2019 Mill Levy Override FAQ

School funding in Colorado consistently ranks among the lowest the nation in terms of per-pupil funding. Under the current state funding formula used by the Colorado state legislature to allocate school funding, PSD receives the lowest amount of per-pupil funding allowed by state law. Currently, PSD receives about $8,050 in state funding a year per student, while school districts like Greeley’s Weld District 6 ($8,326), Longmont’s St. Vrain Valley School District ($8,273), Windsor’s Weld RE-4 ($8,053) Thompson School District ($8,052) receive more state dollars.

PSD uses mill levy override money for:

• Increasing first-year teacher salaries to a competitive level, beginning in the 2020-2021 budget year
• Restructuring the teacher salary schedule to maintain competitive wages and allow PSD to recruit and retain high-quality teachers 
• Maintaining competitive wages for support staff, including classified employees such as bus drivers, paraprofessionals, child nutrition staff and custodians
• Supporting students’ mental health, by hiring mental health professionals, such as counselors
• Enhancing school safety and security
• This money will NOT be used to fund salary increases for district administrators, such as the superintendent, central administrative staff, school principals, assistant principals, and all other positions on PSD’s Administrator and Professional Salary Schedule. 
• This money will NOT be used to pay for capital improvements (see definition in FAQ below) 

PSD and the Poudre Education Association targeted a starting teacher salary that is approximate to the current starting teacher salary in Longmont’s St. Vrain Valley School District ($43,500). 

You may compare PSD’s starting teacher salaries to that of its neighboring school districts in the second question posted on this Frequently Asked Questions guide web page.In 2019-2020, PSD’s starting teachers began the school year earning less than their counterparts in neighboring school districts, including those in Greeley and Loveland. 

Review the district’s annual budgets and learn more on the PSD’s Finance and Budget web page.

PSD is known as a “floor-funded” district. That means that it receives the lowest amount of state funding allowed by Colorado law. All districts start on equal footing, receiving base state funding. The state provides additional state funding based on factors like the number of students eligible for free meals (at-risk student population), enrollment size, and location. These factors are dictated by the state K-12 funding formula.

A larger amount of money is typically given to extremely small districts to account for economies of scale. With more than 30,000 students, PSD is the ninth-largest district in the state. PSD does have at-risk students but not a higher than average percentage of those who qualify for free meals across the state. Third, the state funds cost-of-living increases to intentionally increase salaries in districts where the cost of living is considered higher than others. The cost of living in Northern Colorado has outpaced increases provided in the state K-12 funding formula.

All those factors together make PSD a floor-funded district, one of about a dozen in the state.

PSD’s state per-pupil revenue for the 2019-20 budget year is $8,050. Greeley’s Weld District 6 gets $8,326; St. Vrain Valley School District receives $8,273; Weld RE-4 in Windsor gets $8,053; and Thompson School District, which joins PSD at the floor, gets $8,052 per pupil. 

In the past 30 years, voters have supplemented the district’s state funding by supporting PSD with mill levy overrides and bond initiatives in 1988, 1996, 2000, 2010 and, most recently in 2016. PSD is grateful for this support, which has provided the resources needed to build new schools, increase staffing, and offer programming that provides students in Northern Colorado with the best education possible. Over the decades, PSD voters have approved $43 million annually in mill levy overrides, a mechanism that PSD voters authorized to give PSD additional money beyond the funding provided by Colorado’s Public School Finance Act of 1994. You can learn more about where these dollars were and are being spent on PSD’s Mill and Bond Initiatives web page.

Thompson School District voters recently passed a mill levy override to pay for salary increases.

A mill levy override is a way for community members to give their local school district additional money on top of state-provided funding in the form of a property tax increase. Mill levies are typically used for ongoing expenses, such as technology purchases or teacher salaries. 

Registered voters who live within PSD’s geographic boundaries are eligible to vote on this measure.