BUDGET

per-pupil increase.

e budget calls for a 5.7% increase in base education spending to $8.9 billion and an 8.4% increase in average per-pupil spending to $10,404, Chalkbeat Colorado reports.

ere’s no money in the budget, however, for buying down the budget stabilization factor — sometimes referred to as the negative factor — which is a Great-Recession-era scheme that allows the General Assembly to allocate to schools each year less than what they are owed.

e IOU persists today.

at’s because there’s enough money in the State Education Fund to buy down the de cit. And that will happen in the School Finance Act that will be debated later on in the legislative session.

( e State Education Fund, which is expected to be a rainy day pool of money to help the legislature fund K-12 education, is lled with income tax revenue. e fund gets 0.33% of e reason we stop the analysis at 1980 is because that’s how far back CDPHE has data on rearmspeci c causes of death. e state does have data on suicides going back to 1940 and homicides back to 1970. But, because those numbers do not record whether a gun was involved in the deaths, they are not comparable to post-1980 numbers.

Gun deaths are increasing across most age groups in the state. e only age group where a trend is di cult to discern is for children from birth through age is story is from e Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support e Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com. e Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media. taxable income, meaning that it rises and falls with the economy and as Coloradans’ pay increases or decreases. ere’s expected to be more than $1 billion in the fund next scal year.)

9. Deaths in that age range can be few enough in a given year that CDPHE won’t release the actual numbers — it is common in health statistics for small numbers to be withheld for privacy reasons.

“For the rst time in a very long time we don’t need to use general fund money to e ectuate that buy down in the budget stabilization factor,” Zenzinger said. “ at will come from the State Education Fund this year. at fund has grown and grown and grown and we’ve tried not to tap it. But now we’re in a situation where we need to spend it down.” e budget stabilization factor is roughly $321 million. Zenzinger says the plan is for the JBC to buy it down by either half or fully in the school nance act.

Zenzinger said there are also two things happening that are reducing how much it costs for the state to run K-12 schools: an increase in property values driving up local property tax revenue and a decrease in student enrollment.

“ e circumstances are di erent (this year), the context is di erent,” she said.