District overview
Funding structure, how it compares to peers, and where major projects stand.
Gunnison Watershed School District RE1J serves about 2,000 students in Gunnison and Crested Butte, Colorado. Like other Colorado districts, most operating money comes from the state school finance formula, which pays per student and is topped up by a local property-tax mill levy. The board certified the 2025 levy at 26.677 mills in December 2025. A $95 million bond that voters narrowly approved in 2022 is paying for building work across the district. A five-member elected board adopts the budget and hires the superintendent, Bill Summers, who started July 1, 2026.
In April 2026 the finance director said enrollment was down 88 students from August 2025. Fewer students means less state money, and she set a goal of a balanced budget by FY27.
The board adopted the FY26-27 budget, appropriation and use of beginning fund balance on June 22, 2026, all by 5-0 votes. The packet and minutes do not give a single total in the pages read.
The facilities improvement program has a total budget of $121,604,785 (February 2026), managed with an owner's representative, Artaic Group. Contingency was about $5.2 million in January 2026 and about $1.3 million in August 2026.
Five board members elected from two areas (north and south of Round Mountain) serve four-year terms. Three seats come up in November 2027.
The district's auditor called its finance team stellar when the FY2025 audit was accepted in December 2025, and the bond project was reported on budget. The decline in students and the end of bond contingency are pressures to watch, not signs of mismanagement.
National Center for Education Statistics figure; not from a district document.
Renovation and construction at district schools, including a new learning space at Crested Butte Community School and upgrades at Gunnison schools. The board gets monthly updates from Artaic Group.
Voter-approved 2022 bond ($95 million) plus other project funds
An evaporative cooling system for Gunnison Community School, about $2 million, was debated in February and subcontracted to Alpha Mechanical in April.
Bond project contingency
Students keep phones silent and put away. The April draft makes elementary and middle schools phone-free all day and high schools phone-free during class.
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Dr. Leslie Nichols resigned in December 2025. After a search with McPherson and Jacobson, the board hired William Summers, who began July 1, 2026.
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Colorado school board elections are held in odd-numbered Novembers. The terms of Anne Brookhart, Jody Coleman and Mark VanderVeer, who joined in 2019/2023, end in 2027. The district has not yet published candidate or filing information.
Official source · verified Nov 6, 2026
Practical guides to school phone policies, district budgets, and administrator hiring.
Explore resources →Built from board agendas, packets and approved minutes posted on gunnisonschools.net (November 2025 to November 2026). Many minutes are scanned, so the first pages of each were read by OCR.
We read every agenda, packet, recording, and set of minutes, and write up the decisions that affect families — each one linked to the document it came from.
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