School districts across Colorado pushing lawmakers for more funding

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Colorado school districts are pushing lawmakers for more money saying the system has been underfunded for more than a decade.

Through the Kids Matter Too campaign students, parents and school districts are sending the message that the state needs to put kids first.

Representative Cathy Kipp said in 2000, voters passed Amendment 23, which states voters wanted to get back to 1986 levels of school funding.

Under the Amendment, the state would increase funding by inflation plus one percent for ten years and then inflation thereafter. But when the Great Recession happened in 2008, inflation was negative and funding was taken away from schools.

"They came up with a loophole that said only the base counts toward that inflationary adjustment that we do every year," explained Kipp.

Since 2009, there's been a $10 billion budget deficit in school funding for all 178 Colorado school districts.

"Here in District 2, we’re a district of about 13,000 students, we have lost 155 million dollars from being underfunded," said Wendy Birhanzel the superintendent for Harrison School District 2.

Birhanzel says the lack of funding has led to lower teacher salaries, staffing shortages, and increasing demand for student mental health support.

"It’s about our kids. We need to make sure they have every opportunity to be successful in their education and funding is one of the number one pieces to make sure we can do so," said Birhanzel.

The goal now is not to make up the deficit, but instead, to get back to zero.

"To where you said you would fund us back in 2009, and then we can move forward. But, our schools are so underfunded that school districts are really at a loss to best educate students when we have such minimum funding and again great state to be but we have to put our kids first," said Birhanzel.