Roaring Fork School District (RFSD) staff have resolved some of their most pressing financial issues, which stemmed from mistakes they made when drafting the 2024-2025 budget last spring and unforeseen insurance expenses.
RFSD underestimated the costs and financial risk of its newly-formed self-insurance plan, leading to an estimated $5.7 million deficit.
According to Dr. Anna Cole, they also overestimated student enrollment, omitted some recurring expenses, and overstated mill levy revenue and interest income.
“Our finance team was not reconciling just general 2023-2024 books regularly,” Dr. Anna Cole said at a school board meeting on Dec. 12.
The district’s Board of Education passed a supplemental budget in January to account for these miscalculations, switched to a different insurance plan, and board members are now receiving regular financial updates.
“The board tonight is getting second quarter financial statements,” Dr. Cole continued. “It's robust. It's thorough. … But this is the kind of optics on our finances that we did not have as a Board of Education, as a leadership team in the 2023-2024 school year. That's a massive error.”
In addition to these regular financial reviews, school district staff have cut discretionary budgets in multiple departments, and they’re counting on natural staff attrition to counteract overestimated student enrollment.
Before addressing ongoing concerns, Dr. Cole took accountability for last year’s budget oversights.
“Ultimately, it's my responsibility to bring to the board an appropriate budget, and we did not,” Dr. Cole said. “And so I just want to make sure that the board hears this, that the community hears this, that this is what you expect from your superintendent. And I fell short here. And I'm so sorry that we've been in this place.”
Looking ahead
While the immediate crisis has passed, RFSD still expects to see less revenue next school year because of declining enrollment. Changes in state law and unpredictable federal funding also make it difficult to forecast next year’s operating funds.
With President Donald Trump’s cuts to federal spending, specifically targeting the Department of Education, Dr. Cole said they’re unsure how federal funding contributions might change.
“There's been a lot of confusion around recent executive orders at the federal level,” Dr. Cole said. “We're very uncertain about how decisions made at the federal level are going to impact the education funding we get from the federal government. It's not the majority of our funding, but it's a really significant component.”
She added that most of that money goes to special populations, including students with disabilities and English-language learners.
Dr. Cole told the Board of Education that job security is a top priority for staff amid news of these financial challenges, and her team is trying to avoid mass layoffs.
Based on current, big-picture projections, Dr. Cole is optimistic they can maintain existing staff ratios.
“What you did not see in that plan was any systemwide cuts to staffing,” Dr. Cole said. “You did not see us recommending a reduction in force, downsizing departments, staffing levels, and this was really important to us.”
However, she did not rule out a potential for bigger staff cuts as they get closer to finalizing next year’s budget.
“We'll see what happens in the next four months, but where we are now is that we feel comfortable pausing and saying we don't need to move to that level of cuts for 2025-2026.”
While they don’t predict large staffing changes at this time, RFSD adjusts funding allocations for each of its schools every year based on enrollment, so smaller cuts are expected at some schools.
