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Instead of using the October 2018 enrollment count numbers as stated, Jeffco used the 5 year average of Funded Pupil Count (FPC) to calculate the Charter 5B share. By using this higher 5 year average enrollment figure, it increased the total number of Jeffco students by approximately 1,400, causing a dilution of the Charters’ share by anywhere from $1M to $2M (depending on whether other questionable pupil counts such as ASCENT and On-line should, or should not be included).
A widely disseminated spreadsheet created by Jeffco (attached) to justify the Charter share shows 72,726 non-Charter and 7,452 Charter students in the District for a total of 81,294.7 students.
However, to get the 81,294.7 students, Jeffco took the 5 year average Funded Pupil Count of 79,094.3 (not the FY19 FTE count of 77,697.5), and then added Full Day Kindergarten Factor (478.4), CPP Pupil Count (787.5), Charter Institute Pupil Count (637.5) and ASCENT/Online Pupils (297). This number is approximately 1,400 students higher than the actual October count.
You can verify these numbers and calculations by looking at CDE’s District Funding Calculation Worksheet (https://www.cde.state.co.us/
The District spreadsheet clearly states that “October 1, 2018 Official FTE count (audited)” numbers were used. They weren’t. Otherwise the District spreadsheet would be using FTE numbers from the CDE document. In addition, the CDE document also has a higher Charter School FTE count of 7,516.8 (row 15) than the 7,452 Charter FTE used by the District.
In the interests of full transparency, accuracy and equity the Charter 5B allocation calculation needs to be reviewed and the full details made publicly available.
As things stand now, there are too many questions and inconsistencies surrounding the District’s numbers and the Charter share calculation.
Robert Greenawalt