{"id":807935,"date":"2020-05-29T18:35:37","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T00:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=384143"},"modified":"2020-05-29T18:35:37","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T00:35:37","slug":"summit-school-board-discusses-funding-shortfalls-for-2020-21-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/summit-school-board-discusses-funding-shortfalls-for-2020-21-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit school board discusses funding shortfalls for 2020-21 and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/05\/MentalHealth-SDN-051020-1024x683.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/05\/MentalHealth-SDN-051020-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/05\/MentalHealth-SDN-051020-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/05\/MentalHealth-SDN-051020-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/05\/MentalHealth-SDN-051020-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/05\/MentalHealth-SDN-051020-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/p><figcaption><strong>A sign outside of Summit High School in Breckenridge is there to remind students they are loved, as pictured May 8.<\/strong><br \/><em>Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>DILLON \u2014 Gov. Jared Polis allocated $2 million from the federal CARES Act to Summit School District, but uncertainties linger about whether the district will be able to use the coronavirus relief money to help with its general fund.<\/p>\n<p>At Thursday\u2019s virtual board of education meeting, district Chief Financial Officer Kara Drake presented the latest proposed district budget for the 2020-21 school year. Drake qualified that her proposed budget would change significantly if the $510 million Polis allocated to public schools across the state can be spent by schools at their discretion \u2014 namely to ease the projected financial burden for next year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic\u2019s economic effect.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the hope among legislators is that those funds can be used to backfill that loss in school funding,\u201d Drake said to the school board. \u201cBut at this time, that is not really what\u2019s approved from the federal level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Drake said state legislators are applying for federal waivers so the CARES Act funding can make up for all but 11%, or $66 million, of the $576 million the state is forecasting as its net reduction in funding to statewide programming for next school year.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row sd-donation sd-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>If Summit can use its portion of the $510 million at the district\u2019s discretion, that would ease the district\u2019s need to tap into its reserves by nearly half to make up for the decrease in funding Drake forecasts. As of Thursday, that decrease, without an allotment from those CARES Act funds, would be 7.5%.<\/p>\n<p>Without the CARES Act money, Drake showed the board members the district would make up for that decrease in funding by spending down its reserves in 2020-21 by $4.3 million, leaving $6.9 in reserves \u2014 a reduction of 38%. Drake said if the state permits Summit to use the money on the general fund, that would help in the amount of $2 million<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen the spend down of reserves would only be $2.3 million,\u201d Drake said. \u201cSo that\u2019s the really big unknown right now. And I\u2019ve been watching and reading all of the latest information that the (Colorado Department of Education) has been putting out on a regular basis, and they don\u2019t have clear guidance on those additional funds yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was some conversation among board members about the hit to reserves, but board Treasurer Chris Alleman said although that may cause anxiety, \u201cin actuality that is what reserves are for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Drake\u2019s forecast also included a $320,000 hit, down to $80,000, in interest revenue from a district bond fund. Board Secretary Gini Bradley asked whether the board could look into refinancing the bond fund and borrow back, similar to a mortgage, to help with the general fund hit. Drake said they couldn\u2019t, as money from that kind of refinance could be used only for projects like a capital project.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026 There are not a lot of quick solutions for this budget,\u201d Alleman said. \u201cI think we all agree it will be next year\u2019s budget when we have time to meet with different stakeholder groups. Next year, will be really tough conversations we will have to have, especially if state budget continues to fall the way it is. I agree it\u2019s not the best-case scenario. \u2026 Next year, know there\u2019s going to be a lot of real heavy, hard conversations we are going to have to have with our district and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other budget details that were discussed include the outstanding variable of a state school finance act being discussed in the Colorado Legislature that could help with the district\u2019s reduction to its program funding. Drake also said the district asked schools and departments to tighten their belts, which they all did by about 10%, with the majority of those reductions coming in conferences and travel.<\/p>\n<p>Drake said the Summit district will get $170,000 from the CARES Act through the state Department of Education\u2019s Title 1 allocation but that it has \u201cvery strict guidelines\u201d on how it can be used.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe uses are basically all response-related to COVID,\u201d Drake said. \u201cSo cleaning supplies, professional development for teachers, technology for remote learning, tutoring and extra support for kids to catch them up. Those are all approved uses with these funds. But the funds, they are very clear, cannot be used to backfill lost revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/summit-school-board-discusses-funding-shortfalls-for-2020-21-and-beyond\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A sign outside of Summit High School in Breckenridge is there to remind students they are loved, as pictured May 8.Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com DILLON \u2014 Gov. Jared Polis allocated $2 million from the federal CARES Act to Summit School District, but uncertainties linger about whether the district will be able to use the coronavirus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-807935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-09 21:36:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}