La Plata County will ask voters to approve a 1% increase in sales tax this November to help address the county’s financial challenges.
The tax would raise $1 per $100 in purchases and fund services such as road maintenance, public safety and welfare programs.
“We’re talking core government services here,” Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton said at the Business Discussion meeting Tuesday morning, where the commissioners unanimously approved the motion to include the tax on the ballot.
The tax would apply to most retail sales of goods and certain services, in accordance with state law. Sales of farm equipment – including leases or contracts – would be exempt, as they are with the existing 2% county sales tax.
Vendors would not receive a collection fee, and the revenue would not be shared with municipalities within the county.
The services the tax would help fund include, but are not limited to: the construction and maintenance of county roads, bridges, public buildings and other infrastructure; law enforcement and public safety functions; services and support programs for veterans, seniors and at-risk children and families; and preparation for and response to wildfires, floods and other natural disasters.
Commissioners say that without the additional revenue, the number and quality of those services will be significantly impacted.
“This ballot measure is needed, and the reason for that is because if it does not happen, we’re going to be deeply cutting into our muscle,” Commissioner Matt Salka said.
The county said it has exhausted all of its options and cut all the “extra fat” from its budget. So far, Porter-Norton said the county has cut $8 million, enacted a hiring freeze, implemented vacancy savings and is considering a potential 10% reduction in staff.
But that is not enough.
The county’s budget has a structural problem – much of its revenue depends on the declining gas industry.
“We have been, in La Plata County, propped up by the gas industry for a long time,” Porter-Norton said. “But we are no longer getting the property taxes from oil and gas.”
Property tax revenues from the industry have fallen 77% in the past 15 years, according to a fiscal stability analysis conducted by La Plata County’s Long Term Finance Committee in 2024.
Additionally, the county’s mill levy is the fifth lowest in the state, and its current sales tax rate was set up in the 1980s – and has not increased since.
In 2016, a similar tax increase – this one a property tax – failed to gain voter support.
La Plata County has a sales tax of 2%. In comparison, Archuleta County’s is 4%; Alamosa County’s is 3%; Montezuma County’s is 2.9%; and San Juan County’s is 6.5%.
“If we pass this, we will be right in line with Alamosa County,” Porter-Norton said.
Commissioner Elizabeth Philbrick said the tax is best understood in terms of daily essentials, such as commuting to work on county roads.
“When we are talking about a one-cent tax, I think that it needs to be put in the context of: What does it actually mean to me?” Philbrick said. “To me, it means getting to work.”
She noted that the average person in unincorporated La Plata County drives 10 miles to work and relies on the Road and Bridge Department, which plows 1,500 miles of roads each time it snows.
The county estimated that for the average household, a 1% increase would amount to about $23 more per month.
“I cannot get my porch snow removed for $23 – much less my driveway, and certainly not 10 miles of road to get me to work,” Philbrick said. For her, that $23 a month means being able to run a business and access agricultural water that flows through county-maintained culverts.
“The county doesn’t do anything glamorous,” she said. “What we do is so integral to your day-to-day life that you forget somebody does it.”
The 1% sales tax increase will be included as an initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot.
If passed, the county anticipates it will bring in $18.07 million in additional revenue.
jbowman@durangoherald.com
An earlier version of this story erred in saying La Plata County sought a sales tax increase in 2016. The county sought a property tax increase in 2016 – which failed.
