Aspen School Board looks to collect additional funds to rebuild budget reserves

The Aspen School District could collect an extra $1.2-1.5 million in tax dollars annually as a result of the district switching to local funding in fiscal year 2023-2024.

If the Aspen school board accepts the increase in funding, the district will begin collecting the funds in spring 2024. The money would mean an additional $20-25 per $1 million of assessed property value for property owners, Assistant Superintendent of Business Mary Rodino said in a school board meeting on Wednesday night. 

The money would go toward replenishing school district reserves that have decreased 75% — from about $8 million to $2 million — in the past five years due primarily to the pandemic, curriculum upgrades, and salary increases. The current reserve balance is 6% of the school district’s general fund, far below a recommended 30%, she said.

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“Primarily that’s where you’re spending more than you’re taking in, which is okay when it’s planned and it’s okay when it doesn’t happen every year,” she said. “But we’ve had kind of the perfect storm of a lot of things, COVID, curriculum upgrades, … and other general inflationary pressures, construction costs, and other things that we wanted to do around the district.”

The school district moved to 100% local funding in 2023 because local sources of school funding, including higher property taxes and funds from the Aspen Education Foundation, exceed the state’s allocation for the district. This switch changed the district’s funding model and made an additional $1.2-1.5 million available to receive, Rodino said.

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The Aspen School District is one of only about 15 school districts in the state that are fully locally funded.

“Historically, the state has underfunded Aspen at astronomical levels,” Superintendent Dave Baugh said during the board meeting. “When we were dependent on state funding, we had significant shortfalls.”

If the district decides to collect the additional taxes, the funds will be placed in a separate restricted account and would not become available for another year, likely in spring 2025, Rodino said. It’s possible the district may only be able to access a certain percentage of funds in the first year, but the district has not received direct guidance from the state yet, she said. 

She and the district’s financial advisory board recommended the board approve collection of the additional funds to rebuild the district’s reserves.

“You’re in a pretty unhealthy reserve situation right now,” Financial Advisory Board member Kurt Hall told the board. “The problem we’ve got in Aspen that’s pretty unique is our cost of everything here is significantly higher than pretty much probably every school district in the state.”

It would take three to five years to rebuild reserves to $9 million if the district approves the funding, Rodino said.

Once the reserves are replenished, the additional funds could be used to address other district priorities, including hiring and retaining teachers, and providing housing and competitive salaries to those teachers, preserving small class sizes, and providing a high quality curriculum.

The district will not know the exact increase for taxpayers or how much they will receive annually until Jan. 3, when the county assessor finalizes the assessed property valuations. The board will meet Jan. 8 to vote on the collection of the additional funds.

During the meeting on Wednesday, the board also certified the November election results and swore in new members Sarah Daniels and Cassie Harrelson. Christa Gieszl was appointed president of the board, Stacey Weiss was appointed vice president, and Suzy Zimet was appointed secretary. Daniels was appointed treasurer, and Harrelson was appointed assistant secretary and treasurer.