Four Douglas County conservatives argued for and against school funding measures on the ballot this November at an event hosted by Douglas County GOP event in Centennial. 

Douglas County School Board President Mike Peterson and Invest in DCSD campaign manager Christa Gilstrap debated in favor of the $66 million mill levy override and $484 million bond that the school district is asking voters to approve. 

Former school board presidents Kevin Larsen and Meghann Silverthorn took the opposing side during the Sept. 12 event.

Around 50 people attended the debate at the Blue Spruce Brewery. The debate allowed each side 20 minutes to present their arguments and then five minutes for rebuttals, followed by audience questions and comments.

The $66 million mill levy override would be used to pay staff more competitively and hire additional school resource officers, or SROs, while the $484 million bond would go to building three new elementary schools, expanding two middle schools and other building maintenance. 

Peterson and Gilstrap started the discussion by describing how the current funding situation is hurting the district, citing examples like bus route cancellations and hiring challenges.

“Our classes are starting to become crowded,” Peterson said. “We already have an elementary school where we got zero applicants for second grade, so we took three classrooms, we made them two and we’ve got over 30 kids in each one. That’s the harbinger of what’s coming.”

The county has one of the lowest starting salaries in the Denver metro area and Peterson said the gap exists because other districts pass mill levy overrides and bonds regularly while Douglas County has only passed one of each in the last 17 years. 

In response, Silverthorn and Larsen argued that Douglas County schools have maintained high graduation rates and test scores across that period of time without constant funding. 

“There’s not a correlation between teacher salary and results,” Silverthorn said. 

Larsen added that he’d like to see pay for performance return to the district.

“I want to compensate great teachers better, I don’t want to compensate subpar teachers better, we need to differentiate and I’d love to see when a mill is proposed that we make that distinction,” he said. 

Gilstrap said in order to pay for performance, the district needs to pass the mill levy override.

“Kevin mentioned pay for performance, well in what industry do you have overperforming employees and expect them to stay for $20,000 less? They’re outperforming so they deserve a raise,” she said. “The schools are still great but this is unsustainable.”

Both sides agreed that the current School Finance Act and state funding mechanisms are broken, which contributes to the problem. 

Larsen and Silverthorn said more focus should be paid to the state funding before adding to local property taxpayers’ burden.

“I’m all for funding, but these kinds of numbers are not sustainable in a single year,” Larsen said.

On the other side, Gilstrap and Peterson said passing school funding locally is still important as state level solutions haven’t happened yet. 

“Not voting for it doesn’t change what’s happening at the state or the funding formula,” Gilstrap said. “We can all agree that the funding formula is terrible and needs to be changed, but starving Douglas County of the funds it desperately needs is not going to fix that. (Gov. Jared) Polis doesn’t care if we starve our district, he just doesn’t.”

Like the mill levy override, Larsen and Silverthorn put forth that the bond is asking for an extraordinary amount of funding, even as enrollment is seeing a slight decrease. Larsen also said developers should take more responsibility for building schools in their neighborhoods.

“Are the builders and developers putting in the minimal amount of infrastructure, support and investment when they’ve got whole communities moving there because they expect a school,” he asked. 

Peterson said that a bond will be passed at some point because it’s necessary for capital maintenance, calling it responsible and healthy debt. He added that the longer the bond is deferred, the more expensive it will get. 

“You are all going to pass a bond, it might not be this year or next year, but if we keep going until kids are blowing out their ACLs on torn up turf fields and gym roofs are caving in and parking lots look like the San Andreas fault, eventually there will be a pain point when Douglas County passes a bond,” he said. “Just know we rack up $35 million every year in expenses maintaining our 111 buildings.”

As part of his closing argument, Peterson reiterated that the district is in a crisis and said waiting to pass funding is not an option.

“You potentially risk the future of Douglas County School District, in my opinion, because if we wait until the crash hits and our academic ratings are going down and people aren’t moving here, then it’s too late to correct that ship,” he said.

The opposing side emphasized that the funding asks are too much at the wrong time, saying the impact is not worth the results. 

“You can support the concept, but these numbers are really hard to support,” Larsen said.