Virtual Budget Lab

Our Virtual Budget Lab is a welcoming, self-paced learning experience that allows our entire community to explore, understand, and shape our district's financial future on their own schedule.

By navigating through the sections below, you will:

Learn about the district budget and why Jeffco needs to make reductions.
Understand who is making decisions, and when changes will happen.
Try interactive budget simulations that show how the school and district budgets are organized, and see real-life impacts of budget decisions on schools and departments.
Reach out directly to your Board member to ask questions and share your ideas.
Explore a vision for sustainable local funding and advocate for K-12 funding to your state representative.
Understand how the district will support staff who are impacted by reductions.
Gain insight into the community's priorities by reviewing the results from the community survey.
Learn about the strategic Capital Master Planning process.

Ready to explore our district's budget at your own pace? Your participation makes a difference in building a stronger educational community for everyone.

How Will Decisions Be Made?

Every year, Jeffco schools and departments build budgets and decide how to use their resources to support students, staff and families. The 2026-27 school year is no different — except the overall district budget will be smaller, so each school and department will have less to work with.

Decisions are not made behind closed doors — principals, department leaders, staff, families and students all play a role in shaping how existing resources are used.

At schools:

Funding that school districts receive from the state is based mostly on enrollment. If a school has fewer students, it receives less money. However, Jeffco has a student-based budgeting formula that ensures that very small schools and those with more students facing higher needs get additional resources. This year, even with that extra help, every school’s budget will be smaller as we work to close a $60 million gap by aligning our spending with revenue the district receives.
Each principal manages the school’s budget every year and works with their community to prioritize resources. They work with their School Accountability Committee (SAC), which includes parents, teachers and community members. Principals also rely on staff and staff leadership teams, who know students’ needs and what it takes to run the school day to day. This will not change.
Families and students will also share their priorities in a survey. Principals and SACs will use this feedback, along with staff input, to guide their decisions.

Within departments that support students and schools:

Departments, such as transportation, special education and finance, also build budgets each year. Their job is to make sure schools can operate and students get what they need.
Some departments fund staff who work directly with students (like bus drivers or special education professionals). Others fund staff who keep the system running (like payroll or building maintenance).
When reductions are made, we minimize reductions in departments that provide direct services to classrooms or students. But this year, every department will also face a smaller budget because of the districtwide reductions.
Department leaders will collaborate with their leaders and teams — those closest to the day-to-day work — to recommend reductions that lessen the impact on schools and students.

How is the final decision made?

The Board of Education has final authority when it adopts the annual budget in June.

Throughout the process, the following guiding principles will shape decisions: prioritize investments that directly impact student learning and strengthen our fiscal sustainability over time.

Budget Break Down

Each year, schools create a budget to decide how to use their resources to best support students, staff and families. The principal works with staff and the School Accountability Committee—a group of parents and staff who give advice on school decisions—to shape those plans. For 2026–27, the process will stay the same, but the district will have less money overall.

The following interactive budget simulations let you step into the role of a school principal or district leader to make choices about how to use limited resources. Every decision comes with tradeoffs, and the challenge is deciding what matters most for students.

Elementary School Budget Simulation

School budgeting is a complex process. The elementary school budget simulation lets you step into a principal's role and experience what it's like to manage an elementary school budget.

Access the Elementary School Budget Simulation Tool

Please note: This tool only includes an elementary school budget simulation. That's because middle and high school budgets are extremely complex with scheduling electives, athletics, activities and more.

District Budget Simulation

To see the overall district budget picture, try the District Budget Simulation Tool.

Access the District Budget Simulation Tool

Ask a Leader

Advocate

Advocacy means understanding what’s at stake for our schools—and using your voice to help shape Jeffco’s future.

In Colorado, school funding works like a pitcher filled by three sources:

Local Share: A state-set property tax rate (27 mills in Jeffco).
State Share: Income and sales tax.
Mill Levy Overrides (MLOs): Voter-approved local taxes that go directly to Jeffco schools.

Here’s the challenge: when property values rise, the state reduces its share.

The pitcher doesn’t get bigger—Jeffco doesn’t gain more money. That’s why MLOs are critical. They are one of the few ways our community can provide reliable funding for students.

when local funding increases, the state shares decreases, mill levy overide is aded on top of this amount

Right now, Jeffco collects the lowest additional revenue per student among large metro districts, leaving our students with fewer resources than their peers. Your advocacy can help close that gap. You can:

Contact legislators about school funding
Talk with neighbors about why MLOs matter
Support future ballot measures

Jeffco may explore MLO ballot measures in 2026, 2027, or 2028 through Funding Jeffco Kids Can Count On—a community-driven effort to protect our schools and ensure students have the resources they need.

This isn’t just about numbers—it’s about students, staff, and community. Every voice matters. Together, we can ensure every Jeffco student has what they need to learn and thrive.

Resources

Supporting Staff

As budget discussions are happening, staff may have questions about how this will affect them. Our HR team will keep you informed throughout the process and ensure that all actions align with our agreements with JCEA and JESPA.

If your role is impacted, you’ll have access to a wide range of resources from Jeffco and our partners at the Jeffco Business and Workforce Center to support your next steps. These resources will include resume assistance, access to job boards, career coaching, hiring fairs, and guidance on interviewing and job searching. We’ll also provide detailed information about your benefits, including payroll, health insurance, COBRA, unemployment and retirement planning.

Our priority is to keep talented people in Jeffco. Impacted staff will be encouraged and supported to apply for open roles across the district as they are available. Jeffco hires thousands of people every year across many roles, both internally and new employees. From 2023–24 to 2024–25, about 19% (2,056) of staff across the district moved on from their current role and we hired 2,129 people. Here are a few examples:

2024-25 Districtwide Hiring Data as Reported to the Colorado Department of Education

Teachers: 643 teachers hired or transferred
Paraprofessionals: 658 paraprofessionals hired or transferred
Instructional support staff: 181 staff hired or transferred
Office/administrative support: 95 staff hired or transferred
Crafts, trades and services staff: 307 staff hired or transferred
Administrators: 15 administrators hired or transferred

Please know you won’t be navigating this alone—we’re committed to helping you with care and support.

Are you an employee of Jeffco Public Schools? You can access more resources and information about supports on our #TeamJeffco intranet page.

Community Priorities

District Priorities Survey

The District Priorities Survey was open for public response from October 1-November 7, 2025. Thank you to everyone who completed this survey. Your feedback gives district leaders valuable insight into what our community cares about and helps guide the priorities and decisions that affect our schools.

View the Survey Results Report

Capital Planning

Jeffco is one of Colorado’s largest districts, with more than 66,000 students and 122 schools. Many of our buildings are decades old—over half were built before 1980—and some no longer meet the needs of modern learning. At the same time, fewer students mean more than 23,000 empty seats across the district.

That’s why we’re creating a Strategic Capital Master Plan. This plan will guide how we invest limited resources into our schools to help make sure our buildings are safe, efficient, and designed to support today’s students.

The process looks beyond bricks and mortar. We’re studying how well facilities support learning, hearing directly from principals and facility managers, and listening to community voices about what matters most.

The Strategic Capital Master Plan Survey was open for public response from October 1-November 7, 2025. Thank you to everyone who completed this survey. Your input will help shape a roadmap that’s data-informed and community-guided, so Jeffco can invest where improvements make the biggest difference for students, staff and families.