Arapahoe County will not float tax measures this November

BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

After Arapahoe County’s consideration of potential tax-related measures to help address its nancial crisis, the commissioners decided they will not present voters with any such measures this November.

e county is facing a scal crisis caused by in ation, population growth and the fact that the county’s tax revenue has not kept up with demand for services in recent years, sta explained at an Aug. 8 board meeting.

To remedy the budgetary concerns, the county commissioners discussed oating two potential ballot measures to voters.

One would have proposed a new sales tax to create a dedicated funding stream for speci c services. is would be modeled after the county’s open spaces sales tax, which is currently set at 0.25%.

e other potential ballot measure would have asked voters to release the county from the property tax revenue cap of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), an act commonly known as debrucing.

But after polling and receiving community feedback on these options, commissioners unanimously decided that now is not the time to propose either measure to voters.

“I was really gung ho to try to put something on the ballot this year, but it’s, I don’t think, the year for it,” said District 2 Commissioner Jessica Campbell-Swanson. “I don’t know when the year will be, but it’s a conversation we need to be having.”

The budget issue e budget concerns facing Arapahoe County have been building for years, Michelle Halstead, director of the commissioners’ o ce, said. e pandemic, coupled with population growth, has pushed the urgency of this issue, she said. e county has been able to use American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, funding to maintain many of its services in the short-term. But these funds will reach their end in 2025. e county has a backlog of repairs for vital infrastructure and facilities of over $500 million, Halstead said at the meeting.

“If we do not nd a way to raise revenue in a sustainable way, I think some really devastating things are going to happen in this county,” CampbellSwanson said.

In addition to infrastructure concerns, the county could soon need to consider cuts to programs including regional transportation projects, street sweeping, co-responder programs, public safety o cer trainings, eviction prevention, safety net programs for children and adults, economic development funding for small businesses and more, Halstead said.

Polling shows lukewarm stances on tax measures

At the meeting, sta said the most recent round of polling results showed about half of respondents supporting the sales tax measure and less than 50% of respondents supportive of “de-brucing,” which would allow the county to spend excess tax revenues instead of gving TABOR refunds to residents.

In an interview, District 3 Commissioner Je Baker said the commissioners did not want to place the measures on the ballot if they didn’t expect them to win. Under state statute, if they were to put a sales tax measure to voters in 2023 and the measure were to fail, they could not put it on another ballot until 2025, he said.

Baker said residents may be opposed to the idea of the tax measures because many costs of living – from gas, to groceries, to school supplies – are already getting higher.

He also said the increase in assessment values this year could make many less receptive to the idea of debrucing.

Arapahoe County saw almost a 42% increase in residential values when the assessor’s o ce released property valuations this year, according to County Assessor PK Kaiser. As a result, many homeowners face a double-digit percentage increase in their property tax bill for next year.

“I understand that, after the receipt of the assessment values from the assessor’s o ce, that there’s a lot of folks that were upset with the amount of valuation of their homes that went up,” Baker said in the meeting. “I agree, this is probably not the right year to do (debrucing).”

He added that other counties surrounding Arapahoe have debruced and Arapahoe will need to think about it in the upcoming years.

An ongoing conversation e commissioners all emphasized an overarching sentiment that the county’s budgetary crisis is serious, adding that potential cuts to federal programs might add even more stress. e commissioners committed to working to nd solutions and said the tax measures may still be on the table for next year.

“What I would say to our community and our sta , is that you have our commitment, that we care about you,” Board Chair Carrie Warren-Gully said at the meeting. “We know what the need is, and we want to provide that and we are going to continue to move forward with this conversation.”

In the meantime, the board has asked county departments and o ces to explore what it would look like to cut their budgets by 5%, Baker said. County documents say the goal for the next year’s budget is to focus on maintaining current service levels rather than expanding services.