WEEK OF APRIL 10, 2025
VOLUME 80 | ISSUE 25
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Colorado GOP picks Horn as party chair Horn replaces Williams, vows to unite party and boost fundraising BY JESSE PAUL COLORADO SUN
Brita Horn, a former Routt County treasurer, was elected March 29 to serve as the next chair of the Colorado GOP, vowing to unite the highly fractured party, boost fundraising and show up for candidates as Republicans look to right their wayward ship in 2026. “We have so much division, we have so much distraction,” she told members of the Colorado GOP’s central committee. “Guess what the Democrats are doing right now? They’re winning elections.” Horn, who ran unsuccessfully in 2018 for state treasurer, won 53% of the party chair vote in the second round of voting over former Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine. There were about 440 members of the Colorado GOP casting ballots at the party’s reorganization meeting in Colorado Springs. Horn beat out six other candidates for the job, including Saine, former state Rep. Richard Holtorf, and Darcy Schoening, SEE HORN, P6
2025
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Adams 12 Superintendent Chris Gdowski explains the district’s financial position on Friday, March 28.. PHOTO BY MONTE WHALEY
Adams 12 schools facing $27 million cuts At least 150 positions will be shed as the district faces a $27 million deficit BY MONTE WHALEY MWHALEY@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Adams 12 Five Star Schools will shed 150 positions for the 202526 year as part of $27 million in cuts in the district’s budget. It’s a move that will hurt the most vulnerable students needing the most academic help, longtime Superintendent Chris Gdowski said Friday. “I am angry and sad that we have to make these decisions because of decades our state has failed to prioritize education funding,” he said in a letter to the
VOICES: PAGE 8 | CULTURE: PAGE 10 | CALENDAR: PAGE 13
district’s parents. The reductions will be varied and deep, Gdowski said. Those losing jobs include classroom teachers as well as teacher librarians, gifted and talented advocates and those helping students who need one-on-one help with literacy and math. Also gone will be some art, music and physical education instructors and social emotional specialists who address student mental health and behavioral needs in the district’s Title 1 schools, Gdowski said. The result will be larger class-
room sizes, libraries without librarians and fewer staff members to offer targeted instruction for academic intervention, said Gdowski, who has led the 35,000-enrollment district for 16 years. Self imposed
He said the Thornton-based district has faced other budget problems including during the Great Recession of 2008 and COVID-19 restrictions. But this latest round of cuts is largely self-imposed because the state refuses to help districts like Adams 12 which lag behind neigh-
boring districts like Boulder and Westminster in supplemental funding. Voters in both of those districts recently passed tax measures to help bolster their classrooms, Gdowski said. In November, district voters backed a $830 million bond issue to modernize buildings but turned away a request for a $34.5 million mill levy override to help hire new teachers. The measure, if successful, would have lessened the financial problems facing Adams 12, Gdowski said. SEE CUTS, P6
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