RE-2 District Submits Detailed Report to Retain Sales Tax Monies
Trevor Phipps
After receiving much criticism from the Woodland Park City Council recently for lacking transparency and facing a possible future funding threat, the Woodland Park RE-2 School District has fired back with a detailed spending report.
However, due to the animosity shown between the two governing bodies, the fate of the school’s sales tax increase, originally approved in 2016 and again reaffirmed last November, is still in question.
During a discussion held at an earlier meeting, several city council members expressed dissatisfaction with the summary report given to WP on how the sales tax dollars were being spent between July 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024. Some council members even said they felt “insulted,” while others stressed that with the current intergovernmental agreement (IGA) contract, the school district had 30 days to cure any issues with their reporting.
One major problem with the last report, according to city leaders, is that the expenditures listed included salaries for Gateway Elementary teachers, when the school has been closed for the ’24-’25 school year.
But in the wake of concerns expressed by city leaders, the district responded by submitting a detailed report, outlining how the sales tax money awarded to the district by voters was being spent. With the new report, salaries for Gateway Elementary were not included. In essence, the report listed most of the same items, previously presented to the council. But this time, the district included much more detail regarding spending with support documents that outlined payroll reports and invoices.
However, one major question lingers: is this enough, or has the district already missed their deadline, or window of opportunity?
Before the school district published their sales tax utilization report, the council had already started the process to remove the sales tax increase. The issue is headed for an initial first reading of a proposed tax repeal ordinance.
School District Promises Transparency
In the past, school district officials battled with council on how often reports should be made, and what exactly needs to be reported. The school board previously said that they were hiring a new finance director, and would work with them to provide the reports wanted by the city council.
After learning about the council’s discontent with their latest summary, the district scrambled to provide exactly what the council requested within the 30-day deadline. “We understand the importance of these sales tax funds, which directly support our students and schools,” school district superintendent Ken Witt said in a press release. “We will remain fully transparent and detailed in our reporting to ensure accountability and clarity for our community.”
In the sales tax utilization report released on Feb. 13, the district states that they tried to go above and beyond with details, so that there would be no question as to exactly how the money was being spent. “In an effort to demonstrate our vow of transparency in the utilization of our sales tax revenues, we have preemptively provided all supporting documents for the expenditures in addition to the required summary and general ledger detail,” the district stated in the cover letter to the report sent to city council and the public.
The utilization report broke down the nearly $2 million the district spent of the sales tax dollars allocated between July 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024. They split them into categories including allocation to charter school, educator salaries and benefits, Certificate of Participation (COP) or loan payback, facilities and maintenance, safety and security, technology and innovation.
Some of the highlights included the listing of $325,000 to help fund the Merit Academy charter school. In addition, nearly $900,000 was used for teacher salaries and benefits for the year for Columbine Elementary, Summit Elementary and the WP Middle School.
Almost $600,000 has then been used to pay back a loan taken out by the district in 2016. The district furnished the bank statements, showing that the money to pay off the principal loan and interest have been transferred.
Under facilities and maintenance, the district reported that almost $30,000 has been spent on roof repairs for Columbine Elementary and the high school. Invoices and proof of payment to the contractors were also furnished.
The safety and security section of the report included just over $27,000 for the salary and benefits of security personnel. Another $38,000 then went to the Skyward software to be used by the district’s central office.
The final section of the report indicated that just over $12,000 was spent on innovation to add vocational training programs to the district’s offered curriculum. The spending included salaries and benefits for a construction teacher and a culinary instructor.
In the end, the council could decide if they are satisfied with the new reports and cease their efforts to remove the tax. Or, if they think some things are still missing, they could move forward with their effort to remove the tax or ask the district to submit different reports. At an earlier meeting, the council set the wheels in motion for drafting an ordinance that calls for the tax to get axed.
But such action would require a majority vote at a future meeting, which would occur at a public hearing. The possibility also exists that the council may just use this as an incentive tool to get the district to comply. Most leaders still have expressed a desire to get the RE-2 School Board to meet the requirements. Plus, voters by a strong margin last November made it clear they didn’t want to see this tax hike (of 1.09 percent) to go away.
