A law recently signed by Gov. Jared Polis and drafted in part by Lewis-Palmer School District 38 representatives will shake up public school funding without changing the dollars themselves.

Rather, Senate Bill 24-017 changes the distribution schedule of a district’s total funding throughout the budget year. The new law looks to reallocate $660 million in existing for school districts to use as needed.

Previously, each district received 12 equal payments throughout the year, predominantly through funding by the state, and local property taxes with tax funding getting received in the months of March, May and June.

D-38 Chief Business Officer Brett Ridgway, who helped craft the bill’s language, explained this had resulted in dips in cash flow throughout the year for districts like his that receive the majority of their money through the taxes.

In previous years, this had led to the district reserving funds to manage gaps in cash flow throughout the budget year.

“And that became an opportunity for us to say, ‘How can we access those funds so that we don’t have to sit on it year in and year out?’” Ridgway said. “And so those two priorities kind of came together really well and this then solution presented itself and then we started pursuing conversations.”

These conversations involved bill sponsors including Monument state Sen. Paul Lundeen, the Colorado Department of Education, state treasurer, and fiscal advisers to the governor.

Under the new law, monthly payments will now factor in the local tax estimates and projections throughout the entire year.

In the case of D-38, $8 million in one-time dollars will now be freed up for the district to access by July 1, the start of the new budget year. A recent projection with the before the bill’s passage showed monthly funding increasing by over $1 million for the current year. Across El Paso County, $146 million will become accessible to school districts in the area.

With 881,464 total students tallied last fall and the new accessible funding averaging around $800 per student, D-38 Board of Education Treasurer Ron Schwarz said this will allow both rural and urban school districts to better use funding that currently exists.

“It is super-rare, if ever, that that kind of capital becomes available without taxpayers paying for it in some form or fashion,” he said.

For D-38, Schwarz explained that the new available funding could potentially help the district focus future spending Career and Technical Education programs and other offerings while other districts could use their funds to address individual, infrastructure or salary needs unique to them.

Schwarz also noted that the bill, which was passed by the state House and Senate almost unanimously, served as a rare example of bipartisanship offering a solution to all parties using existing funds.

“Not only was this a common-sense thing to do, it’s something we could do, that we should do … so let’s do it,” he said. “And that’s the power of depoliticizing the legislature.”