12FC4790835BB9AD87258C1C00682A18 Hearing Summary

PUBLIC
BILL SUMMARY For PRESENTATION ON ADEQUATE STUDIES PURSUANT TO SENATE BILL 23-287

JOINT COMMITTEE COMMITTEE ON JOINT EDUCATION
Date Jan 24, 2025
Location Old Supreme Court

Presentation on Adequate Studies Pursuant to Senate Bill 23-287 - Committee Discussion Only

Attachment Tag

File Name

Attachment A

Attachment B

Attachment C

Attachment D

Attachment E

11:51:31 AM

Senator Kolker called
the meeting to order. He invited Jennifer Okes, District Operations Special
Advisor, to begin her presentation, which can be found as Attachment A.
She provided background information on Senate Bill 23-287 and its associated
task force and reporting requirements. She reviewed the School Finance
Task Force parameters in further detail, including both outcome-focused
and input-focused approaches that were used by the two vendors hired to
investigate and provide findings and recommendations on the school funding
needs of Colorado. Ms. Okes responded to questions from the committee.

11:57:52 AM

Senator Kolker invited
the next presenters to begin their presentations, which can be found as
Attachments B and C. Drew Atchison, Principal Researcher, American Institutes
for Research (AIR), spoke about the process, findings, and recommendations
from the outcomes-based study conducted by AIR (Attachment D). He discussed
the key goals of state funding formulas for public education in terms of
adequacy, equitability, and wealth neutrality, as well as the key questions
the study aimed to answer. He provided an overview of main data collection
and analysis activities, including types of adequacy analyses such as cost
function. He answered questions from committee.

12:06:05 PM

Mr. Atchison continued
to discuss the study's key findings, which include:

1. Colorado current
level of funding is inadequate to meet the state's educational goals (gap
of $4.1 billion per year in state and local funding) and explained the
process AIR used to reach this finding.

2. Colorado's
current school funding system is not sufficiently equitable in providing
all students an equal opportunity to achieve outcome goals.

3. Teachers are
important in driving student outcomes, but Colorado's teachers are poorly
compensated and inequitably distributed.

4. Colorado's
current funding system allows property tax rates to vary drastically across
districts and enables higher spending levels in high-wealth districts.

12:21:55 PM

He discussed AIA's
recommendations (fill in rest from his slides):

1. Increase education
funding so that funding levels are commensurate with the state's educational
goals.

2. Increase the
strength of funding weights for economically disadvantaged students, ELLs,
and SWDs, so that more resources are distributed based on student need.

3. Invest more
in teachers.

4. Address tax
inequity in the local tax rates that go toward the local share calculations
so that the local share required for each district is based on a more uniform
property tax rate.

5. Adjust for
geographic differences in staffing costs using a comparative wage index
to reflect a regionâs cost of living and available amenities.

He answered questions
from the committee and spoke about a cost of living versus comparable wage
approach.

12:37:31 PM

Mr. Atchison compared
the formula included in AIR's recommendations to the new funding formula
under House Bill 24-1448. He reviewed the conclusions of the study, which
are that the new structure of the HB 24-1448 formula is well designed and
that the recommendations focus on the inputs.

12:47:32 PM

Justin Silverstein,
Co-Chief Executive Officer, Augenblick, Palaich, and Associates (APA) begin
his presentation, which can be found as Attachment C. APA's final
report can be found as Attachment E. He provided an overview of APA's study
process and partners and explained that they reviewed the new formula under
HB 24-1448 and provided what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of
that formula. He spoke about the impacts of wealth and income on educational
inputs in districts with mill levy overrides versus those without. He reviewed
a survey they sent out and talked about the two input based approaches,
which are a professional judgement approach and an evidence-based approach.
He discussed special education and cost of living adjustments.

01:08:09 PM

Mr. Silverstein explained
how APA created their final recommendations and answered questions from
the committee.

Presentation on Adequate Studies Pursuant to Senate Bill 23-287 - Committee Discussion Only

Colorado General Assembly