With the fate of a local sales tax earmarked for Woodland Park schools now uncertain, the district Board of Education provided an update on how the vote made it onto the upcoming general election ballot during its Sept. 10 meeting.

The discussion item at the board’s regular meeting comes following Woodland Park City Council’s approval last week of a ballot question to repeal its 1.09% sales tax earmarked for public education.

The council’s decision comes despite numerous concessions being made by the school board.

“And clearly, you can see, that I’m frustrated about this,” Woodland Park School Board President Mick Bates said during the meeting. “But we can maintain this IGA and we’re going to need the community’s help to do so.”

The tax is an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between the two elected bodies approved by voters in 2016 to allocate revenue specifically toward public education.

The ballot measure is the culmination of a public spat between the two parties over the past year regarding district’s use of the tax dollars and how exactly they were reporting it.

Following multiple meetings, amendments to the IGA were made that included monthly reports from the district to city council and further details on allocations to the district’s charter school, Merit Academy.

Despite coming to these agreements, councilmembers voted 4-3 to put the continuation of the tax on the November ballot.

School board members attested that some councilmembers acted in bad faith throughout the meetings between the two parties. Board Secretary David Rusterholtz called the council’s vote “entirely a political move” after they came to a mutual agreement without argument.

“I had assurances from some of the members that this was not going to happen, that they wanted no part in it, and I just want to say that I am very disappointed with how things have turned out,” he said.

Since it has been in place, the tax revenue has annually amounted to around 11% of the school district’s general fund.

“If we have staff reductions, bussing reductions, it’s ultimately going to impact our kids,” Bates said.

Bates added that the loss of funding would also impact families who reside outside of Woodland Park, yet choose to go to the district’s schools, and are unable to vote on the measure.

During the meeting’s public comment portion, some community members said they were considering a vote to lose the tax, despite the benefits it provided the district over the years, due largely to the division they believe current leadership has caused throughout the community.

Specifically, multiple commenters expressed concern that the district was giving “preferential treatment” to Merit Academy over its non-charter schools and that public trust needs to be regained if it wants to continue seeing the tax revenue.

“As it stands, it doesn’t seem like parents and community members trust you to be responsible stewards of taxpayer money,” Columbine Elementary parent Allison Avery-Wollenhaupt told the board.