State funding for public schools to increase $700 per student but budget remains at 1989 levels

DENVER, Colo. (KRDO) - Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed the state’s fiscal year 2024-25 budget which will fully fund public education for the first time since 2009.

The state’s budget increased 3.7% from last year for a total of $40.6 billion. The one area receiving the largest increase is public education, as the total funding for public schools will increase by more than $500 million.

A large portion of that money is due to the elimination of the budget stabilization factor which was implemented in 2010 to generate budget savings for the state. For the last 14 years, once state funding was allocated to each school district, the state would then apply the budget stabilization factor to reduce the total funding proportionately across districts. Statewide this factor reduced public education funding by about 13% or $1 billion per year.

“They came up with another factor which was to rob education to pay for whatever it happened to be, road building or whatever needed to be funded,” said Joe Schott, the president of the Colorado Springs Education Association. “There was this pot of money that was supposed to go to one place, our children, and instead it was diverted elsewhere.”

Since the state is not taking money meant for public education, the state can claim they are fully funding schools, Schott said.

“There's not a student in Colorado who's seen a fully funded education,” he said. “That's a generation of students that have had their education nibbled away at the edges, sometimes even deeper. It's time we started playing fair with our kids.”

The elimination of the budget stabilization factor and additional funding to public schools will increase the per-student funding by $736 for a total of $11,408 per student, the most in state history according to Polis.

Jeremy Beckman, a high school teacher at Discovery Canyon and the co-president of the Academy Education Association, hopes these additional funds will go directly toward the classroom.

“As a parent, I would want districts to prioritize that money going as close to children as possible — teachers, para pros, classified workers, people that are working directly with kids — because that's what has the impact on their long-term future and their long term prospects,” Beckman said.

Schott said he would like increased funds to go toward teacher salaries, which he said District 11 has “gestured toward a small ongoing increase.”

“That's real money and it will have real positive effects on what students are going to see as far as what resources are available to them and what teachers are available to them,” Schott said.

The budget also increases special education funding for students with disabilities by 10% or $34.7 million, as well as a $65.5 million increase toward the Universal Pre-K program, specifically for provider payments, quality improvement initiatives, and improvements to the online application process.

As for higher education, the budget caps tuition hikes at 3% for in-state students and 4% for non-resident students, while boosting funding by $114.3 million to help institutions streamline services and operational support.

While Beckman and Schott said these budget increases are necessary they said Colorado still has a long way to go. When adjusted for inflation, this budget would fund K-12 education at the same level as the state did back in 1989.

“We're still competing with states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, not for college football national championships, but for the bottom tier of education funding in America,” Beckman said. “We're still funding schools in Colorado at the 1989 levels. While it's exciting that it's not worse than that, it's hard to get excited when you think about the opportunities that takes away from children.”