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 (both figures were presented by county staff during the meeting). Using those baselines, staff reported a total Pitkin contribution to Roaring Fork that was presented in the staff packet; the packet figure for Marble Charter School (Pitkin students attending Marble) was shown in the meeting materials as $3,663.

Roaring Fork School District Superintendent Anna Cole told the commissioners the district faces a growing gap in funding for school-based mental-health providers and warned that without outside contributions she expected at least one basalt-area provider to be cut. "Without additional support, we will lose a provider in basalt," Cole said. She described a recent reduction in Eagle County funding for basalt school-based mental-health positions from previously higher amounts to a recent award letter that provided $84,000, which she said would not cover prior staffing levels and could force a cut.

Cole described the school-based mental-health model used in Roaring Fork and Basalt schools: positions are typically funded in partnership with providers such as the Aspen Hope Center and cost roughly $100,000 per full-time school-based mental-health provider (the figure was presented by district and county speakers as a planning assumption for staffing costs). Cole said local partner contributions and grants have been essential to preserve services and that reductions in partner funding this coming cycle could translate to staff cuts and reduced services for students.

After discussion, the Board of County Commissioners signaled support for proceeding with a one-year allocation to create parity and asked staff to refine the proposal; commissioners gave an informal "thumbs up" during the work session and staff said a formal resolution to approve supplemental appropriations would be brought forward at the next meeting.

Other fourth-quarter supplemental items presented by county staff included:

- Community Health Services (CHS) immunization contract: staff said CHS has spent the current contract allocation and requested roughly $42,000 to cover Q4 immunization costs not reimbursed by insurance or grants. CHS and county environmental-health staff said the funds cover vaccine purchases and unreimbursed administration and outreach costs during the heavy fall/winter immunization season.

- Healthy Rivers (outside counsel/professional services): staff asked for an allocation to cover unanticipated outside legal and engineering expenses after a loss of two in-house attorneys earlier in the year; request figure was presented as roughly $150,000 for the remainder of the year.

- Facilities repairs and equipment: requests included completed HVAC valve replacements (parts warrantied; labor charges expected), lined library drain piping with follow-up floor restoration planned for spring, and other facilities work.

- Landfill asphalt reuse and wastewater systems: staff described a plan to crush and reuse asphalt millings on an internal access road to control dust and to apply design work to meet CDPHE guidelines for leachate treatment; additional consultant design work by Weaver Consultants was also listed.

- Risk and property-casualty: staff reported that premium renewals and an increase in actuarial claims required additional appropriation (staff asked for additional funds to cover increased insurance premiums and claims beyond the 2024 budgeted amounts).

- Transit sales-tax passthrough: the county collects and distributes a 1% transit sales tax to Aspen and Snowmass Village and staff said revenue exceeded earlier estimates; staff proposed a Q4 appropriation to cover passthrough payments so the county does not exceed fund appropriations.

Human services and various departments also presented technical corrections and no-net-change supplemental items (for example, SNAP reimbursement timing and a corrected CMP revenue/expenditure omission).

County staff said the package would be memorialized in a formal resolution and brought to the board for a vote at the next regular meeting. Commissioners and staff indicated informal support for advancing the supplements and for the one-year school-funding parity allocation while requesting staff return with final numbers and a formal appropriation ordinance or resolution.

Presenters on the budget items included Levi Borst (management analyst), Anna Cole (Roaring Fork School District superintendent), Kurt Dahl (Environmental Health Manager), Logan Hood (executive director, Community Health Services), Stewart Fox (Human Services financial analyst), and other department leads.