PSD budget outlook shifts as new school finance act and debt-free mill levy reshape 2025–26 planning

Poudre School District officials on April 8 told the Board of Education that shifting state school finance proposals, declining enrollment and the district's new debt-free mill levy will all shape a preliminary 2025–26 budget that the district will present to the board later this month.

Budget Director Brian Gustafson and Chief Financial Officer Dave Montoya told the board the district is preparing a “preliminary budget” to show the gap between likely revenues and current expenditures. Gustafson said the district’s internal projection anticipates about 514 fewer full‑time‑equivalent students on next year’s October count and a funded‑pupil reduction of roughly 291.9 pupils under the current averaging method used in Colorado school finance calculations.

Those pupil changes come as the state’s proposed school finance updates would raise the per‑pupil rate by roughly $406.26 in the governor/JBC proposals the district has been tracking. Gustafson presented a working figure of $11,184.05 per funded pupil and a district funded‑pupil count the team used for initial planning of 28,613.9. Using those assumptions, total program funding would rise by roughly $9 million compared with the current year; after removing charter passthroughs, the district’s net program increase in district modeling is about $7.3 million, Gustafson said.

“We’re in our preliminary budget development phase,” Gustafson told the…