Staff cuts through attrition, mill levy override increase considered amid receding state aid

The Aspen School District discussed Wednesday ways to cut the district’s expenditures while increasing employee salaries. 

But wage increases are hampered by a $6 million annual loss of state aid, and an upcoming reallocation of public funding, putting the district in a financial bind.

“The state is really tying our hands on our revenues,” Mary Rodino, assistant superintendent of business and operations, told The Aspen Times on Thursday.

---

---

To reduce expenditures and increase salaries, the district seeks to cut staff by seven to 10 positions through employee attrition, which would reduce expenditures by roughly $650,000, according to Aspen School District 2023/24 employee salary averages. 

The district’s Expense Reduction Task Force set a goal in fall 2024 to reduce $750,000-$1 million in district expenditures, helping “restore fund balance and provide for salary increases,” according to a memo presented Wednesday to the school board by Rodino and Max Marolt, Business Office controller. The district must also finance an expected insurance increase of up to $880,000 next year.

---

---

Apart from attrition, the district could save an additional $200,000 by reducing operational costs like print and copy usage, digital subscriptions, and water coolers, according to the task force. 

Looking ahead, the task force plans to offset their expected losses from the New Public School Finance Formula, 2024 state legislation reallocating public school funds, which will be phased into effect starting in the 2025/26 school year. The legislation will benefit most school districts but further decrease funding from six to seven districts, including Aspen, according to Rodino. She expects to lose $5 million funding in the next five to seven years.

To account for the loss, the task force will present in March a mill levy override increase to the school board, which could go to vote by taxpayers in November. The override would allow the district to levy 47% over the per-pupil funding limit, or the amount of money a school can levy per student, which sits at $14,480 as of January. The district can currently levy 25% over the limit. 

“This would only be in my mind to offset that loss,” Rodino said.

“They’re not funding us but they’re telling us how much we can collect,” she added of the state government. 

The district, however, still seeks to increase salaries to account for the rising cost of living. The average Aspen teacher salary in the 2023/24 school year was $75,110, according to the Colorado Department of Education. The 2024 salary required to meet a basic cost of living for a family of four was $148,512, according to data collected by the Pitkin County Planning and Zoning Commision.

Josh Anderson, Aspen Education Association vice president and Aspen High School math teacher, gathered staff feedback about expenditures cuts and salary increases. He compared the district’s average salary to the Boulder Valley School District, the highest paid district in Colorado with a 2023/24 average teacher salary over $95,000, to see if Aspen could arrive at similar wages.

“And I think the trade-offs there were significant,” he told The Aspen Times on Thursday of the required cuts. “Significantly bigger classroom size and significantly less planning time.”

The recent lack of state funding to the district compounds its financial troubles. The Aspen School District lost $6 million in annual state aid when Colorado deemed Pitkin County’s assessed property values — and by extension the district’s property tax funding — high enough to remove most government contributions just before the 2023/24 school year. The 2024 average price of a single-family Pitkin County home was $13.3 million, a 183% increase from 2018, according to data collected by the county. 

In the past the state would complement the property taxes directed at the school district with government funds, according to Rodino. 

“The state transferred that burden to local taxpayers,” Rodino said. 

The school district received only $860,000 from the state in the 2023/24 school year, a drop from $6.5 million the year before, according to Rodino. School district tax payers saw a 50% to 70% tax increase to account for the shortfall, she added.

The school district has operated at a deficit for four of the past five years, according to Rodino.

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.