the demand of full day preschool. Most of our folks who are in who are single, single parent families or like my family, where both parents are working, don't have the opportunity just to put their kids anywhere. They want to begin having a full day programing. And also, we are not just seeing an increase in preschool costs in the city of Denver. We're seeing it all throughout Colorado. And for these reasons and many more, we we believe that this is going to be a successful program. Also in a state we're going from 0.012% to 0.015. That puts our sales and use tax at 3.65. That's still very competitive regionally and also nationally. And so for these reasons and many more, I hope that my colleagues will be supporting this. Thank you, Councilman Brooks. Councilwoman Lemmon. Thank you, Mr. President. Councilman Brooks did an excellent idea recitation of why this is a good program. And I'm just going to reiterate why I really think that I'm proud to co-sponsor this. It serves young children. And we know from research of very recently, even over the many years, that the better foundation you give children, the better they do as they continue through the school grades. Secondly, we're not just giving money to. Children to go to preschool. We are looking at what. Schools. They go to and we work with. Those schools and we rate those schools. So not only. Do we evaluate the child, but we're also evaluating and being sure that they go to well trained teachers and good. Schools. And then again. It saves money in our future when we have citizens that can get through high school and then. College and then jobs. They are the ones that contribute to our budgets. So I am a strong for those reasons and many that Councilwoman Brooks reiterated, I am a strong supporter of this program. Thank you, Councilwoman Lehman. Councilman Merritt. Thank you, Mr. President. I always resist the the the urging that government should be run like a business. But that doesn't mean that government shouldn't think like a business when we're spending the people's money and that the the expenditures we make should be thought of as investments, and investments should deliver a rate of return. I think it's rare that we have an opportunity to make an investment that delivers a higher rate of return than this one. The the the data is in the impact of preschool on the life chances of kids is enormous. The return on investment is not just on the order of percentages, but of multiples of the money that we put in. And the impact is particularly powerful on the most at risk kids. So not only are we improving their life chances and improving their ability to earn a good living in the future, we're also avoiding potential costs in the criminal justice system. So again, I don't want to think of government's business as a business, but think of it in a business frame of mind. We're making an investment here. This isn't this isn't about the children whom we should bring our hands about, and we need to help the children. This is an investment in the future, and you don't even have to care about kids. This is returning a serious return to the taxpayers in future earning earning potential mitigated costs in the criminal justice system. And I think I'm voting in favor of us making this excellent investment in our future. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Nevett. Councilwoman Sussman. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm sort of reiterating what others have said, but I just want to add my $0.03. This is a $0.03 on $100. It is, as they have said, the best expense for my and your taxes that we could ask for, particularly for the investment potential for this. In fact, we have a number of people who, with backgrounds in education on this council, Councilman Novick, Councilwoman Fox and myself and I think a few other teachers, Councilman Layman. So we know where of we speak about the importance of preschool education. So important that Councilman Councilwoman Fox didn't actually mention it tonight, just asked to take a look at her meeting. I totally support what her idea was. Preschool education is so important that we might want to think about starting a dialog and a discussion to change our public education mission from K-12 to P11. There is evidence that the senior year may not be as effective and efficient, and there is conversation throughout higher education and in K-12 education about the effectiveness of the senior year. But we do know the effectiveness of the preschool year and how important it is and what an interesting idea that we might put our resources into P11 instead of K 12. And I just had to call you let people know about your mention in committee. Councilwoman Potts. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilwoman Sussman. Councilman Lopez. Thank you. I'll be brief. I have no idea why society and. The city would not want its citizens educated from day one. That's why I'm supporting this. All right. Thank you, Councilman Lopez, Captain Shepard. I will be supporting this tonight. And I just want to share a personal story. I have a six and a half year old son. Our family would not meet the traditional definition of an at risk family. It's a two parent earning household. My husband holds a master's degree. My son hears well over a thousand, thousands and thousands of different vocabulary words on a daily basis at home. Yet despite that, at a very early age, my son was diagnosed with special needs and required therapy for the first several years of his life. He was not very good, didn't have very much vocabulary. You only had one word in 18 months. He did start receiving therapy very early on, and we did participate in this Denver preschool program. When Councilman Brooks was talking about how well this prepares children for kindergarten. I can personally attest to that because my son kind of floundered in the early childhood portion of his education. But since he was able to avail himself of this program, by the time he got to kindergarten, kindergarten, he really flourished. I mean, I just saw him blossom in the first few months, started battling like crazy, you know, and really, you know, really made tremendous, tremendous progress. And then so much so that towards the end of the first term, the teachers were saying that he had become a leader and a model for others in his classroom on various levels. So, you know, when we talk about the benefits of this program, I mean, it really has many benefits in many different situations. And for my son, he needed that extra special attention to get him to the place that he is today. And I was so glad in the last couple of weeks because he's been writing little stories and he's very excited to go back to school now. The words are not totally correct or in order or spelled right. But I mean, I'm just, you know, for a kid that had one word at 18 months old, I just could not be more more overjoyed about where we are today. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Sheppard. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. I won't repeat what all of my colleagues have already stated. I just want to add that 80% of a child's brain is developed in the first three years of life. And by being able to ensure that kids have the opportunity to be exposed to a larger vocabulary and other just being able to interrelate with other kids when they start school, they'll be so much better off. And we know that for kids who have been in some kind of preschool program prior to starting kindergarten, they have a 15,000 word advantage. So to know that kids who have not had that are starting school at a disadvantage and by being able to refer this to the voters, they get to decide. But I think we have seen tremendous, tremendous benefits from this program that has been in place for as many years as it has has been here. And I just want to say a special thank you to Sue Casey, who served on this city council and was somebody who had really done a lot of the research and worked with many of the providers out in the community to bring this forward the first time around. And to ensure that we were successful in getting it supported and funded by the taxpayers, I think we're going to see tremendous benefits from it. And my hope is that we continue to see improvements in our public education system so that that transition gets to move all the way across as they move to be graduates of our education system. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman Brooks. Sorry, Mr. President, but I had to take this moment to just point out to folks who are sitting in the audience because, you know, I. I got on board with this because it's the right thing to do with this. Smart for a city, but then you get inspired by some folks. And so and and Joe Heinz, the legend of early childhood education in Denver. Can you just stand up and just say hello? Yeah, yeah. And then Jerry Grimes, who is also a legend in northeast Denver. And all three of my kids went through Hope Center. So thank you so much, Jerry, for all your hard work for pushing. Right. Thank you. Councilman Brooks, do we have any other questions or comments from members of council seen on Madam Secretary? Roll call. But no. Can each layman. Yes. Lopez Yes. NEVITT Hi. Ortega Hi, Rob Frye. Shepherd Sussman. BROOKS For sure. BROWN Hi. Mr. President. I would say sorry. Madam Secretary, please. Because the vote and the results. 11 eyes one Nay. Lebanon is one. A country of five. 74 has been ordered published. I'm sorry, can you t of the last two and it's 563 and 564 caught out by myself. We can do both of those in a block and this these two bills and I have a question I'm just giving a preface these two bills we had a