The Cost of Public School
What's the cost?
School Taxes for 2025-2026
¶There are 5 public school districts in Elbert County, Colorado with a total program funding of $44,758,054 for the 2025-2026 FY. The Elbert County total budget for 2025 is $52,507,000. The public school budget is 85% of the County budget. Imagine if those funds were spent on our roads and bridges instead of a bloated, inefficientschool system. The county and schoolsare two distinct entities with the school districts being state controlled entities. The county has no control over the school districts. County Road & Bridge receives 32% (9.5 mills out of 29.346 mills) of the annual county spending. The public schools take 23.6 mills (Kiowa C2) which is 2 ½ times more than R&B. Two county school districts are already maxed out in terms of mill levy at 27 mills with the other 3 close behind.
¶Interestingly, Independence Classical Academy says their PPR1 is$7,200 (CDE shows $8,692) per an email I recently received. This is far less than the traditional public schools2. Why? How can they do it so ‘inexpensively’? It seems that Kiowa C2 with no bond payment should be able to do it cheaper.
¶The CDE financial calculation worksheet advertises a 2.3% inflation rate while the Kiowa school district has raised the school district tax rate by 6.1% since last year and 5% the previous year!
¶There are currently two charter schools within Elizabeth school district. Both advertise in other school districts for customers. Independence Classical Academy is the newest advertising “tuition free” K-5 classes expanding to all 12 grades over time. All advertising by schools is taxpayer funded! Each school district uses taxpayer funds to sell higher school taxes to the public.
¶Taking a Kiowa school3 parent as an example:
- Parents have 3 children in the Kiowa C2 school.
- Current cost per student is $17,552 according to CDE Jan. 2025/26 FY Funding Calculation.
- Annual cost for 3 children is $52,656.
- Total cost for K-12 schooling their 3 children is ($52,656 x 13) $684,528.
- A 30-year loan at 5% amortizes out to a monthly payment of $3,674 with total interest of $638,361 and a total cost of over $1.3 million. This assumes no increase in annual school tuition cost which is unrealistic.
¶This is the reason parents want someone else to pay (free money?) for their child’s public education while they work their jobs with their children in school all day long. Instead of taking responsibility for their educational costs, the parents prefer to spread the cost through taxes to others. These same parents used in this example would never pay off the debt + interest over a 30 year period assuming they paid their annual school tax of $1,300 for 30 years!4 Annual cost per taxpayer household in district is $3,861 for Kiowa C2 school.5
¶President Trump has stated that he will eliminate the Dept. of Education and rightly so. Hestatesthat we pay more for public school than any other western nation and have the worst academic performance. You should pay for what you use and not expect others to pay for you!
¶For comparison SAT & PSAT scores, Elizabeth School District (with $5,500/pupillower cost) scores were 100 pts higher than Kiowa C2 according to CDE School View.
Feb. 9, 2025
1Per Pupil Revenue (PPR) is a term from Colorado State Dept. of Education (CDE).
2This charter school operates on just the state provided PPR.
3Total Kiowa C2 program funding for 2025-2026 is $4.704 million.
4 Assuming an annual school tax of $1,300 per that household for 30 years = $39,000. This is about 3% of the total cost including interest leaving the other 97% to someone else. This ignores state tax contribution through school grants to schools. This further spreads the cost to the entire state taxpayers! The same would be true for federal taxes spent on education.
5 2,435 taxpayers in the school district with 2 per household = 1,217 and $4.7 million annual budget.