Cheyenne Mountain School District 12 1775 LaClede Street Colorado Springs, Colorado 80905 Voice: 719-475-6100 Fax: 719-475-6106
Walt Cooper, Superintendent Bev Tarpley, Assistant Superintendent for Student Achievement Hal Anderson, Director of Information Systems Kevin Cassidy, Director of Instructional Technologies Natalie Morin, Director of Business Services Carolena Guiral Steen, Director of Special Education Ernie Wangelin, Director of Facilities
Driving Directions to the Central Administration Building
Exit from I-25 onto S. Tejon Street (Exit 140). Drive south on Tejon Street (in the right lane) for about .5 miles and take a slight right at the stoplight onto W. Cheyenne Blvd. Drive west on W. Cheyenne Blvd approximately .5 miles and turn right onto LaClede Street. Drive north approximately 100 yards, and the District 12 offices will be on your right at 1775 LaClede Street.
Map of School District 12
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A Message from our Superintendent... Walt Cooper, Ed.D.
February, 2010
The beginning of a new calendar year also signals the start of two critical events for school districts: the start of the 2010 Colorado Legislative Session and the beginning of our budget development process for the 2010-2011 school year. While on the surface it may appear that these two events have no real connection, from a school district’s perspective, they can’t be separated.
Every year, funding for all Colorado school districts is determined by the Colorado Legislature as they introduce, debate, and ultimately vote on the School Finance Act (SFA). Since 2000 (the year that Colorado voters approved Amendment 23), the legislature’s work to determine the level of funding for schools has been fairly easy. The legislature was required to increase the base funding of schools by the rate of inflation plus one percent, which at least made the starting point pretty clear. The recent economic downturn has now changed that dynamic significantly. While K-12 education has probably been the last component of state government to feel the effects of the recession, it would be foolish to assume that school districts are immune from the
sobering financial realities everyone is facing. Although Amendment 23 is still in effect, the reality of the situation is that the State of Colorado has not been able to generate, and won’t be able to generate, the revenue necessary to meet its obligation of adequately funding public schools. As a result, the Cheyenne Mountain School District saw a significant reduction in its funding for 2009-2010, and we now bracing for exponentially larger reductions in funding for 2010-2011 and 2011-2012.
For the current school year, District 12 saw the state rescind (i.e., “take back”) more than $500,000 from the school district’s funding in January, then we recently learned that the state will rescind another $107,000 in June because the state does not have the dollars to meet these obligations. The combination of these two rescissions amounts to a reduction of more than 3% of the state’s share of the District’s funding. And while the loss of funding for the current school year may seem significant to many of us, the stark reality is that this reduction pales in comparison to what is on the horizon for 2010-2011.
In Governor Ritter’s budget proposal for next year, the starting point for the legislature’s work, there is a proposed reduction of more than $260 million in funding for K-12 education in Colorado. At the present time, District 12’s share of this proposal results in more than $1.4 million that must be eliminated from our next year’s budget, but because of variables like declining revenue projections at the state level, unknown inflationary impacts, and next year’s unknown pupil enrollment, we anticipate this number will grow even larger and require us to cut even deeper.
So, how will your school district respond to these economic challenges? First, while the fiscal future looks quite bleak, we are still in a much better position than many others because of several fiscally responsible actions taken by the Board of Education to date. These actions have included closing an elementary school, no increases to employee salary schedules, and renegotiating our charter school contract; but, we still have a long way to go. So to that end, we are taking a very broad-based approach to identifying reductions to our budget.
Our approach includes relying tremendously on community feedback that has been gathered through a number of activities associated with the development of the District 12 Long-Range Plan. This feedback, which includes a community budget survey, a series of community forums, and alumni surveys to name a few, is all available for review on the District 12 Long-Range Plan page of our website. Additionally, we are reaching out to teachers and other employees and to both school-based and district-level accountability groups to gather feedback and suggestions regarding
proposed budget reductions. While this is a very dynamic and rapidly evolving process, a list of the most recently identified reductions can be viewed by clicking here, and we welcome public comments and suggestions regarding these proposals.
It has been said many times over that extraordinary times require extraordinary measures, and presently we are faced with that reality. However, even in the midst of these most challenging times, I am confident that our teachers, our parents, our students, and our community will work together to ensure that we maintain our standards, continue our focus on improving student achievement, hold true to our values, and most importantly continue to be most concerned with what is truly extraordinary…our students.
Respectfully,
Walter C. Cooper, Ed.D. Superintendent of Schools
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