- Because of the adverse impact which the TABOR Amendment and its interaction with the Gallagher Amendment was having on school funding, and because the legislature never fully funded the 1988 School Finance Act, the legislature made another attempt to address K-12 funding in the “School Finance Act of 1994”. The 1994 Act established that every school district would receive the same “base” per-pupil amount and this amount was then adjusted based on each district’s unique size, cost of living, personnel costs and at-risk students.
- The 1994 Act also permitted local school districts to ask their voters to approve “mill levy overrides” to provide additional funding to support local school district initiatives. Unlike revenues from traditional “mill levies”, revenues from “override levies” are not considered part of the Local Share of the school finance formula and thus do not result in an offsetting reduction State support. Beginning in FY 2009-10, a district’s override revenues cannot exceed 25% of its Total Program or $200,000, whichever is greater. Because wealthier school districts have had more success than poorer districts in securing local voter approval for such mill levy overrides, these overrides have increased the funding disparity between school districts.
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