Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic legislators are debating whether it’s possible to get blood from a turnip. In this case, the blood is money, and the turnip is K-12 education. The governor is looking to scoop about $150 million from schools to bail out the state’s general fund. Democrats on the House and Senate Education Committees want the governor to get blood out of some other turnip.

The state’s general fund that’s used to supply dollars to public schools, Medicaid, corrections and human services is down around $650 million, to $1 billion. The amount is a moving target.

The state actually collects enough dollars to cover this deficit, but because the TABOR amendment limits how much state general fund revenues can go up, the budget has gone down. That is, TABOR limits state budget growth to inflation plus population growth. During the last few years with both inflation and growth up, the budget grew accordingly. Now that inflation and growth are down while tax collections are up, TABOR declares money must be returned to taxpayers no matter the need.

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K-12 funding is a weird combination of state, local and federal money. State dollars mostly come from income taxes and local money mostly comes from property taxes. Most capital investments in schools come from local dollars.

Many Coloradans have felt the pinch of higher residential property taxes at the same time as commercial property tax rates have gone down. The effects of these ups and downs are different depending on property values in various parts of the state.

At the same time, the state has 17,000 fewer students in K-12 due to declining birth rates and increased mobility. But like property taxes, some school districts have experienced growth while others have lost students.

The state funds schools on a per-student basis, so in general, dollars follow children. The student money chase is based on what’s known as the October Count. It’s a day in October when every school district counts the number of children in their schools and sends that count to the Colorado Department of Education. The count becomes the basis for school funding. Some schools that have more children than expected get more money. Schools with fewer students than expected have to return money to the state.

Some districts, especially small districts and rural districts, can experience radical ups and downs in enrollment and categories of children in their schools. These changes affect district funding year to year in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

To mitigate the effect of severe downs in school district populations and budgets with their large, fixed costs, the state does what it calls “averaging.” The student count for funding purposes can be based either on the average of four years of student counts or on the count of the actual year, whichever is more.

So if a district of 65 schools such as Cherry Creek loses 1,000 students in a year, theoretically it could lose roughly $12 million (1,000 X $12,000) in its overall budget. But if in the previous four years the student population was significantly higher on average, then the budget reduction would be less, making it smoother for the district to adjust hiring and classroom sizes over time.

The governor and Paul Lundeen, Senate minority leader, want to take this averaging buffer away. That’s how the governor can spin $150 million out of school finance for general fund balancing purposes. He says it’s more efficient for districts to take cuts in a big lump. Every single person representing school districts, administrators and teachers who testified on these issues before the Joint Education Committee rejected the governor’s position.

First, they said, the state has underfunded K-12 education for a decade-and-a-half. Second, the state has just this year brought funding up to constitutionally mandated levels. Cutting $150 million will take K-12 backward, again. Third, even if the governor wants to eliminate averaging, he shouldn’t be able to take $150 million out of school budgets. The money should be reallocated to shore up dollars for high-needs students. Fourth, the current averaging method gives districts some measure of budget predictability. With recruiting and retaining teachers and other school staff now exceedingly difficult due to low compensation, there needs to be, at minimum, some financial stability.

Sen. Lundeen argues businesses and other government entities are not allowed buffers. That is not accurate. As an example, the auto and banking industries received massive buffers during the 2008 freefall and most businesses and the state got support during the COVID crisis.

Educating children is different from running a business, in any case. Children thrive when their schools aren’t threatened with closure, when teachers return from one year to the next, when child friendships extend across school years, and when mental and physical health supports are available. Chaotic budgets force chaotic staffing, classroom-size and student-support decisions.

Educators have put up with the back of the state’s hand for a decade-and-a-half. It’s time legislators and the governor step up and do right by Colorado’s public school students and educators.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.