This post was originally published on this site.
The Roaring Fork School District Board of Education unanimously approved an amended 2025-26 budget during its regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday.
While the board’s supplemental budget for the current school year was relatively stable compared with last year, discussion quickly shifted to Chief Financial Officer Christy Chicoine’s concerns about the district’s financial outlook amid external pressures.
Wednesday’s conversation was the second iteration of discussion surrounding the budget in as many meetings.
At the board’s Jan. 14 meeting, Chicoine cited declining enrollment (a loss of 37.4 full-time students), higher charter school payouts (mill levy payouts), overprojections related to free and reduced-price lunch participation and uncertainty in state and federal funding as key reasons for amending the budget. A district staff memo detailing the supplemental budget, however noted that expenses appear to be stabilizing.
“On a positive note, the expenditures of the district appear to be stabilizing with no large adjustments necessary overall. We are able to utilize anticipated savings and attrition for any remaining budget overages,” the memo reads.
According to the final supplemental budget document, the general fund usage will increase by $963,005, decreasing the estimated general fund balance to $14,750,702, or $2,702,784 above the minimum.
A majority of the monies will be used to replace the funding lost due to declining enrollment. The loss of 37.4 full time equivalent (FTE) studentsequates to $744,566, while the district charter schools are also owed over $200,000 from the mill levy due to higher student counts than projections showed.
Chicoine also added a $200,000 “hedge” into the supplemental budget in preparation of the loss of Colorado Childcare Assistance Program funding — potentially equating to another $200,000 loss — though the federal freezing of the childcare funding has already been pushed back a month and Chicoine is “optimistic” the district ends up receiving the funds.
“Right now, I’m optimistic about receiving those funds, but I am still hedging our bet on the supplemental budget with that $200,000 just in case,” Chicoine said during Wednesday’s meeting. “Just in case there’s another surprise where all of a sudden there is something else getting cut this year, but we still have a safe pivot and can maintain good communication with our staff and families and make sure people aren’t immediately impacted.”
The conversation quickly evolved into what to expect for the 2026-27 budget, and the extra diligence that will be needed while budgeting. For starters, the 7A Early Childcare Coalition began collecting taxes on Jan. 1, though is yet to hire staff or announce a distribution plan — making it difficult for the board to budget the next fiscal year around the sales tax support.
External bureaucracy within the Western Slope isn’t the only thing casting shadows over the 2026-27 fiscal year. The state government could systematically change how mill levy override funding is collected. According to Chicoine, the recommendations from the state government are “unprecedented” and if the worst case scenario is realized, the district could lose up to $1.7 million from total program funding next year.
“There is a lot going on at the state level where we have between an $850 million to $1 billion deficit in our state budget,” Chicoine explained. “Anna and I consulted with Tracy Rainey from the Colorado School Finance Project because we don’t want to wait until we have definitive news from our legislature.
“We are looking at a best and worst case scenario on our budget, and these numbers are based upon our worst case scenario — which is specific to our total program funding,” she continued.
Because of the massive deficits within the state budget, the state government is thinking of merging mill levy override revenues into the state funding formula.
“The most impactful thing to our district is the mill levy override funding, which is our local funding for licensing fees from locally passed measures such as bonds and mill levy overrides that have historically gone for additional revenue for the district — the state is now recommending to put those into our funding formula,” Chicoine explained.
“Unfourtunately, that means a cut to the district. It’s not going to show in the funding formula, but it’s taking money that we’ve been receiving historically, and the state’s using it to backfill so that they don’t have to pay as much for our per pupil revenue. That’s unfortunately what’s happening and that’s approximately $1.7 million to the district for next year. That’s a very significant cut, and it’s unprecedented,” she continued. “I’ve been in school finance for over 20 years, and that funding has been there as long as I’ve been in my roles.”
Chicoine said it was safer for the finance team to take a “pessimistic view” while looking at the future because of the unknowns their line of work demands them to entertain.
“The problem is we’re having to plan and negotiate based on things we’re not really clear on yet,” she said. “We keep getting a clearer picture as we move forward, it’s almost like wearing glasses and emerging from the fog and all of a sudden you have a clear picture. But by then, you would have already had to do all of your planning and salary and benefit negotiations, which is why we start out on a pessimistic note.”
Director Kathryn Kuhlenberg, who began her second term on the RFSD board in November, appreciated the pessimistic and long-term approach Chicoine’s team was taking while approaching the budget.
“I’m grateful that you have that pessimistic view,” she said. “I know that no one has a crystal ball, but I feel like every year at this time, we are in this very pessimistic place, and there are typically some shifts from the legislatures further down the road.”
Although the district is still in the fog when it comes to the 2026-27 budget, discussions and strategy conversations have been “ongoing” and will continue until the picture becomes crystal clear.
The next regularly scheduled RFSD board meeting will take place Feb. 11 at the Carbondale District Office,400 Sopris Ave.