Shelby Conkle, Senior Legislative Advisor, and Sheldon Rosencrantz, Chief District Operations Officer for the Colorado Department of Education, described a late request to modernize the state's school finance tools.

Conkle said the department started work in 2023 and determined the existing system — effectively operated using spreadsheets — could not meet needs for projections, auditing and flexibility. "This is also the system that runs our auditing components and all of our categoricals. So in total, there's about $10,000,000,000 that run through this system," she said, arguing the system imposes manual burdens on districts and auditors.

Tom Gravy (department staff) told the committee the late request submitted Jan. 2 asked for $3,000,000 this year and an additional $6,000,000 in a later year; the department said the phase‑1 request would fund analysis and a first implementation package. He also said the department's consultant produced a public‑knowledge (PK) report that estimated phase‑1 costs at about $2.9 million.

Representative Marchman proposed a substantially smaller initial appropriation — $600,000 — intended to fund an RFI/RFP, data migration planning, system architecture and initial quality assurance so work could proceed without committing to the full two‑year plan this cycle. She laid out an estimated breakdown she used to arrive at $600,000: an RFI/RFP at about $250,000; data migration planning at $50,000; system architecture and integration at $100,000; and QA at $75,000.

"What I'm advocating for is a $600,000 move forward that would basically get CDE through the RFI and the RFP process, data migration planning, and system architecture," Marchman said. Committee members asked CDE staff to review whether a smaller initial phase would be feasible and how it would affect timelines; CDE said it would follow up with consultants and provide additional analysis before the committee reconvened.

No formal vote was recorded in the transcript. Committee members said they would not necessarily decide immediately and planned to reconvene the following day to finalize prioritization and possible phase‑in amounts.