Eagle County school board says mill levy override is a no-go this November
Decision made after polling data indicated low support for measure

Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily archive
After failing to pass a mill levy override in November 2023, the Eagle County School District considered returning to voters this year with a similar ask. However, after reviewing recent polling data, the school board decided it wasn’t the right time.
Why pursue another mill levy override?
The school district and board have indicated that a mill levy override would help the district overcome some of the challenges with school funding in Colorado.
“We don’t really have a lot of flexibility in increasing our revenues above and beyond what we get through the state Finance Act or mill levy,” said Sandy Farrell, the district’s chief operating officer, at a June school board meeting. “Even though assessed values went up this past year, it didn’t generate a windfall of dollars to the school district. All it did was increase the share of local (funds) and decrease the state share.”
Doing what it could locally to increase revenues, the school district asked voters to approve a mill levy override in November 2023.
The ballot question asked voters if property taxes could be increased by $3.5 million in 2024 to help the district better support teacher salaries and other programmatic needs. It failed by around 500 votes. During the same election, the district was able to pass a bond issue, which allowed it to seek $100 million in bonds for various capital projects.

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With the mill levy failure, the district continued to face funding challenges this spring as it negotiated teacher’s salaries in its annual negotiations process with the Eagle County Education Association.
“We need to seriously consider a mill levy override as a community in the future, or we’re going to have a hard time being competitive with those communities that have higher voter-approved mills than we do,” said Eagle County School District Superintendent Philip Qualman at a June school board meeting.
What the community said about another MLO
Before going to the voters again, the school district had tapped research firm New Bridge Strategy this summer to poll the community about its appetite for the mill levy override. The school board received an update on this polling data during an afternoon work session at its Wednesday, July 17 meeting.
The survey polled 400 voters within the Eagle County School District boundaries that are “likely to participate in a 2024 election” in June, according to the presentation heard by the board.
“Polling data indicates voters are struggling with higher taxes and don’t have an appetite for additional tax increases at this time,” Qualman wrote in an email to the Vail Daily.
While the polling data was the biggest factor in the board’s decision not to pursue the measure, “the board is also mindful of and grateful for the $100 million bond that the community passed for the district in November 2023,” Qualman added.
Specifically, after reading or hearing the proposed ballot language for a mill levy override, 46% of respondents indicated they would definitely vote no. This is compared to 40% who said they would definitely support the ballot measure and 14% who reported they were undecided.
Of the respondents who indicated they would not support the initiative, 40% reported it was because they didn’t support additional taxes or the taxes were already too high. Twenty-nine percent indicated they wouldn’t support it due to a “lack of accountability/transparency with how money is spent/wasted.”
These numbers did shift when those polled heard or read that the mill levy override would raise taxes by $60 annually for a home valued at $1 million. With this, support for the initiative increased to 54%, with 37% indicating they would still definitely vote no.
In June, Tessa Kirchner, the vice president of the Education Foundation of Eagle County and a former school board member, told the board that favorability should be “in the mid-to-high 60s in order for you to feel pretty confident that if you put it on the ballot, it’s going to win.”
The report from New Bridge Strategy noted that age and political party were indicators of support.
Those between the ages of 18 and 44 — which accounted for 39 percent of those polled — were more likely to support the measure than those over the age of 45 (which represented 61% percent of the respondents).
Those registered as Independent or Republican were more likely to indicate they would vote against the measure than those registered as Democrats. Seventy-two percent of the Republicans and 50% of the Independents polled did not support the measure as read or heard, compared to 67% support from the Democrats polled. (As a whole, the voters surveyed were 22% registered Republicans, 31% Independents and 47% Democrats.)
The polling data did suggest that residents see the need for higher teacher pay, with three in four indicating that teacher pay falls short of what it ought to be and nearly two in five indicating it falls “far short.” Eighty-three percent of those polled reported that “retaining and attracting quality teachers and school support staff” was either extremely or very important to them.
This was also a factor for those who indicated they would support the measure. Fifty-seven percent of the supporters polled said that supporting teachers and teacher pay was the No. 1 reason they would vote for the mill levy override. Thirty-four percent said they supported it because they support public education and because the schools are underfunded.
In not pursuing the mill levy this fall, Qualman said that both the short- and long-term impacts of it on the school district’s funding are “yet to be determined.”
“There will likely be other questions on the November 2024 ballot that will impact property tax. The only positive on the horizon for school funding is the potential for 1% additional revenue from the revised school finance formula that will take effect for the school year 2025-2026,” he said.