The school finance act, the legislative measure that funds public schools, is well on its way to passage through the General Assembly in the waning weeks of the session.

Senate Bill 287 funds each student at $8,076.41, an eight percent increase over 2022-23 levels. It’s just shy of $1,000 more per student, according to Senator Rachel Zenzinger, D-Arvada, the bill’s sponsor.

The bill also begins a two-year process for finally paying off the debt to K-12 education, known as the budget stabilization factor.

Using money from the State education fund, the bill pays down the BS factor by $180 million, from $321.4 million in the 2022-23 budget year to $141.2 million in the budget year that starts on July 1. And next year, an amendment to the bill pledges to pay off the rest.

That’s in contrast to the proposal from Governor Jared Polis, who had asked that the debt be paid off over three years rather than two.

For rural schools, the bill provides $30 million, split 55/45 between rural districts (district with 6,500 students or fewer) and small rural districts, defined as 1,000 students or fewer.

That money can be used for one-time expenses for improving student learning, which can include teacher recruitment. 

The Holyoke School District would receive a one-time boost of $202,536 under the introduced version of the bill. Haxtun Schools would get $107,457. The Yuma-1 District would receive $294,124; Wray RD-2 would get $245,985; Idalia RJ-3 would get $59,601 and Liberty J-4 would get $21,583.

Since 2017, lawmakers have met during the summer and fall to come up with a new school finance formula. That effort is at an end without resolution. 

SB 287 tasks the Department of Education with coming up with a public school finance task force that will make recommended changes to the school finance formula for 2024-25, which could include changes to the cost of living and size factors and developing parameters for a study on the costs necessary to provide adequate public education funding.

That task force would be required to finish its work by the end of the year.

As to the issue of Indian mascots, the bill shifts back to the House version of an amendment offered during the State budget process that would distribute $300,000 from the State Education Fund among all schools that replaced their mascots to comply with a 2021 law.

SB 287 first says that the Department of Education must “fully fund all requests for reimbursement,” but if the amount is insufficient to do so, distribute those dollars proportionately. The Department of Education would be allowed to decide the parameters under which “proportionately” is determined.

The Yuma School District has incurred almost $400,000 in expenses to replace signage, athletic uniforms, gym floors and other costs. It was one of only two school districts that applied for a grant under the provisions of Senate Bill 21-116.

However, because the original bill dictated that the money for the mascots would be dead last among priorities under the Building Excellent Schools Today program, the money was long gone before it could be awarded to any school changing out its mascot.

Twenty-six schools were required to change their mascots before July 1, 2022. Another nine that used “Thunderbird” were added in May 2022 but were given additional time to comply with the law.

SB 287 was approved by the Senate Education Committee on April 17 and is expected to win approval from the full Senate this week. It then heads to the House for consideration.

Water had been expected to be among the big topics of the 2023 session, but a bill from the Polis administration that would have allowed the state to acquire water rights couldn’t get traction. That’s in part because the administration excluded the agriculture community from discussions around the measure for months while the bill was in development. Instead, lawmakers are looking at a task force on the issue of “drought security.”

The proposal from the Polis administration called for establishing a “water security reserve,” to acquire by “grant, purchase, donation, bequest, devise, lease” or other contractual agreements “decreed absolute water rights located within Colorado that divert water from the Colorado River and its tributaries.” That would include rights decreed for beneficial use within the state “but used outside the Colorado River basin.”

That’s the kind of thing that made Sen. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, nervous. He’s a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 295, the task force bill.

He told this reporter recently that the Colorado River, through a transmountain diversion, sends 235,000 acre-feet of water to the South Platte, and “we need to be sure we protect that water right for the South Platte. It's meaningful for agriculture to have this water, and we have to have it to keep our economy growing."

And while agriculture is being looked at as a major part of the solution to the Colorado River’s crisis, the 15-member task force has only two ag representatives. One would be an ag producer in the Southwestern River Conservation District, the other from the Colorado River Water Conservation District. 

The task force as no designated representation from the Eastern Plains, despite the importance of the Colorado River to Eastern Plains agriculture and other purposes. It does, however, allow for an operator of a transmountain diversion to be part of the group.

Pelton is troubled by that, too, and said he may try to amend that part of the bill when it comes up for its first committee hearing on April 26.

The task force, which would meet throughout the rest of the year, would be charged with coming up with recommendations on ways for the Colorado Water Conservation Board to collaborate with the two river districts and “other relevant stakeholders,” including water rights holders, ag producers, tribes, industrial water users, environmental groups and local governments. 

Significantly, the recommendations on programs must be implemented in a way that protects existing uses and development in the Colorado River basin “without allowing or protecting a new transmountain diversion.” The bill says the programs also must avoid negative economic or environmental impacts to any single subbasin or region in the state. 

Those recommendations would address drought in the Colorado River basin and the existing compacts between Colorado and its six basin state neighbors. 

The recommendations would focus on what’s known as demand management: agreements, largely with ag producers who hold the State’s most senior water rights, for voluntary, temporary and compensated use of their water to help shore up the Colorado River and the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Both are at critically low levels that could impact their ability to deliver hydropower through the lakes’ two major dams, Hoover and Glen Canyon. 

The Federal government awarded $125 million to the Upper Colorado River Commission to begin that process, but at $150 per acre foot, the value of the water far exceeds what the federal government would pay and far below what most ag producers would accept.

The 2023 legislative session must end no later than midnight, May 8.