Falcon School District 49, aka El Paso County School District 49, has finally cut bait, thrown the fishing pole into the lake and sunk the canoe. The longtime enabler of the Education Reenvisioned BOCES’ (ERBOCES) schemes to fund private Christian religious schools using state-authorized public education dollars has come to an ignominious funding stop. D49 is no longer an ERBOCES district authorizer, so ERBOCES is no longer.

This Falcon School District D49 end point is not better late than never. The D49 damage is done with millions of dollars siphoned from the Colorado Department of Education through D49 to ERBOCES to its various contractors. The state money diversion scheme is simple. Private schools set up a “homeschool enrichment program” for their private-school students. The state pays for homeschool enrichment at 50% of per pupil funding. The private school teaches students for three or four days under the private school auspices and then teaches those same private-school students under the state-funded homeschool enrichment umbrella. Only these students are not homeschooled.

Parents of these students receive a private school tuition discount depending on the amount of public funding from the state.

Former Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives Frank McNulty-R, Highlands Ranch, brought the Regional Education Services program to ERBOCES in May 2022. ERBOCES authorized this “homeschool enrichment program” for use by Colorado Christian Academy. McNulty was on the school’s board of directors. ERBOCES distributed $1.32 million of state money to Regional Education Services. That money went into the CO Christian Academy budget melting pot. Parents received a tuition discount at the school if they enrolled their child in the homeschool enrichment program. Private school children receiving a Christian-based religious curriculum were advantaged with state public education dollars at the expense of public, public school students.

Former State Senate President Bill Cadman, along with Debora Scheffel, former state Board of Education member, are identified as advisory board members of Summit Christian Academy. The student body at Summit Christian and Summit Homeschool Academy overlaps. The private-school students receive a tuition discount based on their enrollment in the Homeschool Academy. Summit Christian Academy has pocketed $2.20 million from ERBOCES. That’s funding for a bright start for a school that has yet to receive its accreditation.

These roundabout schemes, authorized by ERBOCES and, by extension, Falcon D49, skirt Colorado’s constitutional provision that prohibits public funding of religious schools. The facts cause concern as three prominent former public officials played leading roles in securing the prominence of the schools.

ERBOCES’ “homeschool enrichment program” authorization also put $3.74 million into Freedom Education associated with Holy Family Catholic School. From an ERBOCES board report, this enrichment program was approved in an “action item” with no discussion at the board meeting. Freedom Education is co-located with Holy Cross school. ERBOCES authorizing documents state Freedom Education’s opening students are from the private school. That is, they are not homeschooled, which is the purpose of homeschool enrichment funds.

This story is much larger than these religious, private-school ploys. The legislature passed two bills at the end of the 2026 session to end some of these most egregious funding grabs. By that point, ERBOCES had distributed $111 million to various versions of homeschool enrichment education. ERBOCES was the runaway rhino and D49 and the Colorado Department of Education let disaster happen under their noses.

The heart of the revelations came through the dogged work of Jessica Capsel and Liz Wilson of Pro-CO Education Project. They have made numerous appeals to the Colorado Department of Education to clean up its act. CDE has four auditors and has asked for two more to oversee a $10 billion state education budget. Six auditors to oversee all the school districts, Colorado Charter School Institute and homeschool enrichment programs aren’t enough.

CDE should exercise more oversight of school districts’ oversight of charter schools and other non-traditional school dollar recipients. Falcon School District Superintendent Peter Hilts stated in his deauthorization request to the D49 Board he regretted the loss of school choice in the decision to deauthorize ERBOCES. School choice can only work if everyone plays by fair and well-established rules. That context has not existed under former Gov. John Hickenlooper and current Gov. Jared Polis. The next governor must make school finance and reforms to school choice policy a priority.

The lapses at the Colorado Department of Education are many. Commissioner Susana Cordova came to her office in June 2023. ERBOCES was reaching the pinnacle of its funding shenanigans at that time. If D49 wasn’t putting up smoke signals to CDE officials, CDE financial personnel should have noticed more than $100 million was flooding out to ERBOCES. Ken Witt, executive director of ERBOCES, was double dipping salaries when he was superintendent of Woodland Park School District as well as running ERBOCES. Brad Miller, ERBOCES’ lawyer, and his law firm tucked away more than $500,000 according to check register records over a period of 13 years. Ross Izard’s Xiphos Strategies took in more than $175,000 as ERBOCES’ consulting firm over a period of about five years.

With these high muckety-mucks taking advantage of or failing to protect public dollars, more than ERBOCES’ heads need to roll.  

Paula Noonan owns CapitolCommons.ai, the state’s premier legislature-tracking platform.