"Make do with what you have" was the message voters gave to the Re-1 school district Tuesday.

But as of press time, statewide voters appeared to have approved sending a portion of the tax surplus to education.

A proposal to allow Re-1 to retain a levy of 5.0 mills to fund building repairs and technology needs was defeated with 53 percent, or 3,292 voters against it. Those in favor of keeping the mill for another three years numbered 2,906.

The measure would have raised $3 million for the capital-reserve fund, which pays for maintenance and repairs for the district’s dozens of schools, playgrounds, vehicles and sports fields. Right now, the reserve fund is around $500,000 per year.

"(The defeat) means we will have to re-prioritize which areas need fixing the most, and put those in the capital reserve," said Bill Thompson, Re-1 superintendent. "It will stretch everything else that needs work out for years."

Re-1 Board President Steve Hinton also expressed disappointment.

"We had not heard a lot of negatives on this, so it was a bit of a surprise," he said. "We tried very hard to make sure people understood that it was not an increase but a continuation of a mill levy we are already paying, but it is possible that they did not see it that way."

Hinton said routine day-to-day maintenance on buildings takes up a good amount of the capital-reserve fund, a situation that leaves many upgrades and repairs untouched year after year.

"After all that, roofs still need to be replaced and so on," he said. "We just don’t have the budget to deal with it all. That’s why we requested the extra funding."

But statewide, education fared better.

With 75 percent of the precincts reporting as of Tuesday, Amendment 23 was slated to pass by a margin of 6 percent.

Amendment 23 banks on the strength of the economy for increased education spending. The measure relies on the tax surplus to increase funding to schools by the amount of inflation, plus 1 percent per year. The budgeting will be required by law because it is a law under the state Constitution.

Because of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, those surplus tax funds typically go back to the people, unless they approve otherwise through an election.

But critics argued that if the economy slows down, taxes will be reduced, leading to a diminished tax surplus when governments begin to tighten the spending belt. That leaves education funded by law at the expense of other essential services. Opponents also argued that Amendment 23 would restrict the budgeting freedom of the state legislature.

On the other hand, schools need to get increased funding where and when they can, said Thompson.

"It helps us to be competitive with salaries and with recruiting good people," Thompson said Tuesday. "Right now we lose good teachers to the Front Range because they pay more."

Another education-related measure, Referendum F, appeared headed for defeat. The measure, which is statutory rather than constitutional, would have earmarked $50 million for science and math programs at schools, sunsetting after five years.

As of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday Referendum F was failing by 528,398 to 399,062 votes. In Montezuma County, voters rejected the plan by a vote of 5,602 to 3,104.

"It would be a benefit for schools. Historically math and science were a high priority, but it seems in the last few years reading and writing have been getting the headlines," Thompson said, adding that the topics deserve more attention from state education leaders.

"Science is being left behind," he said because it is not on the state report card used to judge school performance. By not including science in that review, schools have a tendency to lose focus in teaching science, preferring instead to spend their resources on subjects like reading and writing by which the school is measured.

Until that is changed "science will unfortunately always play second fiddle to reading and writing," Thompson said.