Latest southern Colorado news, weather and sports from FOX21 News

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Reporter: Chris Buckley

Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101 have been getting a lot of attention lately.

They're designed to save taxpayers money and grow the state's economy.

But schools across the state are rallying against the ballot initiatives.

Earlier this month, the State Board of Education formally declared its opposition. The resolution called the proposal "economically devastating."

School districts across the state have followed suit.

"If 60, 61 or 101 passes, it's going to be bad for the Harrison school district, I can tell you that" Harrison School District 2 Superintendent Mike Miles said.  "We'll lose quite a bit of money -  by some estimates as much as $11 million if all three pass.  For a district with a $100 million budget, that's a lot of money."

He said if that happens, they'll be forced to cut staff.

"There's no other way around it, we don't have $11 million worth of programs," Miles said. 

Supporters of the ballot measures said schools need to do more with the money they have.  Education officials said the cuts keep coming, and they're already doing more with less.

"The concern at the local level is that we've already cut down to the bone, so how are we going to implement some of the new legislation that's being passed?" Colorado Commission of Education Dwayne Jones said.  "How are we going to continue to make sure we educate our children and educate them well if we continue to have to do it with less staff, increasing class sizes and not have the resources to support programs that we know make a difference in achievement?"

School budgets across the state have  been slashed by billions of dollars in recent years.

"Anyone can come to the district and look at our books, our classrooms, look at how we're using money," Miles said.  "We've been very efficient the last couple of years.  Last year, we cut more than six percent of our budget, which I think was $4.5 million, so I don't think there's a lot of money floating around there, and I challenge anybody to come in and see."

Officials said the long-term effects could be far reaching as well.

"I think there will be multiple negative effects," Jones said.  "One, some of these voter initiatives talk about the fact that we would eliminate certain tax bases that directly affect schools, and the legislature would have to decide how to make that up.  The second piece is I think a lot of school districts passed on paper, have gone to their voters for mill levy overrides to look at bonding and other things to improve their facilities.  I think the voters have already spoken and supported their school districts, and now they're saying we don't like the answers of the voters so we're actually going to change the rules again. For folks not to be able to effectually bond, which takes approval of the voters, it seems like that is going to really hurt potential facility needs, and we've got great facility needs in this state."