RAIDING POT-ENFORCEMENT FEES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

Moving money meant to police Colorado's medical marijuana program to
the general fund could breach the public's trust.

So it has come to this: Parents of Colorado school children must
thank pot smokers for keeping teachers in classrooms.

Once again, Colorado's budget deficit means the state will raid funds
collected from fees that residents pay for specific uses and instead
use them to prop up the general fund to protect needed services, such
as K-12 education.

Gov. Bill Ritter's latest plan includes taking $9 million from a fund
that oversees enforcement of new medical marijuana laws.

Because we question whether all of the growing number of medical
marijuana card-holders are legitimate patients with chronic pain and
debilitating illnesses, we think using money that's designed to
prevent criminal abuse in a system seemingly rife with abuse could
breach the public's trust. But Ritter's office claims that raiding
the fund won't hurt enforcement.

Budget director Todd Saliman tells us the money is surplus and that
the estimated $8.5 million needed to enforce the new rules will still
come from the cash fund as intended.

In fact, the state is collecting so many $90 yearly fees for medical
marijuana cards that, even with the raid and the enforcement budget,
the fund will have $1 million left over.

It's even possible, once the program stabilizes, that the fees for
registration cards could come down, as the intent of the new medical
marijuana law - like so many other fee-based funds - is that the
money not go to the general fund.

Raiding the state's Medical Marijuana Program Cash Fund is merely the
latest use of the budget-balancing technique of cash transfers - a
technique we have come to grudgingly support.

Colorado's Supreme Court has ruled that the fee-based accounts can be
used for general fund operations. And such raids have proven
irresistible to both parties.

During the recession earlier in this decade - from fiscal year
2000-01 to 2004-05 - Republican lawmakers raided $917 million from
cash funds to help plug $2.8 billion in budget shortfalls.

Saliman points out his Democratic counterparts have relied less on
the raids. Since fiscal year 2008-09, the Democrat-controlled
legislature has diverted $828 million from cash funds to help cover
$4.3 billion in shortfalls.

Ritter is trying to patch up a projected $60 million budget gap that
opened after Congress reduced the amount of Medicaid money it would
send to states in the coming fiscal year. The gap is part of a nearly
$1 billion shortfall that must be dealt with since Colorado's laws
require that the state balance its budget.

We sympathize with critics who claim that using specific fee-based
accounts to support general operations is wrong.

But in hard times, the responsible thing is to fund our priorities,
most notably K-12 education.