Dougco School Board Calls for $510M in Bonds After Months of Chaos

The campaign for these measures could be tricky. After all, the DCSD had to buy out Wise’s contract for $247,500, since he was technically dismissed without cause, and a lawsuit filed by Douglas County resident and Colorado Statehouse candidate Robert Marshall has turned into a money pit for the district.

Douglas County District Judge Jeffrey K. Holmes responded to Marshall’s complaint, which alleges that boardmembers Mike Peterson, Becky Myers, Christy Williams and Kaylee Winegar violated Colorado Open Meetings Law by engaging in a series of one-on-one meetings outside of a public forum while engineering Wise’s ouster, by issuing a temporary restraining order. The fight against this ruling and the suit itself has dragged on for months, and while the district hasn’t divulged how much it’s paid in legal bills, the meter is still running. Moreover, Wise’s decision in April to file discrimination charges against the district over his dismissal was almost certainly a precursor to the filing of a lawsuit as well.

Still, the presentation that DSCD staff offered at the August 23 meeting in support of the bonds is compelling. In it, staffers present plenty of facts and figures showing why a $450 million measure to address capital needs and a $60 million mill levy override intended to help compensate for student-funding gaps are needed during a difficult period for public education.

The 2022-2023 academic year got underway on August 7 in Douglas County. As of today, August 24, the district lists an astonishing 465 open positions, including 76 requiring licenses — mostly teachers, although there are also listings for psychologists and counselors.

This situation isn’t unique. During the week of August 9, more than 2,000 jobs were unfilled in metro area school districts, creating a competitive situation in which Douglas County has a distinct disadvantage. The district staff’s presentation reveals that the average pay for a Douglas County teacher, just under $58,000, is nearly $25,000 lower than in Boulder, and thousands less than in at least three other metro districts. Dougco’s starting salary of $13.62 for educational assistants, also known as paraprofessionals, is not only well below that of the Denver Public School District, where the wage was just bumped to $21, but also less than what’s being offered for employees of Chick-fil-A and Starbucks. See the numbers in the graphic below:

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Passage of the $60 million mill levy override would result in a pay bump of about 9 percent for most Dougco teachers. Starting pay for a teacher with a Bachelor’s degree would rise from $46,354 to $51,915,for example, with the salary for an educator who’s earned a master’s degree going from $59,311 to $66,427.

Teacher pay is linked to the amount of revenue the district receives per student — and as the chart below demonstrates, the Douglas County School District trails Boulder Valley, Denver, Jefferson County, Littleton and Cherry Creek by that metric as well.

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Although Douglas County, which is among the most conservative parts of Colorado, has a reputation for reviling tax increases, another illustration from the presentation reveals that voters in the area approved seven bond measures for schools between 1984 and 2006. Only one additional measure has been passed since then, however, and the last new school in Douglas County was built twelve years ago. The details:

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Should both bond measures pass, the increased cost for taxpayers is estimated at $1 per week for every $100,000 of home value; for a $1 million property, that translates to around an extra $520 a year. Those who can afford such a house could certainly afford that outlay, but to get a positive vote supporters will have to counter the negative publicity that the Dougco school board has generated in recent months.

Click to read the Douglas County Board of Education’s staff recommendations for new funding created for the August 23 meeting, captured in the video below. (Note that the session lasted nearly six hours.)