The voices of children from the Mountain Echoes Choir sang out at Monday night’s Estes Park School Board meeting.
Led by teacher Paul Maley, two dozen third, fourth and fifth graders dressed in green tie-dyed t-shirts performed two songs for the members of the school board. Superintendent Ruby Bode beamed a wide smile as she watched in approval from the dais at the front of the room.
At the conclusion of the mini-concert, Stacy Ferree, board president, asked if any of the children wanted to step up to the microphone to share what they liked about being in the choir.
A few brave singers offered their thoughts. One boy said, “I like that people enjoy our songs.” Another choir member said, “I get to share my love of singing with everyone.” One child said that through singing, “I get to express myself.”
Audit report, mill levy override increase, and budget issues
After the choir was dismissed, the board heard an audit report from Jamie Essenmacher, CPA, a partner at Plante Moran, an international audit, tax, consulting, and wealth management firm with offices in Denver. Essenmacher, who provided her report via Zoom to the board, said that no problems were identified in the audit of the school’s finances.
The board had met on Dec. 12 for a special meeting to approve an increase in the EPSD’s mill levy override to property taxes from 3.4 to 3.5 noting that the amount of funding they expect to receive from the state will be $100,000 less for the upcoming year.
“While it represents a small increase for our tax payers those funds are going to be used to make sure we can continue our current improvements that we have made at the District to keep our staff funding while maintaining our facilities and maintenance and other projects that we know are coming up,” said Bode Ruby Bode, superintendent of the EPSD, at the Thursday afternoon meeting.
Bode reminded the board that although Estes Park’s teacher salaries are above the state averages, the cost of living in Estes Park is ranked as the eleventh most expensive in Colorado. She also said that over the past few years, the schools have deferred maintenance to the buildings and grounds in order to provide competitive salaries for staff, but it is now important for the District to invest in its buildings and grounds and address many of deferred maintenance issues.
Among the projects she identified are the replacement of the stadium, a portion of which which had been closed for safety reasons due to crumbling concrete, replacing roofing, HVAC repairs, resurfacing of the playground, fencing, and vent and duct cleaning which Bode said cost $60,000.
The Bobcat Stadium was replaced this fall at a cost of $1.5 million which included a gift from Jon Smith, owner of High Plains Excavation. Smith’s company demolished the old stadium, cleared the debris, and prepared the site for the new stadium which saved the school some $118,000.
Bode identified that the District has experienced some significant challenges over the past few years including implementing improvement measures to address student learning objectives, and it added staff to restructure to meet student needs in the post-COVID learning environment, including bilingual instructors, counselors, support staff and liaisons.
The District’s FY 2024-2025 general fund budget was approved last July for the current school year for $17,876,570. The District receives an additional $1 million from a specific ownership tax for car registrations and some other local revenue that is used for preschool tuition for extended day and facility rentals among other things, explained Brian Lund, director of business services for the EPSD, in a follow up interview.
The preliminary FY2024-2025 budget compared to the final FY 2023-2024 budget has an increase of $318,120 in total expenditures. The projected total property tax collection, including bond repayment, is $162,000 higher than last year’s amount but less than the rate of inflation.
The District’s program revenue as calculated by the Colorado Department of Education is showing about $100,000 less in funding after being adjusted to reflect the District’s annual October Count, which is embargoed by the state until January 15, 2025. It is anticipated that the District’s 2024-2025 census will be less than 1,000 students, a loss of some 100 students over the past five years. The number of students enrolled in the District is a factor in the budget calculations.
Because the number of students in the District’s October 2024 count was lower than what the CDE and Legislative Council used for their projection, the District received a reduction in its funded pupil count number compared to what was anticipated back in May of 2024, said Lund.
The school has $853,000 in a program reserve. The funds are collected with the 2024 December mill levy and the District can use the interest earned as additional revenue. Additionally, the District continues to pay principal and interest of $1.69 million annually on $10,365,000 in bonds issued in 2007 for major remodeling, including the consolidation of the primary and secondary school buildings. The final payment is scheduled for December 2031.
The board will be presented with a mid-year review of the budget for approval in January.
In August, the state’s General Assembly met for a special session and the deal struck by legislators will impact the funding formulas for special taxing districts. Senate Bill 24-233 and House Bill 24B-1001 lowered assessment rates for most classes of property, decreasing the local share of school finance and correspondingly increasing the state share by approximately $374 million. HB24B-1001 also established a school district property tax limit, beginning in the 2025 property tax year for FY 2025-26.
“The adjustments to special taxing assessment rates will go into effect in 2025 for revenues to be collected in 2026. I am still working through what the impact will be on the school as I have not seen the projection for our change in assessed valuations because of the change,” said Lund.
“After reading through the bill this is changing the percentages of actual value of a property that is used to determine the assessed value. For schools, the percentage used to calculate this currently is 27.9% for commercial and 6.7% for residential properties. Commercial will be reduced in 2025 to 27% and then 25% for 2026 and 2027. Residential rates for schools will increase to 6.95%. For all other local governments, the residential rate will decrease to 6.15% in 2025 and is a lesser of two calculations in 2026,” Lund explained.
Community involvement in the District
Bode told the board that she was very pleased an increase in community support for sports and cultural activities with greater attendance at games and performances.
Bode announcements. A 15-member strategic planning committee has been formed. The committee will have its first meeting Jan. 13 and will be tasked to develop a long-range plan for the District which will include spending priorities.
The schools also received an $8,000 Community Collaboration Grant through the National Partnership for Student Success that will be used to fund tutors through The Learning Place.
Name and gender change policy
Before adjourning, the school board unanimously adopted a policy by which students may change the name they are referred to at school to align with their gender identity.
According to the policy, students may choose to be identified in school by the first name that they have designated in accordance with this policy and may request a change to their name or gender on their official student record through regulation.
During the 2024 Regular Session of the Colorado Legislature, the legislature passed HB24-1039, Non-Legal Name Changes. The bill, which was passed in the House with 37 yes votes to 18 no votes and passed in the Senate with 22 yes votes to 11 no votes, was signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis, on April 29, 2024.
The law requires school personnel to address a student by the student’s chosen name and to use the student’s chosen name in school and during extracurricular activities. It also requires a school to implement a written policy outlining how the school will honor a student’s request to use a chosen name.