The Boulder Valley school board heard a budget update Tuesday that shows the district in better financial shape than anticipated thanks to recently introduced state legislation.
This state legislative session’s School Finance Act offers a compromise to the K-12 spending plan floated by Gov. Jared Polis, which would have meant significantly less money for districts with declining enrollment like Boulder Valley.
Polis’ budget proposal would have saved money to address a state shortfall by requiring school districts to use a single-year student count rather than the current multi-year average. But Boulder Valley officials had said the district could end up with $4.1 million less than expected under that proposal, which equals 43 employees based on average salaries.
The new legislation, crafted by Colorado Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie, would slow planned increases to K-12 per-pupil spending with a seven-year rollout instead of the previously promised six years, while more slowly moving away from averaging when calculating enrollment. The legislation would also guarantee that no school district would receive a lower amount of funding in the next two years than it did this year.
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, Chief Financial Officer Bill Sutter went through a proposed budget that doesn’t include big cuts to programs or services but does include fewer teachers and other employees to reflect expected continued enrollment declines. Cuts also could still be needed to provide cost-of-living raises to employees. The district is currently negotiating raises and other contract issues with its employee groups.
Boulder Valley is projecting a loss of about 150 students next school year, for a total enrollment of 27,763 students. Superintendent Rob Anderson cautioned that the projection doesn’t include the potential of families leaving in response to stock market losses, federal immigration policies and the loss of government-funded jobs.
“We don’t know how many kids we’re going to lose,” he said.
The district is projecting an additional $6.9 million in state per-pupil revenue next school year, plus a carryover balance of $2 million for a total of an additional $8.9 million. The district also expects to save about $5.5 million through a combination of fewer teachers and other employees because of declining enrollment and lower salary costs as more experienced employees retire.
Without including the cost-of-living raises that are under negotiation, the district expects to spend an additional $8.5 million on compensation. That amount includes teacher raises provided for additional years of experience and education plus an increase in health insurance premiums.
After accounting for other budget adjustments, the preliminary budget shows $2.1 million available for ongoing expenses. Last school year, the district’s 4% cost-of-living raise equaled $14 million. School board member Alex Medler noted giving employees a cost-of-living increase would require “taking that (money) out of somewhere else.”
Along with compensation, other priorities include strategic initiative investments in special education, bilingual education and the Grad Plus plan; addressing achievement gaps; and covering inflation-based cost increases.
“Every decision that we make has a fiscal implication,” school board President Nicole Rajpal said.
Some of those priorities will be covered through a fund balance used for one-time expenses. The district’s proposal for one-time money includes spending $4 million to address class size issues after the start of the school year, $4 million to support to high-needs schools, $1.1 million for special education support and $1 million for substitute teacher pay.
Anderson noted the district hasn’t yet determined how best to use that $1 million for substitute teacher pay. Options include a base pay increase, “surge” pay for most needed coverage days or bonuses for working more days. The bonuses for working more days is how the district increased sub pay this school year.
“Our team will do an analysis to determine what model we move forward with next year,” Anderson said.
The school board is scheduled to adopt the budget in June.
