This Tuesday, Santa Fe voters will have the opportunity to help children.

This election -- a mill levy to support Santa Fe public school students -- is not about adults, it's about serving children and ensuring they have necessary resources available to achieve their potential. The election this Tuesday focuses on money dedicated to funding technology, improving safety and otherwise delivering services to children. Best of all, it does not involve any property-tax increases but rather continues the current levy approved in 2006. (One mill equals $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value, $2 for a 2-mill levy. Assessed value is one-third of a property's market value.)

Mill-levy elections for schools take place every six years, and the money they generate is an essential part of a public school district's budget. In Santa Fe, these dollars -- some $12.7 million a year for the next six years -- will buy computers, increase safety on campuses, improve libraries, repair heating and cooling systems, and add access for disabled students. Proceeds help fix roofs and take care of emergency capital projects that weren't anticipated in the normal course of allocating bond money. This money is essential in performing preventive maintenance so that a small leak, for example, does not become a big disaster.

All public schools in the district benefit from the money raised through the mill-levy process. This year, the "public" that benefits also will include public charter schools. Turquoise Trail Charter School will receive $413,724; the Academy for Technology and the Classics, $317,697; Monte del Sol Charter School, $317,697; Tierra Encantada Charter School, $157,951; and the New Mexico School for the Arts, $164,233, as a result of a yes vote on the mill-levy question. Eighty-nine percent of the revenues go to Santa Fe Public Schools. In all cases, no money can be used for salaries.

Benefiting are 14,204 students in the district's schools (including the alternative high school and early childhood center), four district charter schools and one statewide charter school. While it is always important to fund schools adequately, cuts over the past few years have made the district's operating budget tighter than ever. Dollars from the mill levy are essential to ensuring that more cuts do not harm the education of Santa Fe's children. Santa Fe students need what this money can buy more than usual this election.

Vote yes on Tuesday.