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School Finance Changes�����

April 4-5, 2024

Colorado School Finance Project

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Who is CSFP?

  • Non-profit, non-partisan
  • Supported by school district contributions
  • School finance analysis for local and state policy makers since 1995
  • Governed by a board comprised of national and state experts on school finance

Our Mission: To compile, collect and distribute research-based, non-partisan information and data on topics related to school finance for state and local policymakers. CSFP also supports school districts by providing expertise, technical assistance and capacity building related to best practices in school finance.

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April 2024

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Current Topics

  • K12 Updates and Supplemental
  • Universal Preschool
  • School Finance Task Force
  • Commission on Property Tax
  • School Finance Act – 2024-25

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K12 Updates Special Session and �Supplemental

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K-12 Enrollment

  • Total Enrollment for 2023-24 is 849,404
    • Decrease of 1,655 from last year
  • Preschool enrollment 32,060 this year anticipated over 40,000
  • 5-year averaging - for current year
  • Declining enrollment - how are you forecasting?

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April 2024

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Special Session

  • 1 year fix
  • Reduced residential rate to 6.7%
  • Non-residential rate to 27.9%
  • State had revenue to backfill K-12
  • Assessed valuation may change in some districts
  • Established the Commission on Property Tax
    • Charged to create a long-term solution

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April 2024

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Supplemental- 23-24 Budget

  • Adjusted for enrollment
  • Adjusted for local share
  • Newcomer Funding – HB24-1389
  • Adjusted for Special Session changes

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April 2024

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School Finance Act�2024

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SB24-188

  • Increased base funding by growth and inflation – 5.2%
  • Paid off B/S factor – impact varies – declining enrollment
  • At-risk – the better of the last 2 years
  • Embedded rural funding into the formula
    • Small rural 1000 or less and 1000-6500 – minimum of $100,000 for every rural district.

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April 2024

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Commission on Property Tax and Ballot initiatives

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Commission on Property Tax

  • Created by HB23B-1003 during the 2023 Special Session
  • 19 members made up of legislators and local leaders
  • Task Force is tasked with making recommendations for a property tax structure that keeps the interests of local governments and landowners in mind
  • Sessions to continue through December of 2024
  • Facilitated by Keystone Policy Center

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Recommendations

  • Full report here
    • Smoothing variable
    • Allow for residential and commercial property owners to opt for 12 monthly payments
    • Adjustable cap on property tax increases
    • Expand tax deferral program
    • Public involvement in tax increases
  • Studies
      • Homestead value reduction
      • Tax relief for low- or fixed-income property owners
      • Mechanism to separate school and local taxes

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Updates from Property Tax Task Force

  • Recommendations sent to legislators
  • Task members ranked recommendations according to their preference
  • TBD on ballot initiatives -
  • Amendment 50 and 108 - would dramatically cut funding for K-12 and other local governments

Access all materials here.

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April 2024

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School Finance Task Force

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School Finance Task Force

  • Created by SB23-287
  • 17 members comprised of stakeholder groups, including Superintendents, CFOs, and school finance experts
  • Supplemental request – Additional $2.8M, totaling $3M – Adequacy Studies
  • Adequacy Studies– completed by Jan. 2025
  • Final Report

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April 2024

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School Finance Task Force (cont’d)

The Task Force is charged with two tasks:

  • Recommending changes to factors in the school finance formula to be enacted for the 2024-25 budget year.
  • They developed the parameters for a study, commonly called an adequacy or costing out study. RFP to be out for bidders. Work to be completed January 2025.

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Task Force – School Finance Formula

The Task Force is charged with recommending adjustments to the following factors for the School Finance Formula:

  • Eliminating the use of multiplicative indexes for cost of living and size and removing personnel and non-personnel component.
  • Recalibrating, capping, or alternative methods to account the cost-of-living factor.
  • Factors designed to serve students with additional needs such as at-risk, English learner and special education.

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April 2024

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Task Force – School Finance Formula (cont’d)

  • Including other considerations other than or in addition to student enrollment and remoteness of school district for the size factor
  • Securing equalization in mill levy overrides for institute charter schools based on school location, location of students, multi-district online programs and total program funding

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School Finance Formula Topics: Recommendations & Discussions

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Summary of Recommendations to the General Assembly

  • The Task Force voted on 17 recommendations
  • Of these, 5 were fairly divided, and 12 were unanimous or close to unanimous
  • The Task Force did NOT make recommendations on:
    • How to count students for the new at-risk factor legislated by HB22-1202. The Task Force made a recommendation on an at-risk weight, but not the parameters for generating a count. This work currently resides with CDE.
    • Anything to do with Universal Preschool.

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Recommendations

  • The following recommendations are included in the runs:
    • At-risk weight of .31 (does NOT use new count method)
    • ELL weight of .5
    • SpEd Tier A students weight of .5 and Tier B students 0.85
    • Removal of personnel/non-personnel factors
    • Move COL, size to a district adjustment at the end of the formula
    • Rebasing the COL factor; minimum cap of 0.1
    • Remove size factor for districts > 1,027 students
    • Add remoteness weight
  • GT weight established, but no funding included
  • No changes to SpEd dollars currently in the categoricals
  • No increase to “base” funding in the model

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Trends

  • Generally, the following types of districts benefit from the recommendations:
    • Higher at-risk, smaller, more rural, more sparse, less MLO revenue
    • See the full analysis
  • 13 districts would lose funding under the recommendations, and would require the implementation of a hold-harmless provision to be kept whole

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Districts losing funding under this model

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These districts lose funding under the current model, which among other changes puts $539M into the formula for Special Education in addition to the categorical funds.

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The total hold harmless to keep these districts whole under the current model is $64.1M.

April 2024

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Changes to At-Risk Measure

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New At-Risk Measure Basic Principles

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Identified Student Percentage (ISP)

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  • Directly certified students (SNAP, TANF, migrant)
  • Students categorically eligible for free meals (homeless, foster, Head Start, etc.)
  • Now includes Medicaid and CHP+

Neighborhood Socio Economic (SES) Index

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  • Census-based neighborhood indicators
  • Every student assigned a census block based on their physical address
  • Many indicators to choose from

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Replaces FRL count with ISP...

...and adds address-based weight

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At-Risk Factor

  • CDE will utilize pilot district data to help determine next steps for implementation in 2025-26 calendar year
  • During October count window you will also have to input SES data for every student.
  • Hold Harmless: You will receive the greater of your FY23 or FY24 at-risk funding amount this year
    • 25-26 year to be determined by Legislature

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April 2024

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Universal Preschool

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UPK Updates

Enrollment for 2024-25 is beginning

  • Feb – March: Pre-registration for students already enrolled, siblings and children of employees
  • April – June: Family matching process for new families
  • Summer: Walk-in Direct Enrollment
  • Students with IEPs can register at any point in the year

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April 2024

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Provider Updates

  • Providers are to set up a profile in the new online portal
  • Information needed for your profile:
    • Each location's kindergarten eligibility date. 
    • Each location’s school district.
    • Each location’s preschool program types (full day, half-day, part-time, extended day), as well as the languages of instruction. 
    • The number of four-year-old seats available in each program at each location.
    • Contact information for your Authorized Representative.  This may be a CFO, Superintendent, business official or other leader who is authorized to sign the Provider Service Agreement.

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April 2024

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ESSER

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ESSER coming to an end

  • All ESSER Funds need to be used by September 2024.
  • Monitoring by CDE.
  • How were your ESSER dollars used?
  • What can you share with your community and its impact?
  • How did these dollars make a difference?
  • How does this impact your budget for 2024-25?

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District Key Stats

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BOCES Key Stats

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AU Key Stats

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Link to documents

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Interactive Website

Provides fact sheets for every district and BOCES

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Link to documents

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Communication Tools

For every investment area

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Link to documents

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Questions?

  • Tracie Rainey�t.rainey@cosfp.org�303-860-9136
  • Kate Bartlett�kate.b@cosfp.org

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Stay connected

  • https://cosfp.org/
  • @COSFP
  • Colorado School Finance Project -Facebook

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