Colorado legislators face tough choices for education in tight state budget year

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat.

DENVER | Colorado lawmakers will need to focus heavily on how to further education priorities in another difficult budget year, five members of the state House and Senate education committees said during Chalkbeat Colorado’s annual Legislative Preview event Thursday.

State Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat who is vice chair of the Senate Education Committee, said lawmakers won’t be able to put much money toward new policies during the 2026 legislative session, which starts on Wednesday.

“We have a budget shortfall again,” Marchman said. “A big push this year is going to be keeping our education funding for K-12 as solid as it can be.”

Gov. Jared Polis has proposed a 5.2% increase in the state’s 2026-27 budget, including a $276 million increase for education that would bring total statewide K-12 spending to about $10.3 billion. Although the proposed $47.9 billion budget is higher than last year, rising state costs, especially to maintain Medicaid spending, have outpaced state revenue.

Lawmakers will need to cut about $800 million to balance the budget. At the same time, lawmakers are working through uncertainty about federal funding after the Trump administration froze money for safety nets and other programs.

Colorado also faced a deficit last year that forced lawmakers to cut more than $1 billion in spending. The state’s education budget increased, but lawmakers reworked the state funding formula to help balance the budget.

Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat who serves on the House Education Committee, said preserving K-12 education funding is near the top of his list this year.

He said maintaining the education budget “is paramount, especially in this tight budget year. We want to be able to make sure that we are delivering for our students, our faculty, and our school districts.”

Along with Marchman and Martinez, three other state lawmakers joined Chalkbeat Colorado for the event. They were:

• Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican

• Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat

• Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican

The event was moderated by Chalkbeat reporter Jason Gonzales and Efren Garcia, a first-generation doctoral student at the Colorado School of Public Health who is studying environmental-occupational health. He is active with Young Invincibles, an organization that amplifies the voices of young adults, and works as a policy analyst at the Bell Policy Center.

Here are several excerpts from the discussion, which have been edited for length and clarity.

A Board of Cooperative Education Services, or BOCES, authorized what its leaders have called Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” surprising state education officials and members of the public. Are you concerned about this development, and if so, what do you think should be done about it?

Bright: It’s interesting when folks … are trying to test that line and see where Colorado really sits with regard to its separation of church and state. I’m anxious to see how it goes. Quite honestly, I am not partial one way or the other, but I’m anxious to see what happens and what Colorado thinks.

Lukens: I was a social studies teacher. I have taught AP Government. I know that our country was founded on the separation of church and state, and public schools are funded by taxpayers. And when we are a government entity, it is important that we have separation of church and state … So I will certainly be tracking this situation.

Polis has said Colorado will opt into a new federal tax credit scholarship program, which would provide tax credits for donations supporting private school students. Do you support this decision, and do you believe the legislature should have a role in approving or shaping how this program is implemented in Colorado?

Marchman: I’ve understood that the governor is saying, “Hey, if there’s money on the table for Colorado, let’s bring it.” But we have seen time and again, when states try to implement vouchers, they are not successful. They end up not helping any of our students or any of our staff. I don’t support it. One thing I’ve been doing is talking to the gubernatorial candidates to see where they stand on this, because ultimately it will be their decision.

Garcia Sander: I am a supporter of school choice. We have declining birth rates. We are more at risk of regular public schools closing. Parents are also more savvy consumers, and they’re shopping, and they want the best education for their kids. I think a lot of people would love to see more options on where they can direct their tax dollars. There’s lots of different tax credits that we offer, and this is just another way to offer parents choice.

Federal student protections are shifting and the Office for Civil Rights is facing a significant backlog of discrimination complaints. Should lawmakers create more options for families to report issues of discrimination they’re facing in K-12 and higher education settings?

Martinez: There are legislators that are actively working to codify protections into state law, so that families and students have a clear state-level avenue for relief in the absence of reliable federal pathways. Colorado already has a strong foundation. It’s our responsibility as the state, as state lawmakers, to pick up where the federal government has left off. We expect to introduce a bill this year that does exactly that and protects Coloradans.

The Colorado Child Care Assistance Program, or CCCAP, is a subsidy that helps low-income Colorado parents pay for child care. In many Colorado counties, there are waitlists or freezes in place, and thousands of families are waiting to receive these subsidies. At the same time, the Trump administration has put a freeze on federal funding that supports this program. How will you address this?

Bright: I own rural childcare centers, and our CCCAP families rely on our services for a safe place for them to place their kids while they’re going to work.

I convened a meeting earlier this week with legislators, the Department of Early Childhood, the governor’s office, and many counties to try to solve this very thing. We came up with 12 different options. Some of them are more or less likely to happen, but we’re definitely going to walk down that path and try to get some of these freezes unthawed.

I can tell you that I have looked at this firsthand, and I believe the State of Colorado, the Department of Early Childhood, has done an over the top great job of making sure that there isn’t fraud in our system. I can tell you, from the provider perspective, we have to go through so many checks to make sure that our folks are legitimate, that they’re real, and that they have all the documentation that they need.

So it’s just a matter of laying that out and showing that we are completely compliant.

Colorado has seen more school violence, including a school shooting at Evergreen High School, where the SRO was called off campus before the shooting. What would further legislative action or solutions look like, if any?

Garcia Sander: We’ve got a lot of rural schools that are sitting ducks, and we need to make sure that the staff there have the tools that they need and the training that they need to keep their students safe. Not everybody’s in a metro area where there might be a law enforcement officer down the city street. I think we need to look at lots of different answers that work best for communities.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.