Denver Public Schools

Denver Schools say lease-financing is lawful, critics say it skirts voter oversight

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In a motion to dismiss filed Friday in response to a lawsuit, Denver Public Schools (DPS) defended its use of lease-purchase agreements — a financing method critics say sidesteps required voter approval for public debt that could leave students without access to their schools if the district defaults.

“This allegedly unlawful ‘scheme’ is actually a common and completely legal method of financing projects for public entities in a manner that is authorized by statute and has been repeatedly ratified by Colorado courts,” DPS officials said in their filing.

As previously reported by The Denver Gazette, DPS has quietly taken on hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term debt through a controversial financing tactic that sidesteps the state’s constitutional ban on assuming debt without public approval.

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Denver Public Schools leased schools through shell corporation, hiding almost $1B in off-book financing

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Denver Public Schools has quietly taken on hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term debt without voter approval — money that could otherwise be used to lower class sizes, increase teacher pay or expand student support services, an investigation by The Denver Gazette has found.

The spending comes as contract negotiations between the district and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) have stalled, with union leaders pointing to the district’s failure to fully fund last year’s cost-of-living adjustment.

Educators have repeatedly called for smaller class sizes, better compensation and stronger student support — the very priorities that advocates say are undermined by rising lease payments tied to long-term debt.

To bypass the Colorado Constitution’s ban on assuming public debt without voter approval, DPS officials employed a workaround widely used in public finance circles but little understood by the public: transferring ownership of schools to a corporation, then leasing the buildings back for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

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DPS Superintendent Marrero delayed closure list before bond vote—used September data anyway

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Last year, when the Denver Public Schools (DPS) Board of Education established guardrails for campus closures, Superintendent Alex Marrero requested a one-time extension before releasing his closure list, citing the need for the October Count enrollment data for his team to complete the analysis.

“I don’t believe that we’re going to have an accurate count no earlier than October,” Marrero told the board during the Aug. 15 meeting, in which he requested additional time.

District documents suggested otherwise — specifically, that the district obtained enrollment numbers in September. In public documents, the September data was cited as justification for the closure list.

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U.S. Department of Education investigating if Denver Public Schools’ ‘all-gender’ restroom discriminates

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The Trump administration’s education department on Tuesday said it is investigating reports that Denver Public Schools converted a girls’ restroom at its flagship high school campus into an “all-gender” facility, calling it “discrimination” against female students.    

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