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DAVIS: ‘Bleed it Dry, Then Get the Hell Out’ – The Fight for Tax Dollars in Woodland Park Schools

The last few days have been pretty crazy for those following the Woodland Park School District. I was going to write up a summary, but Colorado Times Recorder reporter Logan Davis just published a piece that is much better written than anything I could write!

Read the full story here

The only thing I want to add to Logan’s piece though is that yesterday (March 11), the district announced that Ken Witt’s departure would be accelerated. Instead of his last day being April 15, it would be March 11, with Aaron Salt becoming interim superintendent for now. They’ve removed all discussion of the Merit Facility issue from the agenda for their March 12 board meeting and will tackle it in their April meeting instead.

Woodland Park School District 2023 to 2024 Audit Breakdown

Woodland Park needed extra time to compete its FY24 audit (school year 2023-2024), and shortly after the allowed 60 day extension was up, filed it with the state on March 3rd. They posted it to their website Friday, hours after Ken Witt submitted his resignation. When you read through the auditor’s findings, one wonders if there was a connection between those two events?

Click here to access the audit at the district’s website (it’s the WPSD 23.24 document).

WPSD received a Qualified Opinion on their Audit. What is that?
According to the Motley Fool, “A qualified opinion is an auditor’s declaration that there is an area of uncertainty in an [organization’s] financial statements.”

There are many uncertainties cited by the District’s auditor Hoelting & Company. These uncertainties vary in their severity. Per the Internal CPA Review, they are classified as:

  • Material Weaknesses–A deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the entity’s financial statements will not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis.
  • Significant Deficiencies–A deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control that is less severe than a material weakness, yet important enough to merit attention by those charged with governance.

In summary, the District administration has committed dozens of egregious errors and/or failed to control financial reporting processes to the extent that fraud is quite possible and the district’s financial stability is facing a significant risk.

What does this mean?

An audit that uncovers this many errors and lack of controls usually receives a less favorable opinion.

The auditor Hoelting & Co. states on pg. 58 of the audit, “Management is responsible for compliance with the requirements referred to above and for the design, implementation, and maintenance of effective internal control over compliance with the requirements of laws, status, regulations, rules, and provisions of contracts or grant agreements applicable to WPSD…”

So what happened?

In that design, management, and specifically Ken Witt, Aaron Salt, and their oversight of the financial and administrative processes has failed to the extent that district finances are at risk.

Below is a list of “conditions” which led to this Qualified Opinion, as listed in Section II, pg. 61, titled “Financial Statement Findings”:

  1. The District was unable to reconcile and close its books in a timely manner.
  2. Assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenditures all contained material errors that
    were not detected by management.
  3. Lack of supervision, training and resources within the business services department.
  4. The District does not have the proper controls, processes, or personnel in place to analyze, adjust, or independently review account balances prior to audit field work.
  5. The District did not require all “P-Card” (Purchase Card) holders to turn in support other than a receipt, such as expenditure form indicates what line item is effected.
  6. The business services department was not able to provide adequate support for credit card purchases.
  7. Lack of controls over P-Card usage, increasing the risk of error or fraud.
  8. The District could not provide detailed documentation to show who attended trainings and how it complied with District policies.
  9. Lack of control over district travel, increasing the risk of fraud or abuse.
  10. The District was unable to reconcile grants that flowed from CDE to the FDW.
  11. The District was unable to balance grant revenues and expenditures.
  12. 12 grants that did not reconcile the CDE FDW, Twenty-seven state and federal rewards that did not balance, over ten grants were not properly reviewed for deferred revenue, and nine grants that showed collective receivables exceeding one million six hundred
    thousand dollars that could not be substantiated.
  13. Grant revenues, expenditures, and receivables were materially misstated.
  14. The District did not timely complete bank reconciliations. In some cases, for over 6 months.
  15. There is lack of controls over cash, increasing the error of risk and fraud.
  16. The District did not record pupil activities within its general ledger software.
  17. The Pupil Activity Fund was materially misstated.
  18. The District has not correctly recorded BOCES flow through revenue.
  19. The District did not account for a material amount of revenue that was received from BOCES.
  20. The District general ledger did not agree to the final reconciliations with its component unit, nor did it reflect the proper accruals which led to significant audit adjustments due to a lack of controls over component unit accounting.
  21. The District made multiple material journal entries that were erroneous and required substantial work from the audit team to trace and reverse.
  22. There is a lack of controls over review for journal entries, increasing the risk of error or fraud.
  23. The District was not in compliance with CDE reporting requirements.
  24. A lack of controls exists over grant reporting to CDE constituting both a material weakness and material non-compliance over the financial statements.
  25. The district did not accurately account for salaries that should have been accrued.
  26. The District does not have an effective process in place to ensure salary accruals are recorded or reconciled in a timely manner.
  27. The District did not accurately reverse sales tax accruals or record the year-end sales tax accruals.
  28. There is not a system of controls in place related to sales tax revenue and receivables.
  29. The amounts recorded as debt services payments for interest and principal were not correct at year end.
  30. Insufficient controls over posting debt services activity.
  31. Controls over recording investment revenue were not followed. The District did not accurately record interest revenue that was received throughout the year.
  32. Fixed asset additions were materially overstated.
  33. The District did not timely file the annual financial report and the field report did not agree to the general ledger. There is a material weakness in internal controls over grant
    reporting to the CDE.
  34. The District was unable to reconcile and close its books in a timely manner.

It is the District administration’s job to oversee hiring qualified financial staff and to exert sufficient controls and redundancies so as to avoid catastrophic errors like those listed above. When the majority of the Board of Education voted to extend the remarkably unqualified Superintendent Ken Witt’s contract in 2024 without a performance review, President Mick Bates stated that Witt’s “values” aligned with the Board’s. The BOE shares Witt’s values of negligence, inability to lead, ideological indoctrination instead of education, and sheer inability to lead. The current BOE and administration continues to masquerade as a group of classic conservatives who actually proffer a radical progressive agenda that sacrifices ethical and professional standards for ideological and religious ends.

KEN WITT RESIGNS

Ken Witt, who is perhaps the least qualified and most disliked superintendent in the state of Colorado, has resigned from his superintendent role in Woodland Park effective 4/15! Here’s the email from the district about this:

Woodland Park, CO – 03/07/2025 — Woodland Park School District (WPSD) announced today the resignation of Ken Witt as superintendent, effective April 15, 2025, to pursue other opportunities. Aaron Salt, Chief Operating Officer of WPSD, will serve as Interim Superintendent after that date.

“Over the past two and a half years, I have been honored to lead an administrative team that has achieved remarkable milestones in advancing education for our students,” Witt stated. “I hold the board in the highest regard for your steadfast dedication and resolve to better education for all students. Your leadership and passion for creating opportunities have been a constant source of inspiration, and I am deeply grateful for the support and trust you have extended to me during my tenure.”

In recounting the achievements of WPSD in the past two and a half years, Witt added that he takes “great pride in what we have accomplished together, including lifting this district to the top 10% district performance in the state, implementing a laser-focus on academic achievement, instilling a tone of respect for our great nation, and purging DEI and gender ideology. Equally important are achievements including prioritizing the safety of our students by securing our schools with armed security personnel, improving utilization of our facilities while reducing their operating costs, and expanding CTE offerings, growing culinary arts and adding construction trades. Each step forward has been a testament to the power of this board’s vision and this administration’s hard work.”

Witt also stated, “I remain a steadfast advocate for the mission and values of the Woodland Park School District, and an unwavering supporter of this board of education. I am confident that the district will continue to thrive under your guidance, and I look forward to witnessing its continued growth and success.”

This is on the heels of some seriously sloppy financial leadership, leading to a late audit filing and lots of controversy with the local city council which was seeking greater transparency into how supplemental sales tax money was being spent.

A teacher’s perspective on the sales tax debate

If you’re following what’s going on in the Woodland Park school district, you already know that the city council is butting heads with the district administration, demanding more transparency into how the sales tax revenue is spent and even threatening to terminate that tax. An anonymous teacher posted this to the Concerned Parents of Teller County Facebook group recently about this topic (this was in response to a previous post by council member Carrol Harvey seeking public input on this):

Dear Carol,

After seeing your post on Facebook I felt the need to write to you in response to your request for input. As a long-time teacher in WPSD and taxpayer, I support the effort of the council to hold the school district accountable for the sales tax money. Of course I never want to see money taken away from our district but I have reasons that I would like to share with you all.

First of all, I see firsthand every day the district’s lack of understanding of how schools should be run. The people in charge don’t have education experience and don’t spend the district money effectively or even fairly. I get extremely frustrated by the ineptitude of the administrators that earn so much money and don’t know what they are doing, and don’t make any effort to improve the public schools. They have already wasted our reserve fund and continue to spend state and local money improperly.

If the sales tax is supposed to go towards technology, why did the 6th graders at Columbine have no internet for the majority of the first semester? Why are there no new chromebooks or laptops being bought to replace outdated ones?

If the sales tax is supposed to go towards facilities, why do roofs still leak? Why do students in one of Columbine’s modulars still not have drinkable water available in their space? Why have there been several days this year when the heat didn’t work and school even had to close?

If the sales tax is supposed to pay for innovative programs, why was money wasted on new curriculum that costs the district a huge amount of money, requires more teacher training, and lowers test scores for the first few years of implementation? Why did we even need this new curriculum when the district recently purchased perfectly good curriculum that is now sitting in boxes?

If the sales tax is supposed to go to teacher salaries why did teachers receive performance-based raises this year which amounted to very little, even if they achieved their performance goals? Especially teachers who have been dedicated to this district for years, who received zero raise for the years they have been here. First year and new to the district teachers received higher percentages, which seems backward. Why have we lost so many experienced teachers to other districts and why is it so hard to find good teachers who want to work here?

I believe that Merit Academy is benefiting most from the sales tax money at the expense of the few remaining public schools. One of the accounting documents I read stated that 17 of 20 of their teachers are paid using sales tax funds. As a taxpayer I didn’t agree to the money being used for a charter school. I don’t have a problem with charter schools, but I believe they should not take an inequitable amount of the funding. Our district obviously favors the charter school over the public schools and has tied the district’s hands from applying for grants to help the ever-growing population of special needs students in our public schools who need more support. Why would they do this unless they want to see the public schools fail and be replaced by more charter schools?

If the district were being run properly and sales tax money was being spent appropriately and responsibly, I would have no problem with continuing the sales tax. I just hate to see my tax dollars being wasted and put in the hands of individuals who have no business being leaders of a public school district and furthering an agenda that I don’t share.

Thank you for your diligence in holding the district accountable and keeping them from wasting any more of our tax money.

I would appreciate this letter remaining anonymous out of concern for repercussions from the district and community members who are trying to recall you because they are afraid to lose the money they need in order to further their agenda.

While the teacher posted this anonymously, their identity as a teacher in the district has been verified by an admin of that Facebook group.

Jack Bay’s resignation letter (former CFO)

We obtained Jack Bay’s resignation letter via CORA, and you can view it here (also screenshots below). It sounds like Ken Witt and Brad Miller wanted to fire Jack and this letter of resignation was an attempt by Jack to avoid that label (the official district position is that Jack Bay did not resign). It does not paint a picture of a well-run district administrative office. We’ll be watching for the district’s audit to finally be released, it’s due this Saturday (after a 60-day extension).

Specific reasons to remove the sales tax

From the 10/30/2024 Courier:

People of Woodland Park School District: It is time for truth. It is time for actual, factual honesty. The current school board has caused over 40% of teachers and staff to leave the district in the last three years. It has just recently removed many or most benefits from the teachers currently employed, so likely more will leave unless that is rescinded. It has caused parents to transfer over 100 students to other schools. It has caused the NCAA to state twice that athletes from WP cannot receive scholarships because of the social studies “standard” (American Birthright) it adopted that the CO State Board of Education declared not worthy of adoption by any public school district. It has refused millions in grants for mental health services, and some have questioned whether they have violated federal mandates in regards to service for students with special needs. Yet to date, the SB has never provided full and transparent accounting for how and where it has spent the money from the tax revenue it was given.

The way to get that accountability is to take that tax money away at this time. Because you surely care about where your tax money is spent for the school district, it means VOTING YES on the ballot measure is essential so this SB has no access to that money until a fully transparent accounting occurs. The tax can be reinstated when that happens.

Some are saying, (disingenuously?), this action will hurt the students—but they and their parents have already been hurt as those who left demonstrates, and none of those speaking of hurt now said a word of concern as it happened. Those same folks say it will “hurt the teachers and staff” when they have already been devastatingly hurt as all who left demonstrates, and those remaining are still being hurt. When a school board’s leaders intentionally damages a school district it has not earned the trust of the voters in the district. Nor have they earned respect to be trusted to truthfully and transparently report the use of public tax money. Have they been hiding something, and if so, why? The City Council decision is likely the very last opportunity to know with any degree of certainty how that tax money was or will be spent. That is why this ballot measure exists.

So, again I say, for the greater good of all in the school district, VOTE YES on the ballot measure to remove the tax money from this school board. The people of the school district deserve truth and honesty, because truth with actual, factual honesty of how public tax money is spent is not a matter of perspective.

The above is the truthful opinion of this United Methodist Pastor, Retired.

Rodney Noel Saunders

10/30/2024 Letters to the Editor

From the 10/30/2024 Courier:

2A Retail TaxThe Merit BOE consistently puts in effort for their school and has been promoting the Woodland Park School Coalition. Meanwhile, the WPSD BOE and Ken Witt have been unresponsive. Parents have requested town halls, community meetings, and other forms of communication, yet no answers have been given. There is a lack of transparency around the allocation of the retail tax-how is it distributed? Is it based on enrollment, or is there a formula the district uses? The IGA mentions charters and contract schools but there is no clarity. Witt has only stated that nothing will happen with Gateway this year, but what are the districts plans? Are they considering bringing in more brick and mortar schools under ErBOCES or another management company? Are any of these contract schools online and if so, will our local taxes support students outside of our district?

Why have only the charter school and Charis been vocal in support of the retail tax that would allow for more contract schools? Why aren’t we hearing from parents across WPSD? A table was even set up at the Charis event on 10/18, and Charis students are being given class credit to campaign for 2A. This raises important questions : How many more contract schools can WPSD afford?

The community deserves transparency and clear answers from WPSD BOE and Ken Witt about the impact of these changes.

Jeralee Gonzalez, Woodland Park

A better way | Guest column

From the 10/23/2024 Courier:

In April 2016, I voted along with 1,362 Woodland Park citizens to approve the 1.09% increase in city sales taxes to support our school’s post-secondary preparation courses, innovative school programs, technology, staff salaries, and facility maintenance and improvements. At the time, the school district decided to keep the sales tax revenue in the unrestricted general fund instead of creating a separate fund to monitor the restrictions. That was acceptable when district leaders were trusted to make decisions that benefited all of our schools. In the past few years, however, decisions resulting in losses have deteriorated trust in the school board and superintendent. It was also not anticipated 8 1⁄2 years ago that the person deciding how our community sales tax revenue would be spent, Superintendent Ken Witt, wouldn’t even be a member of our community or county. My own conservative values cause me to question the superintendent’s intentions for our schools and whether they align with fiscally conservative principles and our community’s traditionally conservative values.

Love for our schools is one of our community’s strongest values, although some are implying that a vote to revoke the 1.09% sales tax means the voter doesn’t support our teachers or students. That implication assumes that the school sales tax agreement as it currently stands truly serves our students and teachers in the best possible way. I am an actively involved parent in multiple schools in our district, and I can attest that many of our teachers and students don’t feel the benefits of the sales tax the way they should.

If the sales tax is not being managed by trusted leaders and if it isn’t benefitting teachers and students as intended, is there a better way? Here are ideas of how our community can still support our schools, teachers and students if the current sales tax agreement is revoked.

• Rent out the empty Gateway Elementary building to generate revenue for the school district. In 2022, a Long-Range Facilities Master Plan survey asked what community partnerships our district could explore to help utilize unused space in our school buildings. Some suggestions were an Early Childhood Center or a Community Health Center. The most popular option was a Community College.

• Smaller sales tax for COP payments. The current sales tax revenue pays around $720,000 annually for the Certificate of Participation (COP) lease. A smaller sales tax increase could be voted on to cover just the lease payments, which would also be easier to monitor.

• Revamp the school sales tax. If there’s still support for the 1.09% sales tax for our schools, we could hold a new vote with more precise guidelines on fund allocation. For instance, we could allocate a specific percentage of the revenue for staff bonuses and another percentage for career prep courses.

Ultimately, trust in our school leadership is broken, prompting reevaluation. While the 1.09% sales tax was initially seen as a pathway to enhance our educational system, we must consider whether it still effectively serves its purpose.

Laura Gordon

10/23/2024 Letters to the Editor

From the 10/23/2024 Courier:

Need a tax diet

As a longtime resident of Woodland Park of 31 years, it seems to me all levels of government, City, County, State to include school districts never seem to have enough money. Property taxes have skyrocketed, so has auto and homeowners insurance, (if you can get it).

Look at your receipt when you leave the grocery store, check your utility and cable bill at the taxes and fees added on. Look at your property tax bill, we pay a county, city, RE-2 School tax, along with a Ute Pass Regional Health tax, along with some others. Now they want more.

This went on in California in the 1970s until Proposition 13 was passed. The government used scare tactics to try and fool voters into thinking essential services would disappear. Fortunately it didn’t work. It’s time for Government to go on a tax diet.

Bill Huffor Sr., Woodland Park

A Conflict of Interest—over Your Taxes? | Guest column

From the 10/16/2024 Pikes Peak Courier:

Why would parents and community members caring deeply about our schools ask the city council to return the sales tax question to voters?

Having served on the Board of Education (BOE) in 2016 when this tax was requested of citizens, I was curious. For those I talked with, desperation played a central role. They described a sense of powerlessness with an unresponsive, fiscally irresponsible BOE and superintendent, who favor the district’s charter school, Merit Academy (MA), over the four traditional schools.

Since Mr. Witt’s hiring, not all changes have been negative. Yet peculiar financial happenings warrant taxpayers’ attention.

The board amended its contract with MA to include student transportation. While parents pay the same fee as other schools, MA itself does not share the larger cost of just under $1,000,000—a cost instead paid by funding for the other four schools.

This year, MA was given the middle school building—with a functional capacity of 900 students. Roughly 500 students currently use it. Yet down the street, Columbine sixth graders remain in portable buildings due to space shortage. And a small corner of the high school building confines WPMS.

Witt, of note, is simultaneously employed full-time as the Executive Director of ERBOCES—an alternative-education business and charter school advocate. ERBOCES actually lists MA among its own “Brick and Mortar Schools,” and funded a loan to MA in 2021, expected to be paid off in 2028. (Also of interest, Witt personally donated $1200 to Merit last year—though not the other WPSD schools).

Consider that administrative costs paid by MA to WPSD was $136,190 in 2023—an amount based on tracked hours worked. After Mr. Witt’s arrival this dropped to $31,295 in 2024. Even with increased number of students at MA.

Sadly, since Witt’s WPSD hiring, an all-time high of 554 students chose education options outside WPSD last year—a financial hit, too, at $10,276/pupil. ERBOCES gained 96 of those students (four years ago, it was 17). Early estimates are an additional decline of 172 WPSD students for 2024-2025.

As we observe this man who lives an hour from us—could this be a conflict of interest? Is he truly working for our community’s interests? For all our children? All of our schools?

Further, Mr. Witt’s staff provided our BOE with an unbalanced budget…twice. Passed twice (with egregious errors). His assertion that transportation is fully state-reimbursed failed to account $979,768 of district costs. Yet the BOE rated him 4/4 as excels in “leadership in the fiscal management of the District.”

What will the upcoming audit show? Will the Superintendent allow the auditors to present their findings to the public? What’s the status of the fund balance (i.e. savings) this BOE and superintendent spend at alarming, unsustainable rates?

This district is not listening to all parents in this community. Whether you vote no—to retain the tax— or yes to remove the tax, stay involved. Hold the board accountable for a superintendent who, at best, has divided interests.

Carol Greenstreet