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Over the past three years education has been among the state budget areas suffering additional major cuts as lawmakers struggled to balance a budget bled dry by reductions in revenues from all sources, and hamstrung by the constraints of Colorado’s TABOR amendment.

All of Colorado’s school districts are feeling the pain, few more so than Denver Public Schools (DPS).

The state’s per-pupil funding for DPS declined more than $800 – from $7,672 in 2009-10 to $6,872 for the current school year – a cut of more than 10 percent in per pupil funding, amounting to a loss of more than $70 million a year.

To address this crisis, the 2012 DPS Community Planning Advisory Committee (CPAC), a broad-based group of 74 parents, community members, and business and civic leaders came together earlier this year to evaluate DPS’ needs. The group made its recommendation to the Denver Board of Education last month.

Bouyed by recent negotiations that led to a tentative agreement on a new three- year contract with the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the CPAC is calling for a two-pronged initiative on November’s ballot that would include a mill levy override initiative to increase the property tax contribution to DPS $49 million a year, and a bond proposal in the amount of $457 million.

The bond issue would be used to fund critical school renovation, maintenance and repairs, as well as funding new schools to accommodate DPS’s growing enrollment. Over the past four years the district has seen an enrollment jump of more than 8,400 students, with projected growth of another 5,000 to 6,000 students by 2016.

The bond package as now structured devotes $222 million to facilities and maintenance; $195 million to new construction; and $40 million to technological improvements.

DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg said that the capital improvements are critical to address deferred maintenance on nearly 14 million square feet of district facilities, including necessary upgrades to school roofs, and all major systems – heating and cooling, water, accessibility needs and fire detection.

The annual increase in the mill levy would allow for “an ongoing investment in expanding educational programs,” said Boasberg, as well as “funding academic support and student enrichment opportunities by providing: expanded arts, music and physical education opportunities; tutoring support for students who are behind; and expanded opportunities for full-day kindergarten and early childhood education.” The $49 million package would add $4 million annually for technology, $4 million for curriculum, $13 million for Early Childhood Education, $11 million for enrichment activities; $15.5 million for instructional support; and $1.5 million for counseling and related services.

The Denver Board of Education will consider and vote on the proposal in August. If the board approves placing the items on the November ballot and both are approved by voters, the DPS portion of the property-tax bill of a typical Denver residence valued at $225,000 would increase by $143 per year, or about $12 per month.

Anne Rowe is the board representative for southeast Denver. Rowe notes that, “I think the proposed package is a good thing. I want to dig more into the details, but the extraordinary need in the district is maintenance. It’s not always the sexy exciting things that make the difference. We need to start by making our buildings more efficient and exciting facilities for education.

“The committee identified nearly $650 million in need, but the package they’ve put together devotes about $222 million to maintenance. Difficult decisions had to be made to identify true structural needs. When over half our buildings are over 50 years old there’s a lot of maintenance required to keep them functional.”

Rowe feels, “It is critical to bring the arts back into Denver classrooms – we’re supposed to be educating the entire child,” but also supports extra expenditures for technological improvements in the classroom: “We need to look forward, to be sure we can do the kinds of programming we need to do to prepare kids for the world they’re going into.”

Addressing capacity issues, Rowe said, “There are proposals for expansion or new construction across the district. In southeast Denver we have an explosion in elementary needs. We’re looking at building a new ECE-5 facility in the Hampden Heights area by Kennedy Golf Course.”

DPS Board of Education member Jeannie Kaplan represents Denver’s central Denver neighborhoods. Kaplan wishes the board had been formally involved in the discussions earlier in the process. “I look forward to supporting the package,” said Kaplan, “but I do have some concerns that need to be addressed.”

Kaplan would like to see a shift with more dollars devoted to maintenance and less to new construction. “They started with identified needs of $637 million in maintenance and settled at $222 million. That’s about 35 percent. They identified need for $310 million in new build and settled at $195.6 million – about 63 percent. I’m not convinced the need for that much new construction outweighs obvious maintenance issues that will get worse if not addressed right away. We’re going to need a high school for Stapleton, but I’m not sure it’s with this bond issue.”

More specificity on how the mill levy proceeds will be spent would ease Kaplan’s mind significantly. “So much is not yet well identified,” she stated, pointing at areas like “enrichment” and “instructional support,” and wonders, “That’s almost $27 million per year. Exactly how will that be spent?

“Like I said, I believe in the district and believe we need this money. I also believe it needs to be spent wisely, because it’s coming from everyone’s pocket.”

For more information on the proposal, call 720-423-3200 or visit http://bond.dpsk12.org/.