Public schools will not get $26.2 million that would normally be available to them to cover enrollment growth and low property tax collections, lawmakers decided Monday.

The additional money would be voted routinely in a normal year. But the Joint Budget Committee voted unanimously to withhold the additional funds at a time of deep cuts in state government. JBC members voiced reluctance about the vote.

"It's going to hit them," said Sen. Moe Keller, D-Wheat Ridge, the JBC chairwoman. Her own school district, Jefferson County, is already making cuts because ballot issues failed in November, Keller noted.

Many of the districts have built the additional money into their budgets, said Bruce Caughey, the associate director of the Colorado Association of School Executives.

"It's going to be tough (to make cuts) this late in the year," Caughey said.

Most of the money was to cover the cost of about 2,100 kids above the estimate on which the state budget was based.

Also, state funding was based on an estimate of property tax revenue that has turned out to be $9 million too high.

The difference occurs because building projects were scrapped and did not get on the tax rolls.