Colorado Springs’ oldest school district could see new capital funding for the first time in over 20 years.

Colorado Springs District 11’s Board of Education will decide whether to present a new, districtwide bond totaling $775 million to voters this fall during its regular meeting next week.

If the bond were to pass, every school in the district would receive new funding for building upgrades, with major projects including heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) installations at Coronado High School and completing rebuilds at Holmes Middle School and Palmer High School.

No actions were taken during the special meeting Wednesday evening, but board members reviewed three resolutions regarding the upcoming bond vote. The resolutions concerned finalizing the bond’s ballot language, the district’s notice of intent to participate in the Nov. 3 election and redirecting existing funds toward teacher salaries following the bond’s passage.

The board will take final action on the bond initiative at its Aug. 5 regular meeting.  

Bonds are the funding mechanism used by public school districts for capital projects, including building new schools and renovating existing ones. New bonds require approval from voters residing in the district’s boundaries, since the funds are generated through increased property taxes.  

If it were to pass, the ballot initiative would mark the first new bond in D-11 since 2004.

The district’s deputy superintendent, Brandan Comfort, called this gap between bond approvals “unheard of,” since they are the primary funding source for capital projects and other local districts that have passed multiple bonds over this time.

Without any new bond dollars, the district has maintained its buildings, many of which were built in the late 1950s and 1960s, through its annual capital projects fund and reserves, which cover repairs and replacements as identified throughout the school year. Comfort explained that these capital fund balances, which have totaled $12 million in recent fiscal years, aren’t large enough to cover larger projects.

For example, Coronado, built in 1970, lacks an HVAC system, unlike many schools built since. The estimated cost to install this in the school, along with additional renovations, is about $20 million. A 2020 study by the American Economic Journal found that extreme heat in schools can contribute to lower student performance, while the National Library of Medicine reported that this and poor air quality can also increase absenteeism.

The district has also utilized certificates of participation (COPs) as an alternative to funding major construction projects in recent years. COPs don’t require voter approval and act as a lease obligation with existing funds. D-11 has used COPs for the first phase of its Palmer High School renovations, totaling $100 million, and the partial rebuild of Jenkins Middle School, budgeted at $31 million, over the past two years. Phase 2 of the Palmer renovations is anticipated to depend on future bond funding.

The most recent vote for a new bond occurred in 2021, when voters were presented with a $350 million measure that would have renovated and rebuilt aging infrastructure for some, but not all, D-11 schools. It failed to pass by a razor-thin margin of 11 votes, The Gazette previously reported.

Despite that bond nearly passing, the district took away a few lessons from that initiative. Comfort said that the district would have closed three schools and built a new school in their place, which was an unpopular proposal to those communities.

He added that other communities left out of the bond may have felt less inclined to increase their taxes since they wouldn’t have benefited from it.

“We created our own winners and losers,” Comfort said.

To ensure inclusivity for this bond, D-11 let each school’s leadership determine its own needs before conducting community surveys, public listening sessions and appointing community bond liaisons. D-11 also conducted its own internal planning process.

The district has also developed a facilities dashboard, a project list and a frequently asked questions page on its website to provide breakdowns of what the bond would and wouldn’t entail, should it get approved.

In addition to keeping every school open, community feedback added to the bond plans includes improved safety and updated furniture and bathrooms.

District spokesperson Jessica Wise said they opted for the diligent process ahead of the board signing off on the bond because it would have been “irresponsible” to present voters with such a big ask without hearing from them first.

Concerning taxpayers, Comfort noted that, since D-11 hasn’t passed a new bond in 20 years, it is the only one without any bond debt in Colorado Springs and the district with the lowest tax impact.

If passed, D-11 estimated the bond’s cost for the average homeowner at $252 a year.

Also, during the special meeting Wednesday night, the board discussed a resolution to redirect revenues from existing mill levy overrides (MLO) toward increasing teacher compensation, if the bond were to pass later this year.

In recent years, revenues from the MLOs passed in 2000 and 2017 have been used to pay down the district’s COP capital debt. Since a successful bond vote could then cover these payments, the MLO funds could then be used for salaries.