Superintendent Tracy Dorland had a blunt message for Jeffco Public Schools’ Board of Education last year, telling the elected directors what would happen when the time came to make deep cuts to the school district’s budget.
“They will mean people — employees that we care about and rely on us,” she said of the reductions during a June 2024 meeting. “So that will be difficult when we get to that place.”
The financial crisis looming over Colorado’s second-largest school district began years ago, well before Dorland warned of staff layoffs, and hasn’t abated in the face of potential cuts to K-12 education at the state and federal levels.
As a result, district officials will begin telling employees in mid-December whether they will still have jobs next school year. Jeffco Public Schools leaders estimate at least 150 full-time positions will be eliminated in their efforts to slash $45 million in spending, according to a Nov. 13 presentation to the school board.
Even more budget cuts could come next school year if Jefferson County voters don’t approve a $15 million mill-levy override that district officials expect to put on the ballot in November 2026 in hopes of increasing revenue by raising property taxes.
“Staff layoffs are going to be significant,” former school board member Susan Miller said. “We just can’t afford it.”
Jeffco Public Schools’ financial situation is bleak. The district has spent more money than its funding covered during at least two of the past three fiscal years and it is facing another $39 million deficit for the 2025-26 year — all of which is requiring administrators to use money held in reserve to balance the district’s nearly $1 billion budget.
Current and former district officials said the crisis at Jeffco Public Schools is the result of school boards, even the ones they served on, not responding quickly enough to declining enrollment and continuing to approve teacher raises despite knowing the district didn’t have enough money to pay for the compensation increases. (The president of the district’s teachers union disputed placing blame on educators’ raises.)
“We got here because we kept saying we can pay for things we can’t afford,” Miller said. “It’s not to say we shouldn’t compensate our teachers, but I think there also has to be a reality check.”
‘It will impact our schools’
Overall, Jeffco Public Schools leaders hope to fill a $60 million hole in the district’s budget by making $45 million in cuts and passing a $15 million mill-levy override.
District officials said they expect to reduce department budgets, such as those for general administration and transportation, by $26 million to $27 million, including by cutting between 150 and 160 budgeted full-time positions as well as other services, supplies and materials, according to the Nov. 13 presentation.
Jeffco officials said they will try to eliminate jobs as much as possible through retirement and other staff turnover. The cuts, including any layoffs, will be effective in June.
The goal, Dorland said in an interview, is to make as many of the budget reductions as possible away from the classroom and students.
But district officials will still need to cut individual school budgets, which could lead principals to reduce staffing in their buildings in addition to the 150 or 160 jobs being eliminated. If such a decision is made, then teachers and other employees affected by the reductions will be notified in early 2026, according to the presentation.
“It will impact our schools, unfortunately,” Dorland said. “It’s going to have an impact across the system.”
School administrators will decide how to make budget cuts in their buildings, rather than district leaders, she said.
To help with the decision-making, Jeffco Public Schools hosted budget labs for families and staff to get their input on changes that could be made to alleviate budget pressures, such as increasing fees for athletics and combining bus routes.
“Living within the means of a shoestring budget is not a place you want to be, yet here we are,” former school board member Stephanie Schooley said.
‘Canary in the coal mines’
Jeffco Public Schools’ financial troubles are unique in that the district, unlike its peers in metro Denver, hasn’t passed a local mill-levy override since 2018, which would increase revenue for schools.
But the district is also a warning sign of what is likely to come for K-12 systems as enrollment falls across Colorado and as both the federal and state governments weigh education funding cuts.
For years now, fewer children have been enrolling in public schools as fewer Coloradans have babies. In Jefferson County alone, the school-aged population has declined since 2000 and enrollment in schools has dropped for more than a decade.
Jeffco saw both the school-age population and K-12 enrollment decline well before — and on a larger scale than — other metro Denver districts as the county’s baby boomer residents have largely aged in place, not moving homes and no longer having children who attend school, said state demographer Kate Watkins.
“We were kind of a canary in the coal mines, so to speak,” said Miller, the former school board member.
But, she said, the district didn’t respond quickly enough to falling enrollment. “(School) boards just kicked the can down the road,” Miller said.
Jeffco Public Schools has closed 21 schools with low enrollment in the past four years, a move that has saved the district about $20 million per year, but it wasn’t enough to cover the budget deficit.
Enrollment in Jeffco Public Schools dropped nearly 13% — or by more than 11,000 students — between 2014 and 2024, according to data from the Colorado Department of Education.
Making matters worse, K-12 district leaders across the Denver area received a shock this fall when enrollment in their schools fell at a higher rate than they expected. Fewer immigrant children are attending school after helping to boost enrollment in recent years, a change district leaders attribute to the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.
Jeffco Public Schools has about 430 fewer children attending school this year than expected as overall enrollment fell 1.7% — or by 1,281 students — from last year to 74,227 pupils during the 2025-26 academic year, according to preliminary data shared at the Nov. 13 board meeting.
“It’s a problem or challenge I do not think is going away,” Schooley said of declining enrollment. “…It’s going to have to be a series of hard decisions because those students are gone.”
Teachers got raises — and the district’s deficit grew
K-12 districts — their pockets filled with federal relief money and staring down widespread staffing shortages — began giving their teachers raises during the height of the pandemic. Jeffco Public Schools was among those that prioritized pay increases for staff in order to help the district remain competitive in recruiting and retaining employees, Dorland said.
“It was the right investment,” she said.
But the federal money ran out and, for Jeffco Public Schools, the decision to keep giving teachers raises came with a cost as board members, such as Schooley, approved deficit spending.
“We had asked people to pivot so much in terms of how they were teaching and what they were doing (during the pandemic), and it felt like if there was any time at all that we were going to compensate above and beyond, then, good grief, it needed to be then,” Schooley said.
If the district continues to spend more money than it brings in, Jeffco Public Schools’ reserves will drop to $33.6 million by the 2027-28 academic year — less than a fifth of the nearly $175 million currently held in savings, according to the district’s budget projections.
“We knew it was going to come to this point,” Dorland said. “We are at a point where we need to address the deficit because we need to maintain the remaining reserves.”
Employee compensation makes up about 84% of Jeffco Public Schools’ expenses, but the president of the district’s teachers union pushed back on the notion that raises are to blame for financial straits.
“The real blame can be put on how we fund our schools in Colorado, and it really shows a need for a mill levy that is tied to inflation because we can’t pay our educators a living wage if we don’t do that,” said Brooke Williams, president of the Jefferson County Education Association.
More K-12 districts eye budget cuts
Declining enrollment and rising costs for health insurance and other expenses are placing significant financial pressure on K-12 school systems, and, as a result, other metro Denver districts are also retrenching.
Adams 12 Five Star Schools slashed 150 jobs earlier this year to fill a $27.5 million budget gap. Denver Public Schools laid off 38 central office employees, but Superintendent Alex Marrero has warned that larger cuts and more school closures could be on the way.
“We’re just at the beginning of seeing that type of situation going across the state,” said Tracie Rainey, executive director of the Colorado School Finance Project.
Multiple districts are giving teachers smaller raises, with the Boulder Valley School District in talks with its teachers union regarding changes to educators’ salary schedule because district leaders are no longer sure they can afford to pay what was previously negotiated.
The Cherry Creek School District is looking for ways to rein in spending without layoffs or cutting programs, such as limiting overtime and managing substitute teachers, the district’s chief financial officer, Scott Smith, said.
The Cherry Creek district expects to run a $15.4 million deficit this year, which will require its leaders to use reserves to balance the district’s roughly $840 million budget for the second time in two years.
“I don’t think we have to do layoffs,” Smith said. “I think we can manage this through attrition.”
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