Colorado is continuing their push to help fund educational ventures in the state with cannabis tax revenue, with Pueblo County set to award more than $2 million in scholarships from that revenue, according to The Pueblo Chieftain.
The announcement comes ahead of the upcoming fall semester, and the country will award $1 million to Pueblo Community College, $616,000 to the Colorado State University Pueblo Foundation, $385,000 to CSU Pueblo Athletics for student-athletes and $26,000 to the Pueblo African American Concern Organization.
From there, it’s up to those entities to distribute the scholarship money to students at their discretion, and only students who are Pueblo County residents can receive the money.
“These organizations know best their residents and community to allocate these funds in a way for the best benefit,” Commissioner Chris Wiseman told the Chieftain.
He expanded to note that he is interested in the scholarship money being used for students who might want to return to college later in life. Pueblo Community College acts as an example, offering the Return to Earn program, which pays down tuition so students can re-enroll in classes. During the last spring semester, PCC awarded 10 Return to Earn scholarships with the cannabis excise sales tax scholarship money.
The chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, Garrison Ortiz, told the Chieftain he thinks that the competitive process “draws out some innovation and creativity when it comes to how these dollars are awarded.”
The scholarship administrators said that having this type of accessible money available is crucial to help convince students to enroll in school and stay in Pueblo County. The program was first approved by voters in 2015, and it has grown in part because of the growth within the cannabis industry, but also because the excise tax has increased by one percent each year.
“As we see more and more the expansion of marijuana grows in Pueblo County, we’ll see an increase in the excise tax and hopefully be able to help more people,” Wiseman said.
Cannabis dispensaries in Colorado collect 2.9 percent in state sales tax. The state can also impose a 15 percent cannabis retail sales tax and a 15 percent excise tax on wholesale sales or transfers of retail cannabis. However, medical cannabis is exempt from the dedicated cannabis retail tax and the excise tax.
Colorado first legalized cannabis for adult use back in 2012, and since the program officially launched in January 2014, to date, the state has collected nearly $11 billion in revenue ($10,940,865,212). Last year alone saw a record $2.1 billion in cannabis sales, with $962,071,139 reported for the calendar year so far (January through May).
The state has historically looked toward education, in regard to how cannabis tax revenue is spent, just earlier this year passing Senate Bill 21-207, which required the transfer for $100 million from the state’s Marijuana Tax Cash Fund into Colorado’s Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) program by June 1, 2022.
The majority of the state’s cannabis tax revenue flows into the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund, and each year, the fund is required to be used for healthcare, health education, substance abuse prevention and treatment programs and law enforcement. About 15 percent of cannabis revenue goes to the Fund and 12.5 percent to the State Public School Fund.
The county commissioners say they would eventually like to award the scholarships earlier in the year, as early as January, to help Pueblo County institutions with recruitment. Coordinating scholarships ahead of time and offering them as a guarantee to students early on might help convince those looking at options in Pueblo County to settle sooner than later.
Ortiz said that the program has evolved in a number of ways, “but it’s something that we’re looking to perfect and continue to grow.”
