Jeffco budget proposal would use $13 million in reserves as leaders tie future cuts to 2026 tax vote

Jeffco Public Schools leaders told the school board in a June 3 study session that the district’s proposed 2026-27 budget would use about $13 million in fund balance to cover a gap between ongoing revenue and spending, while positioning a fall 2026 mill levy override campaign as the preferred way to avoid another round of broad cuts.

Because Badger’s source record for this assignment does not include the June 11 meeting minutes, vote transcript or adopted budget resolution, this story can confirm only what district leaders proposed and said on June 3, not the board’s final adoption action or whether the budget changed before approval.

Chief Financial Officer Brenna Copeland told the board the proposal had “no contingency” and said that if new local revenue does not materialize, the district’s backup plan would include “structural changes” such as reduced work calendars, salary freezes, lower district-paid benefits, staff reductions and additional school closures.

Superintendent Tracy Dorland told the board the proposal was “not a balanced budget,” but “much closer than it would be” without earlier budget-reduction work. She said the plan still included a modest employee compensation increase, which she described as a main reason the budget remained in deficit.

Finance staff told the board the 2026-27 general fund plan assumed about $977 million in revenue and about $991 million in expenditures, producing the roughly $13 million planned draw on reserves and a projected ending general-fund balance of about $110 million.

District leaders also distinguished between the projected ending balance and the amount they viewed as practically available to spend. During board questioning, Copeland said the district expected to end the current year with about $123 million in total general-fund balance, but that “about $30 millionish” of that was effectively nonspendable for a district of Jeffco’s size. That meant “really only $90 [million] counts,” she said. Board President Paula Applegate summarized that if the district wanted roughly $100 million in spendable reserves, the total balance would need to be about $130 million.

That distinction matters because the district is proposing to use reserves while also arguing it is close to the minimum cushion leaders consider prudent. Copeland told the board she would feel more comfortable with at least 10% in spendable reserves so the district could keep its commitments if something unexpected happened.

District officials framed the proposed November 2026 tax request as the first step in closing the gap, not as money entirely available for new programs. Dorland told the board that the “first $13 million of the new revenue is already spent in this budget,” because any new money would first have to backfill the one-time reserve draw. Copeland later said that, after accounting for charter-school sharing, a hypothetical $75 million override would leave roughly $53 million for board direction after covering that first $13 million.

If voters reject the override, Copeland said the district’s budget resolution would point to a collaborative process to choose among districtwide structural changes for the following year. She listed possible steps including reducing work-day calendars or freezing salaries, shifting more benefit costs to employees, reducing staff and considering more school closures. Dorland said she had already asked staff to start working on that “just in case plan” so incoming interim superintendent Rob Stein and district leaders would have a running start if the election fails.

District materials from earlier and later in the budget process provide context for that warning. In a May 2025 budget presentation, district staff said Colorado law requires a district that spends beginning fund balance to adopt a resolution explaining how it will stop doing so, and outlined a two-part strategy of reducing future expenses and seeking voter approval for new mill levy revenue. By fall, the district’s Budget Reduction Blueprint materials said the board was overseeing “progress toward the budget deficit resolution adopted in June 2025” and said the board had adopted a 2025-26 budget totaling $1.022 billion.

On the district’s Budget Reduction Blueprint page, Jeffco says cuts for 2026-27 were part of a yearlong process and that a Partnership for Fiscal Sustainability was convened to develop recommendations for a possible November 2026 mill levy override.

For employees and families, the immediate takeaway from the June 3 discussion was that the district was trying to avoid abrupt new cuts in 2026-27 by using reserves for one more year, while publicly warning that a failed tax measure could push the next round of decisions onto pay, benefits, staffing levels and possibly school buildings.

What remains unresolved is the formal board action. The available record supports reporting the June 3 proposal and the warnings district leaders gave that night, but not a definitive account of the board’s final June 11 vote or any changes made before adoption.