La Plata County commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved a significantly pared-down budget for 2025.
With some anguish about cuts – the 2025 budget outlines a 25% decrease in spending from the adopted 2024 budget – county administrators outlined in brief next year’s revenue and spending.
County officials anticipate $136 million in spending next year, down from $181 million budgeted for this year.
Thanks to tax relief measures taken by the state Legislature, the county’s property tax revenue is expected to drop by $2.3 million next year. Sales tax revenue is expected to grow by $700,000. The county is also saying goodbye to one-time federal stimulus money allocated by the American Rescue Plan Act, which has been spent.
All those factors, and several others, mean the county is bracing for a $12.7 million, or 11%, dip in revenue next year compared with the actual estimated total revenue for 2024. The drop from the county’s originally budgeted 2024 revenue is almost 17%.
Actual 2024 spending is estimated at $129 million. A significant chunk of the disparity between what was budgeted in 2024 and what was spent comes from capital projects that didn’t get done in 2024 – and won’t in 2025.
Tuesday’s formal vote followed numerous public meetings in recent months, during which officials wrestled with how to fill a hole in the budget that, at one time, was $6.3 million deep.
The document outlines “a very conservative approach” to achieving the Board of County Commission’s priorities, County Manager Chuck Stevens said during the budget presentation.
General government services – those provided by administrative elected officials including the BOCC, assessor, clerk and recorder and treasurer – will retain the largest slice of the pie, albeit one that shrunk from 43% in 2024 to 29% in 2025.
The public safety category, which includes the Sheriff’s Office, the 6th Judicial District Attorney’s Office and the coroner, is projected to use 28% of county expenditures, a jump from 22% in this year’s budget. Staff members propose that the health and welfare services’ share of the pie grow slightly to 18%, the recreation and culture sector grow from 6% to 11% and the public works sector grow from 13% to 14%.
The budget message that prefaces the 124-page document, written by Stevens and County Finance Director Adam Rogers, paints a grim but candid picture of the impacts of decreased spending.
County staff members will receive 2% raises next year, which does not keep pace with inflation or offer any merit-based increase; although departments requested the additions of about 10 positions, only one will be added and more than 20 will be held open as vacancy savings; and maintenance will be deferred on projects such as the replacement of roofs and HVAC systems in county buildings.
The county enters 2025 with about $67 million on hand in its five major funds. It is projected to end the year with $39 million in those accounts, of which about $16 million is unassigned.
In accordance with guidance from the board, the county has been spending down that fund balance in recent years so it is sitting on less taxpayer money. But inevitably, questions arise over why that money isn’t used to cover the deficit.
“You would never spend fund balance on an operating expense,” Stevens said in an interview with The Durango Herald. “So why can’t you give raises? Why can’t you pave my road? Those are operational expenses. It doesn’t fix the structural deficiency in the budget.”
In essence, those one-time surplus funds should be used on one-time expenditures, and not to address the ongoing problem of revenues that fail to cover expenses.
County officials blame state lawmakers, in part, for that predicament.
In response to skyrocketing property values, the state Legislature passed a property tax relief bill during a special session in 2023 called by the governor after his complex plan for property tax relief failed. The resulting legislation cut the assessment rate used to determine the taxable value of a home and increased the amount of a home’s value that is exempt from taxation.
Then, in 2024, facing ballot measures that would have brought local governments to their knees, the Legislature slashed property taxes in a similar manner once again for tax year 2025.
“That’s a good news story for anybody that owns property in Colorado – we understand that and we appreciate that,” Stevens told the BOCC in a mildly morose tone. “The unintended consequence of that, though, is local governments and districts who rely on property taxes are now seeing a reduction in the primary source of revenues that we rely upon to provide services to our constituents.”
The state has its own budgetary struggles and the county isn’t trying to poke state officials in the eyes, Stevens told the Herald. However the levers lawmakers have chosen to soften the blow of rising property taxes have far-reaching impacts, he said.
Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton during the meeting lambasted the state’s actions to grow the county’s responsibilities while cutting its revenue.
“We may be having to look at what those statutory mandates are that seem to pile up year after year after year from the Legislature, with very little recognition that 64 counties in Colorado are the ones that pay,” she said.
The county mill levy will be formally certified at a meeting on Dec. 19.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
