By Brett MItchell
Did You Know???
Colorado’s School Finance Formula is a very complex formula which varies from year to year, based upon what the State sets as priorities. Schools in Colorado are “in theory” funded by local property taxes. However, the amount of property taxes for most districts comes up short of the actual need for the district to provide the services required and expected. The State therefore provides a “Backfill” for each district to bring the district budget up to the required amount. A question that we have heard at the school over the past couple of years is “Our property Taxes went up more than 40%, so how can the school not have plenty of money?”
Unfortunately, the answer is that the State does not simply pass through the monies to our districts. And even though the local amount of funding increased tremendously, the total allotment for the school saw a much smaller increase. For example, the per pupil allotment for the BV school district in the 21-22 school year was supposed to be $9,561 by law. However, in order for the state to balance its budget over the past 15+ years, it has reduced this number by a factor called the BS (Budget Stabilization) factor. So, the actual funding was $8,994 per student. Now fast forward to the 23-24 school year, after the large property tax increases, and the per pupil funding by law was $11,032 with the actual after BS factor to the school being $10,779. This is an increase of approximately 13% which barely kept up with the inflation we have seen. So, our property taxes went up 40% + and the state kept the additional 27% for their other spending while still not funding our schools to the amounts that are required by law thanks to the BS factor.
Support Independent Local Journalism — High Country Advocate was created as a real alternative to regional media that too often silences dissenting voices while taking sides in the political struggle. Producing in-depth, unflinching reporting like this series and others is expensive: servers, editing, research time, and legal review all add up quickly. If these articles have informed you or given you new perspective, please consider supporting HCA with a paid subscription — every subscriber helps keep this reporting strong and independent.
