During his election campaign last year, Colorado Governor Jared Polis promised to encourage funding for full-day kindergarten in the state’s public schools, and he saw that promise fulfilled when the General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed a plan that earmarked about $200 million to implement a plan: paying for full-day kindergarten in Colorado for the very first time.
But the legislators calculated that only about 85% of eligible kindergartners would participate, and legislators shaved $42 million off the amount the Polis administration had requested. Nevertheless, Polis signed the bill into law in May. The law bars school districts from charging parents tuition to attend full-day K.
Parents don’t have to send their children to full-day K if they don’t want to, and school districts still get to decide whether they want to offer full-day programming.
Governor Polis had lobbied heavily for the funding during his first 100 days in office, visiting elementary schools around the state to speak about the proposal and the importance of early childhood education.
Now, according to a new survey by the Colorado Department of Education, 2019-2020 full-day kindergarten enrollment is expected to be around 99%. That would put the cost of the new program $40 million over budget.
The Polis administration has responded to the survey by claiming that the program is clearly successful and expressing no worries about the extra cost. It’s not yet clear, however, where extra funding would come from.
In recent years, Colorado schools has been receiving revenues to fund half-day kindergarten programs — about half the dollar amount, per student, of what districts received per full-day elementary school student. A full-day option was nevertheless offered by some school districts, funded by tuition paid by parents, or through mill levy overrides, or by other means. Here in Pagosa Springs, the Archuleta School District had previously been funding its full-day kindergarten program using grant funding from Colorado’s READ program.
Last year, ASD successfully campaigned for a mill levy override — an additional $1.7 million per year from local property taxes to be used for staff salary increases, school security officers — and full-day kindergarten. Now the ASD Board is wondering what they should do with the extra property taxes voters approved — since the additional mill levy funds earmarked for full-day kindergarten here in Pagosa are no longer needed, due to the new state funding.
Last school year, 36 of the Colorado’s 178 school districts had students enrolled in half-day kindergarten programs, according to the CDE survey — and all but one of those districts and one charter school network plan to move to all full-day kindergarten classes in the next school year, making use of the new state funding.
“The news that more school districts and families will take advantage of full-day kindergarten is great news for our state and parents,” wrote administration spokesman Conor Cahill in an emailed statement to the Colorado Sun. “Full-day kindergarten has been long overdue in Colorado, will improve student outcomes, save families money and help our economy.”
If a funding shortfall occurs, the lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) will have some discretionary money to draw on.
From a July 1 Colorado Sun article by Chris Osher:
This year, the budget writers recommended taking about $40.3 million from the state’s general fund and stashing it in the state education fund for future educational purposes. The legislature agreed to go along with the recommendation. If a budget shortfall actually occurs, the JBC will have to consider making midyear funding adjustments.
“There is always a true up after the count each year to address higher or lower student counts, and last year we came in lower than expected,” Cahill said. “We always anticipated a supplemental (budget adjustment) after the October count date, and we look forward to working with the General Assembly to address any positive or negative differences in projected funding across the entire K-12 system at that time.”
State Rep. Kim Ransom, a Republican budget writer who represents Littleton, said she opposed the full-day kindergarten legislation in part because she feared lawmakers were lowballing projected attendance…
“It was hard to predict the utilization rate that we would see, and there was some uncertainty as to the continuation of the money,” Ransom said. “That was part of my larger concerns. Some of the money being used I saw as unsustainable.”
Wiping out the $40 million the legislature placed in the state’s educational fund could leave Colorado in a difficult position, in terms of addressing future economic challenges.