Budget cuts could be imminent for “phantom students” in Colorado

Top Colorado lawmakers signaled last week that they will support cutting funding for school districts with declining enrollment — just maybe not as aggressively as Gov. Jared Polis has proposed.

Over half of the state’s 178 school districts will serve fewer students this year than last, The Colorado Sun reported Wednesday, a long-running trend that has led state leaders to reexamine how it counts kids in the all-important school finance formula.

Today, school districts receive funding based on the average enrollment over the previous five years, giving shrinking districts a cushion against large year-to-year swings in funding. The state’s new school funding formula reduces that to a four-year average, but the looming budget deficit has sparked calls to go further.

“I am anxious to talk about a different pathway on the averaging for our districts,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, told The Sun. “I want to spend dollars where kids are, where the highest needs are.”

She also pushed back against school district leaders who have likened the proposed funding cuts to creating a new “budget stabilization factor” at the very moment the state is eliminating the long-running school funding shortfall.

“I’ve heard districts say it’s like the budget stabilization factor, and I want to be really clear — it isn’t,” McCluskie said. “It is not the budget stabilization factor, but it is a recognition that we’ve been in a declining student enrollment environment for a while, and we haven’t been aggressive enough in tackling how we support districts.”

McCluskie’s comments came during our legislative preview event Thursday night, which also featured interviews with Polis, Senate President James Coleman and two members of the Joint Budget Committee. If you missed it, you can catch a replay on our YouTube channel.

McCluskie, a former school district administrator, didn’t offer specifics, but she suggested some cuts would be warranted — especially in the largest districts with shrinking student bodies.

“We just haven’t quite figured out how to get to that more efficient operating model as quickly as we should,” she said.

Polis has proposed eliminating averaging entirely, saying schools should get funding annually based on how many students that have that year.

Lawmakers said they’re looking for a middle ground. Sen. Jeff Bridges, who chairs the Joint Budget Committee, suggested two- or three-year averaging. But he made it clear that the student counts — like most everything else — are on the table for budget cuts.

“If we’re looking at cutting services to folks on Medicaid, we’re absolutely looking at ways that we can ensure that money is going to students and not ‘phantom students,’” Bridges said. “So if I have to choose between adequately funding those students and then giving money to schools for students they don’t have, I am going to be with the students that exist every single day.”

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

During our 30-minute discussion, McCluskie and Coleman shared their thoughts on several of the top issues of the 2025 legislative session, including condo construction defects litigation, this year’s big guns bill and the effort to overhaul the state’s Labor Peace Act.

Here’s a few highlights:

• McCluskie and Coleman said they hoped to strike a compromise between businesses and labor groups to update the state’s laws on union organizing. But neither offered a clear road map for what that middle ground might look like. “I think it’s really important that we not devolve into some sort of rhetoric that’s anti-business or anti-labor,” McCluskie said. “We can be pro-business, pro-labor, all in the same moment.” She also said President Donald Trump’s reelection was evidence that lawmakers need to be more responsive to the needs of workers: “Clearly, our working class is not being heard,” she said.
• Coleman, a Denver Democrat, reflected on why Sen. Tom Sullivan , D-Centennial, will take lead on this year’s effort to ban the manufacture and sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, after his opposition to a related bill from a year ago proved to be a key factor in its defeat. “He did not vote in support of the bill last year, and part of the reason for that is because some folks think that running gun violence prevention bills is a publicity stunt,” Coleman said. “It’s not for likes, it’s not for follows. It’s not to get friends. It’s to address the deaths that we have in our state and harm that we have in our state.”
• Coleman had previously told the “Get More Smarter” podcast that he wouldn’t be involved in efforts to make it harder for condo owners to sue over construction defects. He said he changed his mind after talking with bill sponsor Rep. Shannon Bird , D-Westminster. “I signed on because I realized that this is an opportunity for us to continue the work we did last year … and find a solution for more affordability. Ultimately, the biggest difference between the bill last year and this year is we decided to focus more on a smaller niche in terms of income status in order to address affordable living.”
• McCluskie and Coleman praised a new legislative push to limit fees charged by landlords. “We need to do more for renters when it comes to junk fees,” McCluskie said. “We get requests, demands from the people that hired us in these jobs to do everything we can to help create a more affordable Colorado. So we should leave no stone unturned. If we’re not seeing movement at the federal level, then, darn it, we need to take action ourselves.”

STORY: With Biden-era consumer protections in jeopardy, Colorado Democrats look to crack down on rental housing fees

STORY: Which guns would be affected by Colorado’s proposed ban on semiautomatic weapons with detachable magazines

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEK

• The Joint Budget Committee is meeting throughout this week and next as it continues drafting the state’s 2025-26 fiscal year budget, which takes effect July 1.
• The Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee meets at 2 p.m. today to consider a change to Senate Bill 5, which would modify the Colorado Labor Peace Act.
• The Executive Committee of the Legislative Council meets at 4 p.m. today at the Capitol.
• The legislature’s Committee on Legal Services meets at 7:45 a.m. Wednesday.
• The Democratic vacancy committee in House District 22 meets Wednesday night to select a replacement for Iman Jodeh , who was appointed to the Senate from the House.

THE BIG STORY

Another set of proposed change to Colorado GOP bylaws that appear designed to benefit the chairman

The Colorado GOP later this month is scheduled to consider a number of bylaw changes that would make it easier for the party to endorse candidates and opt out of the state’s primary elections, as well as make it harder to remove party officers.

The proposals appear aimed at benefiting Chairman Dave Williams and letting him and his allies seek retribution against their opponents, who tried to remove Williams from his post last year.

The amendments would apply to the party’s central committee, or CRC, which is composed of about 400 Republicans from across the state, and the party’s executive committee, which is made up of a small group of the chair’s allies.

The changes are set to be debated Jan. 30 during a Zoom meeting. They include:

• Making it clear that the state party may endorse Republican candidates before primary elections if a candidate or candidates have qualified for the ballot through the caucus and assembly process. Each candidate who makes it through that process would have to be endorsed equally, even if they are running against each other in a primary.
• Declaring that “all controversy decisions by the executive committee are fully and immediately enforceable, either internally or through the courts, even if appealed to the CRC.” The proposed change aims to address the attempted removal and replacement of Williams last year, which was ultimately decided in the courts. The change would also let the executive committee to “adopt uniform rules for hearing party controversies before itself that empower party officers to dismiss frivolous controversies and provide for a fair adjudication of all others.”
• A change stripping from the party’s bylaws the following: “Pursuant to C.R.S. § 1-4-702(1), three-quarters (75%) of the total membership of the CRC must vote in favor of nomination by nominating convention in order for this choice to take effect. In the event of a vote in favor of nomination by nominating convention, the chairman shall deliver notice to the Secretary of State of this choice as required by law.” CRS 1-4-702 is the statute governing opting out of the state’s primary elections.
• Increasing the vote threshold to remove a party officer to two-thirds of the central committee from three-fifths and clarifying that the threshold must be reached among two-thirds of the entire committee, not just those “eligible to vote at a meeting called for that purpose.”
• Adding a section to the bylaws indefinitely suspending the central committee “membership rights, privileges and responsibilities” if they bring failed litigation against the CRC “and have not paid restitution to the CRC that equals the amount of money expended in attorney’s fees and costs the CRC may have incurred defending itself.” The change would retroactively apply to the Republicans who brought the court cases seeking to remove Williams. The change wouldn’t apply to people who enter into a settlement agreement with the CRC.
• Changing the makeup of the voting members of the central committee for the purpose of voting to opt out of the state’s primaries to limit the involvement of legislators to one state senator and one state representative, instead of all the GOP members of the legislature. The amendment would also limit district attorney and University of Colorado regent involvement to one each from all the elected Republican district attorneys and regents in the state. It would also limit the Republican members of Congress from Colorado who are voting members to one from all of the GOP members.

The last change would likely make it easier for the CRC to reach the 75% threshold needed to opt out of the state’s primaries since it’s often Republican elected officials who are most fiercely opposed to the idea.

This isn’t the first time Williams and his allies have sought to amend the party’s bylaws to make it easier to pursue their agenda. For the most part, those efforts have failed.

ENDORSEMENTS FOR BRITA HORN

Former Routt County Treasurer Brita Horn is starting to rack up endorsements for her March bid to become the next chair of the Colorado GOP.

Her supporters include:

• 2020 gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl
• State Rep. Ryan Armagost
• State Rep. Carlos Barron
• State Rep. Ryan Gonzalez
• Former House Minority Leader Mike Lynch
• Former state Rep. Tonya Van Beber
• Former El Paso County Commissioner Stan VanderWerf
• The county GOP chairs of Chaffee, Arapahoe and Grand counties

THE POLITICAL TICKER

ELECTION 2026

A fundraiser Wednesday in Denver for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s 2026 gubernatorial campaign has an interesting list of hosts and cohosts.

Leora Joseph, director of the Colorado Office of Behavioral Health and an unsuccessful 2024 candidate for Denver district attorney, is hosting the event with her husband, Dr. Michael Wechsler.

The cohosts include: Deserai Anderson Crow, the ex-wife of U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, another potential Democratic gubernatorial candidate; former state Sen. Lois Court; businessman and unsuccessful 2018 gubernatorial candidate Noel Ginsburg; Colorado Department of Human Services Executive Director Michelle Barnes; and state Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet.

READ MORE

• Scott Bottoms, Republican state representative, will run for Colorado governor in 2026
• Jared Polis reveals his stance on the gun, labor and housing bills before the Colorado legislature this year
• Colorado identifies its top five toxic air contaminants. Next comes rules to regulate them.
• Nonrenewals are fueling Colorado’s growing homeowners insurance crisis
• 20 gray wolves released in Pitkin, Eagle counties, Colorado Parks and Wildlife says
• Historic Western Slope water rights purchase receives $40 million surge of federal funding
• Enslavement and lynching happened in Colorado, according to new research studying harms to Black Coloradans
  — Colorado Public Radio
• Lawmakers aren’t allowed to have guns in the Colorado Capitol anymore, but there’s no proactive enforcement
  — KUNC via the Colorado Capitol News Alliance
• Eric Coomer’s defamation suit against conservative radio outlet, host may proceed: appeals court
  — Colorado Politics 🔑

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THE BIGGER PICTURE

• Trump’s executive orders will focus on the border, energy
  — The Wall Street Journal 🔑
• Why turning churches into housing is so hard
  — CityLab
• Trump holds off on tariffs, but paves the way for future trade action
  — The New York Times 🔑
• Trump agenda heralds an economic experiment for the U.S.
  — The New York Times 🔑
• MLK Day at King’s Atlanta congregation features daughter’s warning about anti-woke rhetoric
  — The Associated Press

🔑 = source has article meter or paywall

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