After four years of running a deficit, Durango School District 9-R is determined to not do it again. But in the last three years, the district has eliminated or reduced programs, laid off staff members, postponed purchases for capital needs and negotiated a two-year contract with teachers and staff, so the next cuts won’t come easy.
“The Finance Advisory Committee had serious reservations when we voted this year to recommend a budget with a deficit,” said Art Chase, CEO of Bank of the San Juans and a member of the committee.
“It was not unanimous, and in the future, it’s going to be difficult to get a recommendation for a deficit budget. As the CEO of a local bank, I can tell you the economy is about as good as it’s going to be in this cycle.”
The district is inviting the community to two public meetings this week to help it determine what programs should be cut. The district must have a budget at least $465,000 below that of 2015-16’s $42.2 million.
“That also assumes we will not have an increased number of special-needs students and need to hire paraprofessionals to work with them,” said Julie Popp, spokeswoman for District 9-R.
The ‘negative factor’
When it comes to tight budgets, there are two factors, increasing revenues and cutting expenses. Every aspect of school funding is complicated in Colorado, and the district has virtually no influence when it comes to increasing its revenues.
“Colorado is between 43rd and 48th among the states on school funding,” said Dan Snowberger, 9-R superintendent, “and we’re one of the lowest per-pupil funded districts in the state.”
Amendment 23, which voters passed in 2000, was supposed to fix that by mandating increases for K-12 education in school funding of inflation plus 1 percent to make Colorado comparable with other states, he said. But Amendment 23’s provisions collided with the economic downturn in 2008, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which limits government spending by requiring budget increases be limited to the rate of inflation plus population growth, and the mandate that the state have a balanced budget.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in May that the General Assembly, which made several budget-balancing decisions in recent years that educators believe ran contrary to voters’ intentions in 2000, does not have to pay school districts the difference between what the districts received and what they expected under Amendment 23. That difference is dubbed the “negative factor,” Snowberger said.
District 9-R would have received an additional $4.5 million in 2014-15, and an additional $4.8 million this school year. All told, schools in Colorado received $855 million less than provided in Amendment 23 this year, and next year’s shortfall is predicted to top $900 million.
Since the state Supreme Court ruling, Popp said, the only way schools could get that funding would be for it to go on the ballot for voters to decide.
Timing
Timing adds to the quandary of budgeting. The district’s budget must be submitted to the school board for approval in May. But the district won’t have its official census count, which determines its per-pupil funding, until the end of October.
“We look at day care and preschool enrollment, the number of inquiries for kindergarten support and the growth in the number of families with school-age children,” Popp said. “But it’s still an educated guess when we’re budgeting.”
This school year, for example, the numbers were in 9-R’s favor, with 58 more students enrolled than were in the budget.
The district also must estimate what the per-pupil funding will be each year because it isn’t decided until after the Legislature approves its budget in May, and the Colorado Department of Education determines the allocation. The district learned in August that the funding would go up by about $200 per student this year, to about $7,100. But increases are not a given, so the district is budgeting for flat per-pupil funding in 2016-17.
abutler@durangoherald.com
If you go
Durango School District 9-R will hold two community meetings to get initial public input on potential cuts to the 2016-17 budget:
From 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Escalante Middle School, 141 Baker Lane.
From 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Miller Middle School, 2608 Junction St.
Each meeting will begin with a budget overview before attendees attend two of the offered breakout sessions – the Colorado school funding formula; operating costs; technology; salaries and benefits; capital needs; curriculum and assessment; and special education and at-risk services. The evening will end with a discussion about a possible mill levy or bond measure in November.
The district plans to hold another round of meetings in February to dig deeper into the community’s recommendations, with a final set of meetings on specific plans in March. The budget must be presented to the board in May.
Visit www.greateducation.org to learn more about education funding in Colorado.
