COLORADO WORKS BETTER™ Taxpayer Shareholder Portal Follow

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Who runs this

Works Better Corporation, a nonpartisan public benefit corporation, builds this site.

Independent public-records project, separate from the State of Colorado and from every party and campaign.

Every number carries one of four labels (FACT, CALC, SAMPLE or PENDING) and a source you can open.
Schools

Colorado funds each pupil more than it used to

This is the state formula amount: Total Program funding divided by the funded pupil count. An appropriation is money set aside, so this is what the state committed, not what a classroom received.

Average per-pupil funding (Total Program)
$11,876.12 CALC
FY 2025-26 · Colorado Department of Education
$9,998,058,062.99 statewide Total Program / 841,862.1 statewide funded pupils = $11,876.12, from "FY2025-26 District Funding Calculation Worksheet - HB25-1320 Updated January 14, 2026 (XLS)" (the worksheet prints $11,876.12 on its own per-pupil line).
Average per-pupil funding (Total Program) — earliest year published
$8,488.81 CALC
FY 2019-20 · Colorado Department of Education
$7,605,920,602.12 statewide Total Program / 895,993.3 statewide funded pupils = $8,488.81, from "FY 2019-20 District Funding Calculation Worksheet - June 2020 Final" (the worksheet prints $8,488.02 on its own per-pupil line).
The difference
+39.9% CALC
FY 2025-26 · Colorado Department of Education
($11,876.12 − $8,488.81) ÷ $8,488.81 = +39.9%

The measure changed part-way through this series. FY 2025-26 is the first year of the new school funding formula (HB24-1448), phased in until it applies in full from FY 2031-32 (HB25-1320's final fiscal note). On the old formula the year works out to $11,708.60 per pupil; it was funded at $11,876.12.

Every year of this series, on the Education page

Where these figures come from

Data as of 15 October 2026. Every figure here is read from the checked Colorado dataset when this page is built, so a correction to the data corrects this page. Nothing on it was typed by hand.

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Colorado funds each pupil more than it used to — Average per-pupil funding (Total Program): $11,876.12; Average per-pupil funding (Total Program) — earliest year published: $8,488.81.