Woodland Park’s fastest-growing school is suddenly staring down a cash crunch after district leaders told the charter they will stop making the equal monthly payments laid out in their contract. Merit Academy, which has added hundreds of students even as other district-run schools lost enrollment, warns the shift could force program cuts and strain payroll. The move is the latest twist in a budget shortfall that has already rattled the small mountain district.
As reported by the Denver Gazette, Merit has grown roughly 40% in two years and now educates about one-third of Woodland Park students, and district officials have told the charter that the long-standing practice of equal monthly “smoothing” payments will end. The Denver Gazette’s reporting, based on internal emails and documents, shows the district has for years relied on accelerated state payments and short-term borrowing to ride out uneven cash flow.
State records show Woodland Park School District reported about 1,850 students for the 2025-26 year, a drop of roughly 10% from 2020-21 that has tightened per-pupil revenue. According to data from the Colorado Department of Education, those enrollment trends help explain the pressure the board says it faces while budgeting for the next fiscal year.
The district’s position
District officials insist the change is a cash-management decision, not a punishment aimed at Merit. Woodland Park board materials and meeting minutes document the district’s use of accelerated state payments and other short-term tools to smooth revenue and show the board has been weighing how to balance district obligations while paying charters from the same state funding stream. Chief Financial Officer David Kuritar has argued in board documents that district borrowing tools exist to address the district’s cash needs first and that there is no legal obligation to use those tools on behalf of a separately governed charter school.
State official pushes back
The finance strategy drew an unusually blunt response from a state school finance manager, who warned that paying Merit less than one-twelfth of its annual state funding each month would be “inequitable and unfair” and said the district would likely lose that argument before the State Board of Education. The Denver Gazette reported the exchange and also noted that Colorado’s Charter School Institute confirmed it distributes per-pupil funding in twelve equal monthly installments.
Audit, tax cuts and the squeeze
Legal and practical stakes
Board minutes and public records show the district and Merit have met repeatedly this summer and traded formal letters and emails. Woodland Park minutes record discussions about budget shortfalls and note Merit’s growing share of funded pupils, while documents cited by reporters include attorney meeting notes that suggested starting eviction proceedings if the charter refused to renegotiate its building lease. Those records, along with the parties’ correspondence, raise both contract and governance questions about who should shoulder cash-flow risk when districts and the charters they authorize cannot agree on payment timing…