Submitted by the Clear Creek School District Board of Education
Each year, the Clear Creek School District’s District Accountability Committee surveys the community and shares responses with the Board of Education. In March, the Board received a presentation and the survey responses. We appreciate everyone who shared their thoughts, asked questions, and expressed frustrations. The feedback pointed out some misunderstandings regarding operations and expressed concerns about leadership intentions.
To address this, the Board of Education will publish articles to clarify information. The first article in our series will explain district revenue sources and correlated expenses.
Revenue Sources
Colorado school districts are funded through various sources including state funds, local funds, federal funds and grants. Each of these funds come with various “strings attached,” meaning not all funds can be allocated for all expenses.
State funding typically makes up the largest portion and is primarily based on averaging student enrollment over several years, rather than actual student enrollment each year. However, this year’s state budget recommends that averaging be removed, changing that number from a 5-year average to 0. This change will dramatically affect the money that CCSD receives due to declining enrollment in the district. Local property taxes are paid to the district twice each year and can fluctuate based on the community’s economic health, or changes at the state level (as we saw in the 2024 state legislative session). Federal funds, though a smaller revenue source, support specific programs such as special education, Title I and nutrition initiatives. Additionally, the district can apply for grant funds, which typically allow for the district to provide educational offerings such as Bike Tech and Incubator Lab.
The school district, like all governments, is legally required to maintain a reserve fund for unexpected expenses, such as failing boilers or replacing aging carpet. Spending reserve funds is discouraged by the state as it risks future sustainability. For that reason, the state and board policy mandates a specific amount be held in reserve. Large districts have bigger reserves, providing more flexibility. For CCSD, a “spend-down” could jeopardize the district’s ability to keep our buildings warm, safe and dry for students and staff. One very costly repair could deplete our reserves.
Historically, CCSD has maintained reserves higher than necessary, but the current board has chosen to use some of these funds to address educators’ requests for increased pay. However, this spending of reserves cannot continue indefinitely. The district is required by state law to produce a balanced budget and conduct annual audits to ensure financial compliance. Any ongoing deficit to reserves does not show a balanced budget. The district needs to balance the budget and stop the deficit in the reserves over the next few years.
Once the reserves are stable, it is important to note that the only way to grow reserves is to deposit funds into that account, which requires funding beyond the district’s financial needs. This leads to the reality that expenses are increasing while revenue is decreasing. Aging buildings, maintenance at all four campuses, and increased cost of goods and materials all contribute to rising expenses. The bottom line is our facilities are aging. The 2021 bond was the first influx of money into our buildings since 1999 and cannot and did not solve all the needs at our school facilities.
Every revenue source is decreasing, and the uncertainty is mounting with state and federal decisions that are being made rapidly. The need to be fiscally responsible could never be more important. Spending more while earning less is not a fiscally responsible action, and is, in fact, a recipe for disaster for the future of our school district.
Allocation of Funds
The distribution of funds within the school district is a complex process, balancing the need to maintain infrastructure at all school campuses, provide resources for students, and ensure competitive salaries for our employees. A sizable portion of the budget is allocated to operational costs, including utilities, transportation and maintenance.
However, the largest portion of funding goes to instructional expenses, encompassing teacher salaries, benefits, classroom supplies and technology.
Finally, there has been a concern among educators that the board is transferring large amounts into the capital reserve fund rather than prioritizing compensation. This may have been true in the past when fund transfers were nearly $800,000. Last year the board only authorized a $100,000 transfer, and our current budget forecasts the same amount – this has allowed us to allocate more to teacher pay.
History of salary increases
Since the mill levy override election in 2018, Clear Creek has made remarkable strides in improving teacher salaries. In addition to spending 2018 mill levy dollars to pay teachers, we have used reserve dollars, as mentioned before. This decision was made because we could see that CCSD was behind in terms of compensation. Since 2018, teacher compensation has increased 46.94%. In the six years prior (2012-2018), teacher compensation only grew 6.56% in total. A salary audit purchased by the district last year showed that the intentional work done since 2018 finally put CCSD in a competitive position in terms of salary when compared to like districts. It is important to note that unlike capital expenses which are one-time costs, salaries are an ongoing and compounding cost to the district, which builds year over year. The school board reviews cost analysis on these ongoing costs regularly to evaluate the financial health of the district.
The Board of Education and our community value small class sizes, and the close connection with teachers that our small schools provide. One of the ways we show this is through our commitment to small community schools. When we look at other districts to see how they are managing these challenging financial times, most neighboring districts have consolidated their operations, closed schools, and taken other drastic measures.
Before we consider those options, we are hoping our decisions will stave off those more challenging community discussions for a while. We are hopeful that past decisions to address the lack of housing will help reverse the trend of declining enrollment. We are hopeful that new rooftops at Project 57 (aka Golddigger Field) and a future development at “Old Carlson” will bring in more families who choose to enroll their children in CCSD.
However, we are acutely aware that if we don’t see more families enrolling in our schools, we will need to decide if our current configuration is still the most fiscally sound or whether we need to consider consolidation, or other difficult options. It bears repeating, the school district continues to operate all our schools because the Board of Education believes community schools are important for our students and other learning.
As always, the Board of Education welcomes public input and participation at all of its meetings. Please consider joining us as we will be discussing our budget at our April meetings. For more information, please visit our website at ccsdre1.org/boe.
This article was submitted on behalf of all members of the Clear Creek School District Board of Education.