New school funding formula boosts support for Colorado students

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — Colorado lawmakers are working to make school funding in our state more student-centered. A new bill looks to update Colorado’s outdated school finance formula to increase funding for rural schools and at-risk students, special education, and English Language Learners.

On Thursday, April 11, House Speaker Julie McCluskie, Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, House Assistant Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon, and Senator Rachel Zenzinger introduced legislation that will update Colorado’s school finance formula.

“Educational opportunities shouldn’t depend on a student’s zip code; I’m proud of the broad, bipartisan coalition that has come together to increase funding for students with the greatest needs and provide more resources to rural and remote schools, which have historically been underfunded,” said Speaker McCluskie, D-Dillon.

Lawmakers told FOX21 News that Colorado’s school finance formula is outdated, inequitable, and hasn’t been significantly changed in nearly 30 years.

“The deeply researched, student-centered updates we’re proposing for 2026 and beyond gained overwhelming consensus in the Public School Finance Task Force,” Speaker McCluskie explained. “This bipartisan proposal builds on the record funding from eliminating the Budget Stabilization Factor to drive more equity into school finance and provide additional resources to rural and smaller districts that do not have the same economies of scale or access to resources as more populated and urban districts. Reforming Colorado’s public school financing formula is a huge step toward improving our public schools and ensuring every student in our state receives a high-quality education.”

Supporters of the bill said the new plan will boost support for at-risk, special education, and English Language Learners across all Colorado school districts.

This legislation implements the spirit of the recommendations of the School Finance Task Force, which reached overwhelming consensus, in order to drive more resources to the students who need them the most, specifically at-risk pupils, special education students, and English Language Learners.

“This change in the school finance formula will help pivot to the critically important effort to make education funding focused on the students,” said Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, R-Monument. “For too long the formula has been about institutions and not about the unique natures of the students we serve. Fully funding K-12 education to our constitutionally mandated responsibility was last year’s legislative success. Making the formula about students is this year’s goal.”

With hundreds of millions of additional dollars now going to public schools in Colorado, these changes, which would take effect for the 2025-2026 school year and implemented in a gradual phase-in over 6 years, will drive more of these new resources to historically underfunded districts with lower property wealth and that serve a higher number of at-risk students and English Language Learners.

When fully implemented, there will be $852 million in the formula for at-risk students, $142.7 million for English Language Learners, and $240 million in the formula for Special Education students, in addition to the constitutionally-required $375 million in the Special Education categorical. Remote and rural districts would receive an additional $255 million under this formula, once fully funded.

Lawmakers said the new formula is simpler and better accounts for district characteristics by fixing the “Order of Operations” to emphasize student needs. It removes the multiplicative factors that change the base funding per pupil, which currently create cascading funding impacts throughout the formula that are extremely challenging to track.

Instead, factors that increase funding for small districts or districts with high cost of living will be additive and easy to understand. It also creates a new remoteness factor to support rural schools and a funding floor for all districts that their new funding cannot drop beneath.

The legislation is supported by Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), Colorado Succeeds, Stand for Children, The Children’s Campaign, and Ready Colorado.

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