The evidence
The numbers, with sources.
Everything below comes from Colorado Department of Education reporting, Lewis-Palmer School District 38 budget and board documents, or published election results. Where a figure is contested or depends on a methodology choice, we say so.
1. The override that never grew
In 1999, D38 voters approved an operating mill levy override of $4 million a year, with no sunset. It is still in force. But it was written as a fixed dollar amount, with no escalator tied to inflation, enrollment, or property values.
That single drafting choice is the whole story. Between 2005 and 2025 the district’s assessed value roughly tripled, to about $1.09 billion. Because the dollar total was capped, the mill rate required to collect it fell from 11.934 to 3.685 — a decline of about 69%. No one ever voted to reduce it. It reduced itself.
Source: Colorado Department of Education override reporting; Lewis-Palmer D38 budget documents.
An important distinction: the override rate fell. That is not the same as saying any individual’s tax bill fell. What a household actually pays depends on its own assessed value, which for most properties rose over the same period.
Verified against CDE override reporting in 8 of 8 years tested. Original authorization described as “$4 million annually” and “in perpetuity” in contemporaneous Our Community News coverage.
2. D38 asks for a fraction of what it is allowed to ask for
Colorado sets a statutory ceiling on how large an operating override each district may put to its voters. In FY2024–25, D38 collected 20.1% of its ceiling. Academy 20 collected 32.9%. Cheyenne Mountain collected 80.9%.
CDE’s own reporting puts D38’s unused override capacity at $15,925,812.
Source: Colorado Department of Education, Total Program Mill Levy and Override reporting, FY2024–25.
What that figure is not. It is not money sitting in an account, and it is not money the district can choose to spend. It is the maximum a future ballot measure could legally ask voters to approve. Any dollar of it requires an election — and the district’s actual reserves have gone the other way — from $13.7 million to $6.0 million in two years, as section 7 below sets out.
3. This is not a poor district. It is an under-authorized one.
The most common explanation offered for the funding gap — that D38 simply has less property wealth than its neighbors — does not survive contact with the data. Per student, one mill of property tax raises:
| District | Per student, per mill |
|---|---|
| Cheyenne Mountain 12 | $125.04 |
| Lewis-Palmer D38 | $108.79 |
| Academy 20 | $85.47 |
D38’s tax base is roughly 27% more productive per student than Academy 20’s. Academy 20 raises more for its schools anyway, because its voters have authorized more mills.
Measured as a share of total program funding, the override contributes 6.64% in D38, 11.09% in Academy 20 and 27.02% in Cheyenne Mountain.
4. What the gap has cost
D38 has been the lowest-paid and highest-turnover district of the three peers in every year measured.
| District | Average teacher salary, 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cheyenne Mountain 12 | $72,066 |
| Academy 20 | $65,098 |
| Lewis-Palmer D38 | $57,582 |
In the December-to-December reporting interval covering 2023, D38 teacher turnover reached 27.6% — 13.1 points above the peer average.
The district asked departing staff why. In its Fall Human Resources Update to the Board of Education on August 21, 2023, covering 86 licensed departures, the reasons given on separation forms were led by better pay (39.5%) and a position in another district (37.2%). Respondents could select more than one reason.
In the same period, D38’s own employee survey returned a Net Promoter Score of −2.11, against +37.16 from parents. The lowest-scoring item was whether resources are allocated to maximize effectiveness.
Sources: D38 Board of Education, “Fall Human Resources Update,” Aug. 21, 2023 (separation forms, not exit interviews); “Survey Data Share-Out,” Dec. 11, 2023, 469 staff participants.
5. The district did try to close it without new money
After the November 2022 override failed, D38 issued a one-time payment from reserves and then approved new salary schedules in 2023. The district reported an average increase of about 12%, against roughly 8–9% anticipated at neighboring districts.
Part of it was funded internally. D38’s own 23/24 Compensation Strategy Overview (March 20, 2023) states that “the $1.1 million we are redirecting will be generated through strategic personnel reductions, created by attrition,” and acknowledges that the district “has historically lagged far behind other area school districts in terms of gross pay… it will not come close to eliminating it.”
The district was right about that. Even after the largest raise in the region, D38 remained roughly $5,600 behind Academy 20 and $11,800 behind Cheyenne Mountain, and the turnover year that followed was the worst on record for the district.
We won’t oversimplify this one. A failed vote followed by record turnover is not proof that the vote caused the turnover. Leadership churn, frozen salary steps, workload and morale all moved at the same time. The honest reading is that several things compounded — and that pay was the most-cited reason on the district’s own separation forms.
6. What D38 spends now
Per-pupil spending in D38 was $13,338 in 2025, essentially identical to Academy 20’s $13,380 — and well below the Colorado average of $16,845. Academy 20 kept its “Accredited with Distinction” rating with nearly the same per-pupil dollars, which is why this is not a spending-efficiency story.
The administrator count has been effectively flat. Three separate district documents put it at 33 to 34 — the March 2023 compensation overview (“Administrators (33)”), the FY2023–24 budget, and the FY2026–27 budget (34, comprising 20 principals and assistant principals plus 14 central administrators). There has been no central-office buildout to point at.
7. The reserves are already half gone
The most common objection to any override is that the district should use its savings first. It already did. D38’s year-end general-fund reserve has fallen from $13.7 million to $6.0 million in two years — a drop of roughly 56%. The adopted 2026–27 budget holds it flat at about $6.0 million, and it only balances after the cuts below.
| 2025–26 | 2026–27 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year-end general-fund reserve | $6.0M | $6.0M | flat |
| General-fund spending | $56.1M | $53.3M | −$2.8M |
| Total program funding | $68.9M | $67.2M | −$1.7M |
| Funded pupil count | 6,197.9 | 6,040.4 | −158 |
| Per-pupil revenue | $11,123 | $11,125 | +$2 |
Two years earlier that reserve line stood at $13.7 million. Getting from there to here took a series of one-way doors:
- A one-time staff payment from reserves after the 2022 measure failed. One-time money, by definition, does not repeat.
- Capital cut to pay salaries. Annual capital investment was reduced from $3 million to $2.5 million, the difference redirected to compensation. In February 2026 the district’s chief business officer told the board it appears unlikely to return to its former amount.
- Positions cut to pay the people who stayed. D38’s March 2023 compensation document describes $1.1 million redirected through “strategic personnel reductions, created by attrition.”
- And now, 35 more. The 2026–27 budget needed about $2.9 million in savings to offset lost revenue and still fund a 2.03% average pay change. Roughly 35 regular positions go — about one job in twenty-three. Elementary schools absorb about two-thirds of the reductions.
Per-pupil revenue rose by two dollars. That is the entire increase. Against it, the district is absorbing an enrollment decline, inflation, and a reserve that can no longer be spent because it is already down to roughly one month of general-fund operations.
The honest version of this argument. Falling enrollment does reduce what the district needs to spend, and some of the 35 positions follow the students. But per-pupil funding is flat while costs are not, the savings had to come from somewhere, and the reserve that cushioned the last three years is half what it was. “Just use savings” was a real answer in 2023. It is not one now.
Sources: Lewis-Palmer D38 2026–27 proposed budget (reserve, funding, staffing and pupil-count figures); “23/24 Compensation Strategy Overview,” Mar. 20, 2023; D38 Board of Education, Feb. 10, 2026 budget discussion.
How we handle numbers
- Salary figures are total salary divided by FTE; turnover is people who left divided by prior-year headcount. We never mix the two.
- CDE staff data is a December 1 snapshot, so a “2023–24” figure compares Dec. 1, 2022 to Dec. 1, 2023 and does not show when anyone left.
- Override capacity figures use CDE’s “Total Maximum Allowable Override” column rather than the district’s own summary table, which omits the statutory cost-of-living allowance.
- Where a margin or count is disputed between sources, we give the range and name each source rather than picking one.
Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it in public, with a note saying what changed.