Photo: Archuleta County staged a campaign in 2022 to increase the community’s sales tax to fund, primarily, better road maintenance. The voters rejected the tax increase by a 3-to-1 margin.
As noted yesterday in Part Four, people often disagree on the “facts”… and on whether the “facts” are even important. In an age of “artificial intelligence”, we are learning that “facts” are now typically defined by multi-billion-dollar tech corporations, by way of secret computer algorithms.
Just to be clear, we don’t use secret computer algorithms to write original content here at the Daily Post. Whether our many contributing writers are using AI to help them construct their stories, I cannot say. And whether the websites we visit to acquire additional “facts” are AI-driven, I cannot say. It’s a weird world we live in.
All this is by way of confirming that I did not attend the March 25 ‘Interactive Community Forum’ where the Archuleta County staff and Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Manager shared thoughts about water resources, housing, road maintenance, and potential future tax measures on the November ballot. To fill out this editorial, I relied on email input from County Commissioner John Ranson, and County Manager Longinos Gonzalez Jr. as well as a thoughtful summary of the meeting posted on social media by local businessman Joel Hellwege.
Plus, an article about the forum published in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN newspaper.
Nevertheless, I’ve still managed to form some opinions about the forum. (Can’t help it. See my bio, below.)
From the Pagosa Springs SUN article about the March 25 forum composed by staff writer Clayton Chaney, whom I find to be careful and accurate newspaper reporter:
“I try not to make promises that I cannot keep, but I will promise everybody here that in my remaining three years we will have more money contributed and allocated directly to roads,” Ranson said.
This is not John Ranson’s first rodeo as a County Commissioner. He also served in that capacity about 15 years ago, during a time when the County was digging itself out of a near-bankruptcy. One of my memories of Commissioner Ranson from that period was his push to repair Park Avenue, a key road in the Pagosa Lakes area that was, that that time, something of a disaster. If memory serves, Commissioner Ranson accomplished this feat by convincing his fellow commissioners to borrow $4.5 million through ‘Certificates of Participation’.
The loan was secured by mortgaging the old Archuleta County Courthouse in downtown Pagosa, as I recall. Some would call this, “creative financing”.
Commissioner Ranson has gone out on a limb somewhat, by making a public promise about “more money contributed and allocated directly to roads.” We have three County commissioners and at least two of them need to agree, in order to increase or decrease financial allocations. It’s a group decision.
But we have to ask: is more money allocated to County Road & Bridge a real solution to our seemingly unsolvable road maintenance problem?
Let’s say, for example, that the County could find an additional $1 million annually to pay for road maintenance. This is actually feasible. If the voters were to approve, next November, a change to the Archuleta County Lodgers Tax, and increase the tax from the current 1.9% to a new 6%… and all the new revenues was dedicated to Road & Bridge… that could increase the Road & Bridge budget by an estimated $1 million.
The increased tax would be paid entirely by people staying in motels and vacation rentals. That is, by tourists.
At the February ‘Interactive Community Forum’ an overwhelming majority of audience comments seemed to support a 6% Lodging Tax.
From Mr. Chaney’s SUN article about the March 25 meeting:
Public Works Director Mike Torres spoke about the state of the county’s Road and Bridge Department. He noted the county has more than 400 miles of dirt roads and 60 miles of asphalt roads to maintain. Torres mentioned that he started as Public Works Director in 2023 and “stepped into quite a mess.”
He also explained that “this year we were faced with quite a budget cut.”
[County Manager Longinos] Gonzalez clarified that the “budget cut” did not entail an actual cut to the annual budget for Road and Bridge, but that the commissioners over the past few years have “very consciously” spent reserve funds to get road projects completed.
He explained that the reserve fund is now at a point where it is no longer possible to keep drawing from it to supplement road project funds.
The “budget cut” for 2026 was reflected in the “Roads handout” provided to the Forum participants.
From that handout:
Annual R&B Budget (Maintenance & Capital Projects):
• 2023 = $7,614,975
• 2024 = $5,634,255
• 2025 = $4,796,112
• 2026 = $2,446,500
Obviously, adding $1 million to the 2026 R&B Budget would not even bring the department up to the level of the 2025 allocation… which was about 60% of the 2023 allocation. Not that a 6% Lodging Tax is necessarily a terrible thing… but it’s not a solution.
Looking more closely at the situation, we can note a few key issues. For one, the cost of everything our governments buy — asphalt, computers, gas, electricity, concrete, vehicles, labor — and especially contract labor — has increased enormously over the past ten years.
For another thing, the allocations to “Maintenance & Capital Projects” do not actually reflect the amount the County is paying to run the Road & Bridge Department. If we look at the County’s 2026 budget document, we find these numbers:
As we can see, the amount of revenue flowing into the Road & Bridge Department has increased compared to 2023.
But the amount spent on “Maintenance & Capital Projects” has seen a steady decrease. How can this be explained?
Looking at 2023, for example, the Road & Bridge Fund had revenues of $7.0 million — coming mainly from local sales tax, local property tax, and HUTF. (The Highway Users Tax Fund — HUTF — is a primary source of road system funding in Colorado.) But althought the R&B Fund had revenues of only $7.0 million, the County allocated $12.0 million to road maintenance and projects.
Where did that extra $5 million come from? Basically, from R&B Fund reserve savings that had been carefully stashed away over the past decade.
The County had been collecting R&B revenues in a savings account. For a rainy day? For some really big projects?
Since 2023, the BOCC has been spending down the R&B reserves to complete some major projects. And now, the savings are essentially gone. Thus, the budget for “Maintenance & Capital Projects” in 2026 is but a fraction of the amount spent in 2023.
Annual R&B Budget (Maintenance & Capital Projects):
• 2023 = $7,614,975
• 2024 = $5,634,255
• 2025 = $4,796,112
• 2026 = $2,446,500
Over the past year, Commissioner John Ranson has often warned us that we — the citizens served by the County road system — must find additional revenues for Road & Bridge. And it’s possible that up to $1 million could be generated by an increased Lodging Tax, if the voters approve the change.
I’m afraid, however, that $1 million is not going to get us where we want to be.