What did the General Assembly do for education?

    Lawmakers reacted to the good news that the state had a billion-dollar surplus for 2018-19 by applying those dollars to a variety of priorities, including education.
    The surplus, revealed by state economists in December and again in March, allowed lawmakers to put $150 million into K-12 public education, over and above the funding from the School Finance Act, to whittle away at the state’s long-existing debt, the result of budget cuts that started in 2010.
    The 2010 cuts that topped more than $1 billion were the result of the state’s budget shortfall, including an inability to cover K-12 funding required by Amendment 23, an initiative passed by voters in 2000. The Great Recession resulted in budget cuts in many areas, but K-12 took among the biggest hits.
    It’s taken eight years for that billion-dollar debt to drop even a little. Both Gov. John Hickenlooper and the General Assembly agreed early on to take $150 million from that surplus to pay down the debt, which after that payment leaves a balance owed of about $672 million.
    Rural schools got a second funding boost of $30 million out of that surplus, too. That’s the second year that one-time only money has been devoted to helping the 147 school districts with less than 6,000 students.
    Both of those boosts were incorporated into the School Finance Act and the 2018-19 state budget.

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