{"id":30869,"date":"2023-11-02T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-to-fully-fund-public-schools-for-first-time-in-14-years\/"},"modified":"2023-11-02T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T17:00:00","slug":"colorado-to-fully-fund-public-schools-for-first-time-in-14-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-to-fully-fund-public-schools-for-first-time-in-14-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado to fully fund public schools for first time in 14 years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

Turns out, they weren\u2019t so mandatory. For most of that time, the state legislature has failed to meet those goals \u2013 year after year, falling hundreds of millions of dollars short and creating legal euphemisms like the \u201cnegative factor\u201d and the \u201cbudget stabilization factor\u201d as court-approved excuses for the shortfalls.<\/p>\n

But next year, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis says the state will finally meet the Amendment 23 funding targets for the first time since the Great Recession.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe highlight of this budget in many ways is full funding of public schools,\u201d Polis said on Wednesday as he introduced his budget request for fiscal year 2024-25. \u201cThis has been a goal for 14 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, general fund spending is set to grow by 6%, to about $18.4 billion. The budget reflects state economists\u2019 hope for a \u201cmoderately soft landing\u201d for the economy. The next budget year begins on July 1.<\/p>\n

How is the state getting rid of the \u201cB.S.\u201d factor?<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the new school budget, per pupil spending would increase by $700 per student, or about 6.7%. That\u2019s enough to catch up with the requirements set by Amendment 23, which says school funding is supposed to keep pace with inflation.<\/p>\n

After chipping away at its shortfall for years, the state went into this year still lagging behind that requirement by some $140 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge milestone, and it\u2019s a huge milestone because what we have done is, bit by bit, we have doubled down on our commitment to education,\u201d said state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, a Democrat and chair of the Joint Budget Committee.<\/p>\n

Polis said that additional money could result in smaller class sizes and revived programs such as arts classes.<\/p>\n

The proposal even drew some positive comments from the governor\u2019s Republican opponents, though they claimed credit for leading the way by pushing for full funding as soon as this year. During debates over this year\u2019s state budget, Republican lawmakers and others pushed to reduce funding to other programs in order to close the shortfall a year sooner.<\/p>\n

\u201cKudos for the governor for following the law,\u201d said Republican Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, also a JBC member. She was referring to the fact that the legislature has effectively already decided that the state should meet its school funding requirements.<\/p>\n

In the legislative session earlier this year, bipartisan lawmakers including Zenzinger and Kirkmeyer successfully pressed the governor to increase school funding in the current budget year. And this year\u2019s School Finance Act, as approved by the legislature and the governor, already says the state has to meet the funding requirements in the 2024 budget year \u2013 just as Polis is now proposing to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finally have a legislature that is being held accountable by \u2026 the minority saying, \u2018Hey, look, this is not a revenue problem. This is a prioritization problem,\u2019\u201d Kirkmeyer said.<\/p>\n

Asked for comment on how the increase came to be, Polis spokesman Conor Cahill simply called on lawmakers to \u201cheed his call and fully end the BS factor once and for all in a sustainable way.\u201d<\/p>\n

In all, school funding would increase by about $564 million for next fiscal year, but only about half the money will come from the state. Local school districts also may contribute a greater share as they bring in money from rising property tax values.<\/p>\n

A recent state law also has forced local school districts to gradually raise their property tax rates until they hit a state-mandated minimum of 27 mills. As that happens, the state will have to give less money to local school districts \u2013 freeing up those dollars for use elsewhere in the budget.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s housing agenda:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Polis also highlighted new spending on his housing agenda, including $100 million he wants to use to incentivize and support denser housing development near transit, jobs and schools, plus $18 million to boost accessory dwelling units by helping local governments to reduce permitting fees.<\/p>\n

Republican House Minority Leader Mike Lynch criticized the density-near-transit approach, saying that it focuses too much on urban areas.<\/p>\n

The budget also dedicates $10 million for \u201cstrategic growth efforts,\u201d such as incentivizing \u201csmart housing development\u201d and to create a \u201cplanning framework that aligns state, regional, and local efforts (and) identify quantifiable metrics to track progress over time,\u201d Polis\u2019 budget letter stated.<\/p>\n

The budget also includes ongoing housing spending, including more than $300 million required by Prop. 123, which was approved by voters last year.<\/p>\n

Transit, tuition and salaries<\/strong><\/p>\n

Among other items in the budget request:<\/p>\n

\u201cZero Fare\u201d programs that provide free transit rides for youth and for the general public during the summer would see continued funding at $14 million.<\/div>\n
Tuition at public institutions of higher learning would increase at \u201chalf the rate of inflation\u201d<\/div>\n
State employees would see across-the-board raises of 3%<\/div>\n
The state\u2019s payment rates to non-Medicaid health providers would increase by 2% through state programs. Medicaid providers would see their rates grow by anywhere from 1% to 2.5%. Kirkmeyer criticized the proposed increases for Medicaid providers as \u201cextremely disappointing\u201d because they are too low.<\/div>\n

The state is also bracing for federal pandemic funds to finally run out, with Polis\u2019 budget only including about $150 million of remaining American Rescue Plan Act dollars, compared to billions in prior years. And with those funds rolling off, Polis described it as a \u201ctight\u201d budget, with little money left over for new programs and discretionary causes.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Polis proposal leaves only $15 million for the legislature to spend on its own priorities, though lawmakers could negotiate for more.<\/p>\n

The total budget, including federal funds and other sources, is $45.9 billion, compared to $43.8 billion under the same measure for the current budget \u2013 an increase of about 4.6%.<\/p>\n

The legislature will debate, amend and pass the budget during its legislative session next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

out, they weren\u2019t so mandatory. For most of that time, the state legislature has failed to meet those goals \u2013 year after year, falling hundreds of millions of dollars short and creating legal euphemisms like the \u201cnegative factor\u201d and the \u201cbudget stabilization factor\u201d as court-approved excuses for the shortfalls. But next year, Democratic Gov. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,155,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-education","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30869"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}