Students Subjected To A School Safety Incident

Current law allows nonresident pupils from other school districts within the state to enroll in a school district without requiring the nonresident pupils to pay tuition but gives the school district the authority to deny enrollment to nonresident pupils after the pupil enrollment count day. The bill requires a school district to allow enrollment of nonresident pupils after the pupil enrollment count day if the student has been subjected to a school safety incident.

Current law allows contributions to a qualified state tuition program, also known as a 529 account, so long as the distributions are used for qualified higher education expenses, with some exceptions, but not for elementary and secondary tuition expenses. The federal "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act", which became law in December 2017, added distributions for tuition expenses in connection with enrollment or attendance at an elementary or secondary public, private, or religious school as qualified distributions, thereby allowing, on the federal level, income tax-free distributions for certain elementary and secondary education expenses in addition to already authorized income tax-free distributions for higher education expenses.

The bill makes similar, but limited, changes to Colorado law to allow a deduction for contributions to qualified state tuition programs for tuition expenses for a student who has been subjected to a school safety incident in connection with enrollment or attendance at an elementary or secondary public, private, or religious school. The bill designates such expenses for a student who has been subjected to a school safety incident as qualified distributions, which ensures that a taxpayer does not encounter tax recapture of any claimed deductions when such contributions are distributed for tuition expenses for a student who has been subjected to a school safety incident in connection with enrollment or attendance at an elementary or secondary public, private, or religious school.

(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)