County commissioner discusses revenue, housing needs

BY TAYLER SHAW TSHAW@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

From budgetary concerns to housing needs, Arapahoe County Commissioner Jessica CampbellSwanson covered a breadth of topics during her May 17 town hall at Koelbel Library in Centennial. Arapahoe County is split into ve districts, each represented by a county commissioner.

Campbell-Swanson was elected in November to represent District 2, which includes parts of Centennial, Greenwood Village, Aurora and unincorporated Arapahoe County.

“ is is my rst town hall, so thanks for being here,” she told attendees. “It’s been an incredibly crazy, wild, busy four months. And it’s been really amazing to learn as much as I can, as quickly as possible.”

In a lot of ways, the commissioners act as CEOs and policy makers of the county, she said.

“We’re your city council for unincorporated areas but … we direct everything that happens in terms of strategic and the policy, vision and the goals,” Campbell-Swanson said.

“What makes a really great com- missioner is being well-read, studied up on what’s happening and being present,” she added. “I sit and focus and try to really be present with the information that I’m receiving so I’m asking important questions — because, largely, we are decision makers.”

Among the many topics Campbell-Swanson covered during the two-hour event were two pressing needs in the county: revenue and access to housing.

The need for revenue e rst-year commissioner said the county has an almost $500 million budget, half of which is from federal and state grants and the other half is from property taxes.

One of the top priorities for the county commissioners is addressing the budget, speci cally the need for revenue.

Campbell-Swanson said the county is looking at a roughly $3 million de cit for 2024.

“When I rst started even thinking about running for o ce, I started hearing about how tight the Arapahoe County budget was. And … how we’ve been making magic happen for a very long time and squeezing, you know, $1.50 out of every dollar,” she said.

“People don’t realize that the bulk of those property taxes that are being collected are actually going to special districts and school districts,” she said. “We actually only get about $430 per home.”

A strain on the budget is the impact of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, she said.

TABOR generally limits the amount of revenue governments in Colorado can retain and spend, and it requires excess revenue to be refunded to taxpayers, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue.

To avoid this revenue cap, 51 out of the 64 counties in Colorado have “debruced,” meaning they have eliminated the government spending limit and allow the government to retain and spend all of the revenue it collects under existing tax rates, according to e Bell Policy Center.

“We are one of 13 counties … in the state that have not ‘debruced,’” Campbell-Swanson said.

She noted the county also has not passed a new sales tax for 20 years.

“And yet, during that time, we have grown exponentially,” she said. “Demands and needs are high.” e county’s road and bridge projects get $6 million annually from the general fund in the budget, she said. e county is exploring a variety of options to increase revenue, such as potentially renting out county property, Campbell-Swanson explained.

Arapahoe County is currently home to about 655,000 people. e population is projected to increase to roughly 800,000 people by 2030, she said, explaining that a goal for the county is to ensure it is growing sustainably.

“We are unable to keep up with our aging — our infrastructure needs,” she said, adding that a lot of roads in the county need work done on them.

“On top of that 6 million, we need about another 12 to 13 million per year for the next 19 years to actually catch up,” she said.

“ e other thing is we’re exploring ballot measures,” she said. “We are exploring that for this fall.” e county commissioners held a telephone town hall on May 18 to further discuss the funding challenges the county faces. ose interested in hearing that town hall can visit bit.ly/townhall0518.

A decision on whether or not to ask ballot questions will be made around July or August, she said.

Housing needs

Increasing access to a ordable and attainable housing is a goal for the county commissioners, Campbell-Swanson said.

About 30% of Arapahoe County residents are cost burdened, meaning they are spending more than 30% of their gross income on housing and utilities, she said.

Roughly half of those people are severely cost burdened, meaning they are spending more than 50% of their income on housing, she said. e county is in the process of lining up a vendor who will do a housing needs assessment for the county, she said. It is also updating its land-use code and looking at what grants and programs may be available to help increase access to housing.

“We have some numbers that show people are spending up to 63% of their income on just having a place to live,” Campbell-Swanson said.

In some zip codes, there is no housing for sale or to rent that is a ordable at the 80% area median income (AMI) level, or even up to 120% AMI in some cases, she said.

According to Arapahoe County’s website, the median household income is $82,710.

“ at is an incredible problem,” she said.

“We are starting to entertain ideas and put things into motion to look at how we can be more aggressive and proactive as a county in standing up our own housing, and working, and partnering, and subsidizing housing,” she said.

Eviction prevention is an ongoing focus for the county, she said.

Arapahoe County used funding it got through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) toward programs such as eviction prevention, she said.

“As we look at ARPA dollars and … as some projects that we had maybe allocated dollars for are peeling o , we’re gonna continue to reallocate those dollars and can put some to eviction prevention,” CampbellSwanson said.

“However, because there were ARPA dollars that funded a lot of our eviction prevention work, if we don’t gure out the increased revenue situation, then … that’s on the chopping block for things that we may not be able to do moving forward,” she added.

Campbell-Swanson said that in December 2022, Arapahoe County was No. 1 in evictions in the state.

“ at is not an award you want to win,” she said.

Addressing homelessness

e amount of people experiencing homelessness in Arapahoe County has been growing, Campbell-Swanson said.

“ e number of our unhoused neighbors has doubled in the last two years,” she said.

e Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s 2022-2023 State of Homelessness report said the Homeless Management Information System showed 27,860 people accessed services related to homelessness between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022.

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