A new bill that factors in rural challenges would provide a funding boost to most Western Slope school districts 

Most school districts on the Western Slope would receive a funding boost under a new bipartisan bill that would overhaul a 30-year formula for deciding how much each district gets from the state.  

House Bill 1448 would aim to send more dollars to rural areas and districts with more special education, at-risk and English language learning students. 

“Resources should follow kids who show up with characteristics that deserve more support,” said House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat and prime sponsor of the bill. “Our state has failed to answer that call for equity for as long as I’ve been in public education and that’s 20 years.”

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The bill prioritizes rural districts by adding a “locale factor” into the formula. Towns that meet certain designations set by the federal National Center for Education Statistics would be impacted by the factor. The new formula would also limit which districts receive a boost because of their size to only those with 6,500 or fewer students. 

The new formula would begin to be implemented in the 2025-2026 school year and slowly ramp up over six years. The state would increase its share of funding for public and charter schools by nearly $500 million under the legislation during that time period. 

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The increase in funding would vary across the Western Slope’s school districts, with some seeing significant gains and others seeing little or none. East Grand School District would see a 27.6% increase whereas North Park District in Jackson County would see a 4.2% increase over six years, according to an analysis by nonpartisan staffers. 

Tracie Rainey, the executive director of the Colorado School Finance Project, said she was surprised to see the discrepancies between which districts receive significantly more funding than others. 

“It makes me wonder, are the pieces that you have in the formula the right pieces?” she said. 

Districts will want to see what’s “under the hood” of the formula to determine how it would impact them, she said. 

Nonpartisan staffers at the Capitol created predictions for how each districts’ budget would be impacted, using estimations for the state funding in the 2025-2026 school year to create a percent increase between the current formula and the new one.

Here are some of the percent increases they found for Western Slope districts over the six-year period, assuming enrollment and inflation are stable: 

• Steamboat Springs School District: 10.2%
• South Routt School District: 12%
• Hayden School District: 16.2%
• Aspen School District: 0%
• Roaring Fork School District: 10.8%
• Summit School District: 12.6%
• Eagle County School District: 9%
• West Grand School District: 18%
• East Grand School District: 27.6%

School districts on the Western Slope have worried in the past about how enrollment figures often fluctuate in their resort communities, impacting their share of state funding. 

Lawmakers decided to add the locale factor because of costs that specifically impact rural districts, such as school buses needing to drive much further than in urban areas, McCluskie said.

“We’re taking small, incremental steps to full implementation,” McCluskie said. “Sustainability is critical.”

Of the state’s 178 districts, 172 of them would receive more per pupil funding under the bill. The six others, including Aspen School District, will not see changes in their state funding. 

Depending on how property taxes are impacted by the legislature and several measures that have been filed for the November ballot, the bill allows the new formula to freeze. 

“If there was something dramatic that happened, we have the ability to pause the implementation of the new formula until we are at a point where we have the financial means to continue,” McCluskie said. “That’s why there’s a six-year runway.” 

The other sponsors of the bill are Rep. Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, Sen. Paul Lundeen, R-Monument and Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, D-Arvada. 

The bill will be considered for the first time in the House Education committee Thursday.