How Colorado’s governor plans to pay off the state’s 14-year-old school funding shortfall by 2025

Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday proposed a $38 billion state budget that would completely pay off Colorado’s 14-year-old IOU to K-12 schools, accomplishing a long-standing goal of the General Assembly.

“We’ve been working towards this goal for several years,” Polis told reporters at an afternoon news conference at the governor’s mansion in Denver. “We’ve made progress in reducing the underfunding of our schools, and this year we’re fully funding our schools for the first time” since 2009.

The governor is required to present a budget proposal each November to the General Assembly, but it only serves as a starting point for discussions. Lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee ultimately write the document that will become the state’s official spending plan, and the full legislature has to give final approval.

Polis’ wishlist for the 2024-25 fiscal year calls for a 6.5% increase in General Fund spending, but he insisted it included few new programs.

“This is more of a tight budget year,” said Polis, a Democrat. “The big goal of this budget is fully funding education. So the discretionary money (that exists) goes to meet our commitment to fully fund our public schools in the state of Colorado.”

Polis said his budget also prioritizes housing and public safety.

The school funding deficit dates back to the Great Recession, when lawmakers cut K-12 spending $1 billion below levels set in by the state constitution. For years, lawmakers have sought to pay down that debt, known as the budget stabilization factor. And they made slow progress until the pandemic drove it to a new high of $1.1 billion in 2020.

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