Photo courtesy Jeff Laydon, Pagosa Photography.
Work is nearing completion on an expansion of the Ruby Sisson Memorial Library on S. 8th Street. The $5 million library expansion is not the only government construction project we’ve seen over the past couple of decades.
The Archuleta County government put the taxpayers rather deeply into debt building a new County Detention Center, without voter approval. The County also built — without voter approval — a new County Courthouse, a new Department of Human Services building, and a new Transit Center, and expanded the County Sheriff’s offices and Road and Bridge Department. The commissioners recently bought a vacant parcel in Aspen Village as the site for a proposed Administration Building.
In 2016, the Town of Pagosa Springs completed a new wastewater pipeline to pump downtown sewage seven miles uphill to the PAWSD Vista Treatment Plant, at a cost of about $10 million, which unfortunately then caused PAWSD to need a $10 million treatment plant upgrade. The voters didn’t approve either of those projects.
PAWSD is just completing a new $40 million water treatment plant on Snowball Road. Also built without voter approval.
On Wednesday, the Archuleta School District Board of Education discussed a proposed property tax increase to fund a new school complex at a cost of perhaps $126 million. Voter approval would be needed for such a bond issue. More about that discussion, on Monday.
We should note that most the dollar figures quoted above represent borrowed money, and when you add the interest payments to the loan or bond, the final debt approaches 200% of the original cost.
On June 1, we heard a presentation from Pagosa Springs Medical Center CEO Dr. Rhonda Webb, about a possible ballot measure in November that would ask voters to extend PSMC’s expiring TABOR waiver. The ballot measure would likely not ask for a tax rate increase, she said — just a renewal of the waiver.
I suspect that the continuing success of our local hospital is desired by most folks living in Archuleta County, and by most local business and government leaders. As the average age in our community has slowly crept up to 52 years old — compared to the 38 years in Colorado overall — health care has become an ever-more-important aspect of the Pagosa economy.
I can hardly imagine active voters — who tend to be older residents — turning down a request for renewal of TABOR limits for PSMC. The financial impacts of a TABOR waiver can be hard to define, however.
TABOR (the Taxpayer Bill of Rights) was added to Article X of the Colorado Constitution in 1992 by the state’s voters, with the stated intention of preventing run-away growth of state and local government by tying the increases in government revenues and spending to population growth and inflation. The voters modified TABOR in 2005 through Referendum C, which gave the state government a five-year waiver of TABOR limits, with the extra revenues to be spent on K-12 education, higher education, health care, firefighter and police officer retirement plans, and transportation.
Following the 2005 election, the Colorado Joint Budget Committee released this statement:
Children will have repaired schools. Students will have affordable college tuition. Low-income Coloradans will have access to improved health care. These are some of the results of a budget agreement between Democratic leadership and the governor.
“The investments we are able to make in our kids, our schools and our infrastructure show how much Ref C is helping us down the road to economic recovery,” said JBC Chair Tom Plant, D-Boulder.
In 2006, Archuleta County approached local voters with a similar idea. “Waive our TABOR limitations for just five years, and we will fix the county roads and improve local recreational opportunities!” the County government promised. “It’s not a tax rate increase! You just allow us to keep all the taxes you pay, instead of giving you a refund…” The voters were willing to try it, and approved Measure 1A.
In 2006, the County had collected about $3.3 million in property taxes. Had the County remained under TABOR limits, they could have been collecting and spending about $4.2 million by 2011.
But at the end of the five years, due to Measure 1A, the County was instead collecting $7.8 million in property taxes — nearly double the TABOR-limited estimate — and retaining all of it. And this, while the Pagosa community was struggling through the Great Recession. Unfortunately, the roads were basically still in the same poor condition as before.
The Board of County Commissioners went back to the voters and asked to have the TABOR waiver extended.
The voters gave them a resounding, “No, thank you. We want you to be limited by TABOR.”
When approving the 2026 Archuleta County budget, the Board of County Commissioners were required, by TABOR limitations, to reduce the property tax mill levy slightly, as a method for refunding the taxpayers a total of about $2.1 million.
Certain other government districts in Pagosa did not have to adjust their mill levies, or provide refunds, because they are ‘de-Bruced’.
The Upper San Juan Health Service District — the tax-funded government district that operates the Pagosa Springs Medical Center and our local ambulance service — has not yet made a decision whether to ask for an extension of its TABOR waiver. In order to get such a request on the November ballot, the district will need to make a decision before the end of August. The USJHSD Board could, conceivably, also ask for a mill levy increase, but PSMC CEO Rhonda Webb suggested on June 1 that the Board is not leaning in that direction.
Knowing that America’s health care system is broken and not likely to be fixed anytime soon, I would probably vote in favor of extending PSMC’s TABOR waiver. The increase to my total property tax bill would be relatively insignificant, in the near term. In fact, if property values start dropping in Archuleta County — as they appear to be doing — PSMC might receive less tax money regardless of any waiver.
Tax policy is definitely a complicated animal.
I attended a work session of the Archuleta School District (ASD) Board of Education on Wednesday evening, and listened to a discussion related to a proposed $126 million school facility that might be funded partly by an increase in local property taxes. This would be a more significant impact than what PSMC is proposing.
I have some ideas about that ASD proposal that I can share on Monday.