DENVER – During his State of the State speech, Colorado Governor Jared Polis mentioned education and the “new school finance formula”, but is launching a change to one piece of the formula.
The new formula is scheduled to begin for the 2025-2026 school year and as of Tuesday is expected to be fully implemented in six years. It comes from HB 24-1448, which was signed into law last year, with the formula that was laid out on 85 pages. The current school finance formula was first used in 1994, something that has been used for far too long according to District 38 Chief Business Officer Brett Ridgway.
“When you have a statistically based financial model, it’s going to degrade over time,” explains Ridgway. “Pretty much every 10 years or so, you need to do a complete rewrite. The fact that we have reached 30 years with this, and combined with all the changes that have happened in education, we were long, long. a good change, and We need to continue on that path.”
The Governor’s Office has modified its budget proposal Earlier this month, increasing funding by $35 million, for a total increase of $150 million, to complete the student-focused school finance formula and implement 18% of the formula in the first year. In November Polis wanted to launch the new formula in seven years, but changed the implementation period to match the original plan to six years earlier this month.
The old school formula used a five-year average for student count to determine funding, the new formula is intended to use a four-year average for student count. The governor’s latest proposal would use a one-year count, which would hurt school districts that have experienced a recent drop in enrollment. The governor’s office refers to “ghost students” as their reason for going to a school count one year, meaning that they believe that the money goes to empty places below the four-year average. It’s up to the Joint Budget Committee to decide if it agrees with Polis’ latest proposal, but the pupil count is just one piece of the new formula.
To better understand the new formula, News5 spoke in-depth with Ridgway about what the goal is and what’s different.
“What I think I would say about the new formula is that it’s much more student-centered, student-centered,” Ridgway added. “This was a priority for people to get away from something that focuses on the district or the geography and what the students need? So much has changed in education in the last 30 years since the last formula was adopted . And so we understand more about how students learn, what resources they need, and really on a student-by-student basis, and so we can provide resources that individual students need this new formula really begins to recognize. that, especially with special education and English language learning students in poverty We understand more than we did then about what challenges it leads to education, to the learning environment for each student, and so more resources, better resources, can be provided to each individual student to help them in their pursuit of education and learning.”
Moving from the five-year average to the four-year is something that Ridgway sees as a benefit for many schools, but it is not yet clear whether the JBC will go with the one-year average that Polis has proposed.
“What it’s really doing is taking school districts that are experiencing population decline and trying to provide a soft landing,” Ridgway said of the new four-year average formula. “So there’s some benefit to that. But I think the conversation is, well, how long, how much soft runway is appropriate for that?”
The formula itself is complex, but a breakdown of how the funding is distributed can be seen at the bottom of this article. Ridgway and others will have to wait until March to get a clearer picture of what their school district’s budget will look like when the state revenue forecast is released, with final clarity around May.
“It really becomes an exercise to read some tea leaves and see, what do we hear,” Ridgway said of planning the budget for District 38. “What do we see? Having good conversations, having good information from informal conversations, that actually it’s a good resource for us to say, OK, this is where we want to start in terms of our budgeting assumptions while we wait for that greater clarity that won’t come until we’re close to the end. of the school year and close to the end of the fiscal year, which begins on July 1.”
You can see the full interview with Ridgway at the top of this article.
A breakdown of the school’s new formula is below: :
Legislative Council Staff
News Tips
What should KOAA5 cover? Is there a story, theme or issue we should revisit? Do you have a story that you believe should make the light of day? Let our newsroom know using the contact form below.
____
Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just look for it KOAA News5download and start watching.