Pitkin County staff outline fourth-quarter supplemental budget requests; one-year funding proposed to help parity for Roaring Fork schools' mental-health and S'

Pitkin County staff used a joint work session to review fourth-quarter supplemental budget requests across multiple county funds and to propose a one-year step toward funding parity for Pitkin County students who attend schools outside the Aspen School District.

Levi Borst, management analyst for Pitkin County, presented a package of supplemental requests and singled out a proposal aimed at providing the Roaring Fork School District and Marble Charter School with funding comparable to Pitkin County's existing support for Aspen-area schools.

Borst explained the county previously contributed to school-based safety and mental-health supports in the Aspen School District, and staff proposed a one-year allocation to Roaring Fork and to Marble to create parity for Pitkin County students who attend those districts. "If we fund at the same level in Roaring Fork as we do in the Aspen Schools," Borst said, "based on the number of Pitkin County students attending Roaring Fork, the resulting contribution would be as shown in our packet." Borst reported county records show 355 Pitkin County residents attend Roaring Fork schools (about 6.1% of that district's enrollment).

Borst used the county's current Aspen contributions as a baseline for the equity calculation. Staff presented two per-student baselines derived from existing Aspen commitments: $12,658 per Pitkin student for school-resource-officer (SRO) support and $15,520 per student for the county's contribution toward school-based mental-health services…