Thousands of public school leaders, teachers and staff descended on the steps of the Colorado Capitol on Thursday to protest Gov. Jared Polis’ proposed education budget. 

Angered by what many see as a reneging on lawmakers’ promise to “fully fund” public schools, districts from across the state rallied for more K-12 spending as lawmakers contend with a $1.2 billion budget deficit. 

The legislature last year pledged bold new investments in public education by reforming its school finance formula to better support at-risk and special education students, English language learners and rural districts. Lawmakers also eliminated the budget stabilization factor, a Great Recession-era mechanism that had underfunded schools by around $10 billion over the past 14 years. 

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But the legislature is poised to deliver less than what was initially promised to public schools now that unexpected budget pressures, like an increase in Medicaid spending, are forcing deep cuts to state spending. 

For Western Slope educators, it’s the same tired story. 

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“We want to see the state honor our students and our communities by fully funding education,” said Megan Talbott, a second grade teacher at Basalt Elementary School. “We are poorly funded already as it is.” 

Colorado consistently ranks as one of the worst states for per-pupil funding and teacher pay. While many districts last year saw an increase in property tax revenue as a result of higher real estate values, much of that was offset by a decrease in the state’s share of funding, which drops when local revenue goes up. 

In rural resort areas where the cost of living is some of the highest in the country, Talbott says it puts more pressure on districts’ ability to retain staff. 

“We have one custodian now for Basalt Elementary School, which is over 500 kids, more than 50 teachers,” Talbott said. “We cannot even keep teachers for more than a few years.” 

Even with the reform measures to school funding last year, which are slated to net districts an additional $500 million over the next several years, a 2023 study shows Colorado would need to spend around $4 billion more per year to adequately fund schools. Educators say any reduction in the funding that was promised for next school year will be a step backward. 

“Just automatically defaulting to education to defund is not a good effort,” said Alisa Grimes,  a Roaring Fork High School teacher. “They need to be more creative. They need to come up with a little bit from lots of other places. It shouldn’t just be from our students.” 

Polis, however, has pushed back on the notion that school districts are seeing a funding cut. His office sent an email ahead of Thursday’s rally laying out a defense of the governor’s school funding proposal, which it says will lead to an average increase of $388 per student — $138 million in overall state funding — next school year. 

While the governor’s proposal would still preserve the $500 million that was allocated for districts over a six or seven-year period, it would eliminate school districts’ multi-year averaging model that determines per-pupil funding. 

Currently, districts can use a four-year enrollment average to determine their student funding count. Polis has instead called for a current-year count which he argues is more equitable and avoids funding “phantom students” who aren’t there. 

“We cannot budget our way out of declining enrollment, and enrollment averaging only delays the budgetary consequences of this reality,” Polis’ office said. “Colorado’s outdated school funding mechanism needs to be updated to support students where they are learning.”

Districts have balked at the idea, which they say would hurt smaller schools with declining enrollments and lead to nearly $150 million in lost funding next school year.

Summit School District Superintendent Tony Byrd, who rallied on Thursday, said eliminating averaging would cost the district $1.5 million next school year. 

“That is more than we were given back from the budget stabilization factor when that was eliminated,” Byrd said. “(Losing) $1.5 million would mean we’d have to cut programs, maybe staff.” 

In response, House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, recently unveiled a counter-proposal that seeks to phase out four-year averaging over the next several years and provide districts with a soft landing rather than a hard cutoff.

Both proposals would still implement that state’s new school finance formula, but while Polis’ proposal calls for allocating 18% of that funding next school year, McCluskie’s would issue 10%. Because of the difference in averaging, McCluskie claims her plan would protect $100 million more in funding for districts compared to Polis’. 

An analysis provided by the House Speaker’s office shows most Western Slope districts — including Summit, Grand, Eagle, Pitkin, Routt and Garfield counties — would see between a roughly 1% and 5% increase in funding over the current year under McCluskie’s proposal. 

“Part of the reason I was a champion for this new formula is because I know how hard it is for our smaller, rural school districts to pay a living wage to teachers, to deal with rising inflation, to deal with exploding operating costs,” McCluskie said. 

While the funding “may not be all that we want to give our schools, it’s a whole lot better than what we would have been looking at without this new formula,” she added. 

McCluskie is continuing to negotiate a final proposal with the governor’s office, but said, “I anticipate that the proposal I put on the table will receive support from both sides of the aisle.” 

While districts appear more favorable to McCluskie’s offer, many still feel that any funding next school year that doesn’t keep pace with inflation and other cost pressures amounts to a cut. 

Given that Colorado is also billions of dollars behind when it comes to adequate K-12 funding, educators say schools will remain underfunded regardless of what deal lawmakers pass. 

“This is just another way of saying we are cutting funding to education,” said Summit Cove Elementary teacher Ashley Girodo. “Because of how they’re rolling it out, it doesn’t look like a cut. But it is a cut.”