The majority of voters in the Poudre School District voted yea on Ballot Issue 4A in the 2024 general election, passing a mill levy increase for the Poudre School District.

The mill levy will grant $49 million per year to fund maintenance projects, increase staff pay, support smaller neighborhood schools and expand career and technical education opportunities.

The mill levy is made possible by the 2016 Colorado Debt-free Schools Act, which permits districts to add funding increases to election ballots. This is the second time PSD has passed a mill levy; the first was in 2019, when a mill levy override was passed to increase salaries of teachers and other district staff. Approximately $4.6 million of the funds will be allocated to charter schools as per a Colorado statute.

The mill levy will be funded by taxes from Fort Collins homeowners. Taxes will be raised based on residential home value, ranging from an annual tax increase of $75.63 for homes with a value of $300,000 to $176.47 for homes worth $700,000.

“Colorado is one of the lower-funded states when it comes to K-12 education. It’s always kind of hard for a district in this state to make ends meet. Local measures, such as a mill levy, are helping us do the things we need to for students.” –Emily Shockley, Poudre School District communications coordinator

Because not all schools within the district need the same amount of funding, PSD used a table and a funding model to determine how much money each school will receive and where that funding should go.

“We use a funding model for schools that relies on them having a certain number of students,” said Emily Shockley, PSD communications coordinator. “There’s lots of schools that are closer to capacity, and then they go through that formula to get exactly the right amount of money.”

Thanks to the mill levy, Poudre School District can fund staff pay, programs that might otherwise be cut and schools that would otherwise face talks of closure. The mill levy, as well as potential mill levy measures in the future, ensures endangered schools and programs receive adequate funding.

“To maintain the robust programming and opportunities that we are currently providing to our students, PSD must find sources of ongoing funding that can be dedicated to addressing our building maintenance needs and that can be used to update our classroom materials over time,” a statement on the PSD website reads.

Because Colorado’s funding per student is below the national average, most of the funding for Colorado school districts comes from local expenditures. Educational programming and many maintenance projects rely on local measures to ensure their survival.

“Colorado is one of the lower-funded states when it comes to K-12 education,” Shockley said. “It’s always kind of hard for a district in this state to make ends meet. Local measures, such as a mill levy, are helping us do the things we need to for students.”

Poudre School District will form a mill levy oversight committee composed of PSD staff and community members. The committee will determine how much funding should go into which areas and edit funding projects if future priorities change. The district will continue to publish annual budget and committee audits on its website.

Anyone who wishes to address the committee can attend and speak at PSD Board of Education meetings, which are on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month.

Reach Robert Sides at news@collegian.com or on Twitter at @CSUCollegian.