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Eagle County School District’s official count for the number of students enrolled in school this year has come in — as has the correlating budget deficit.

Colorado public schools receive funding from the state via a : The number of pupils (multiplied by a base rate connected to the size of the district, personnel costs and the cost of living), the district’s at-risk factor and the district’s capacity to serve out of district students online.

As a result, public school enrollment numbers have a direct impact on the amount of funding the school district receives from the Colorado Department of Education. The number of students is based on a count taken each year in October, often referred to as the “October count.”

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Eagle County School District Superintendent Phil Qualman presented the 2024-25 October count and resulting budget impacts to the school board during its Wednesday, Oct. 9 meeting.

This year’s October count registered 6,800 students in the district, which is 144 students short of the district’s projected number.

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“Fortunately, the state allows us to average our enrollment over five years, so what that does is it kind of smooths out those peaks and valleys of enrollment change, so we don’t have massive budget swings,” Qualman said.

What does the October count mean for the district’s budget?

Fewer students means less funding from the state.

Employing the five-year average reduces this year’s student loss to 28 students, resulting in a budget deficit of $333,000 across the district.

The district hires staff for the schools each year based on the projected number of students. In the district’s funding formulas for each school, “we have a correction built in there that triggers at plus or minus 20 students. So if you are plus or minus anything less than 20, your staffing doesn’t change,” Qualman said.

If schools have an enrollment increase of 20 or more, funding to the school increases, and the opposite for an enrollment decrease of 20 or more students. 

While there are no over-enrolled schools this year, “we have five schools that are in the basket of 20 students under their projection,” Qualman said. “So I’ve talked to each of those five principals, and they’ve got five different ways that they are going to address it.”

Most schools are making adjustments to their staff roles and master schedules. “One school, for example, has a position posted that they haven’t been able to fill, but we’re already at the quarter mark in the year and they’ve figured out a successful workaround, so they’re just going to cancel that posting,” Qualman said.

The district also has some general positions that are still unfilled and will likely remain empty to meet the budget deficit. “I think this $333,000 budget deficit we’ll be able to cover through the belt tightening those five schools are doing, plus the revenue saved from those unfilled positions, so we’ll be okay,” Qualman said.

The district does not intend to eliminate or transfer any existing staff positions. “We do not anticipate that anybody who is currently hired will lose a position or even be transferred,” Qualman said. “We try to avoid that if we can.”

Why is enrollment down?

School enrollment in kindergarten through 12^th grade education has been decreasing statewide over the last few years. Last year, enrollment in Colorado public schools hit its . Eagle County school enrollment also dipped last year, though less dramatically.

“Our drop has been less than throughout the state, and it’s really credited to the fact that birth rates are going down around the nation, so there are just less kids coming to school,” Qualman said. “And what we saw during COVID that resulted in property values increasing so much in our community is many people moved here, but few of the people that moved here have kids.”

The district’s demographer is projecting to see enrollment increase in the future, correlated to the rash of development occurring throughout the county, Qualman said.

A mountain town twist

Though the state takes the October count as official, the Eagle County school enrollment numbers consistently grow in the winter months each year due to the seasonal nature of work opportunities in the community. Due to the state’s emphasis on the October count, the district does not receive additional funding for students that arrive after October.

“One challenge we face in a community like ours is we see an influx of people moving to our community in November and December when our resorts open and ski season commences,” Qualman said. “One of the bad things about doing an October count is we see a big influx of students in November and December, so we won’t get any funding for those kids when they arrive.”