{"id":133661,"date":"2026-06-17T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-best-tax-is-one-that-somebody-else-pays-cortez-montezuma-county-consider-lodgers-tax-increase\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T23:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T05:30:15","slug":"the-best-tax-is-one-that-somebody-else-pays-cortez-montezuma-county-consider-lodgers-tax-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-best-tax-is-one-that-somebody-else-pays-cortez-montezuma-county-consider-lodgers-tax-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The best tax is one that somebody else pays\u2019: Cortez, Montezuma County consider lodgers tax increases"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"If
If Cortez City Council decides to put forth a ballot question proposing a lodgers tax increase, hotels and short term rental management companies would be required to collect up to 4% more in fees from bookings. The increase in revenue for the city could go toward parks and recreation, infrastructure or tourism initiatives, but council has yet to decide. (Ann Marie Vanderveen\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The city of Cortez and Montezuma County have uncharacteristically low lodgers tax rates for the Western Slope \u2013 but that could change if recent discussions between public officials are any indication.<\/p>\n

Cortez City Council and the Montezuma Board of County Commissioners separately considered drafting questions for the November ballot proposing increases to the lodgers tax in their respective jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

A lodgers tax is the fee charged by a city or county to visitors booking short-term rentals or hotel rooms. Cortez\u2019s current lodgers tax rate of 2% applies to accommodations within city limits. Montezuma County\u2019s is 1.9% and applies to bookings in the unincorporated areas of the county, which excludes the municipalities of Cortez, Dolores and Mancos.<\/p>\n

During a workshop June 9, City Council favored proposing an increased lodgers tax rate of 6% to voters in the November election. County commissioners backed a similar proposal during their meeting earlier the same day, asking the county attorney to begin work on a ballot measure increasing the lodgers tax to 5%.<\/p>\n

City Manager Drew Sanders demonstrated just how low Cortez\u2019s lodgers tax is compared to other Colorado towns. He pointed to Durango\u2019s 5.25% lodgers tax rate and Rico\u2019s 7% rate.<\/p>\n

Archuleta and La Plata counties are considering a hike to 6%, while Dolores and San Juan sounties are holding at 2%.<\/p>\n

Mesa Verde Country CEO Brian Bartlett, who provides tourism and marketing management to the city and county, said in a June 8 presentation to commissioners a 5% increase to the county\u2019s lodgers tax would generate a projected boost of $391,000 in lodgers tax revenue.<\/p>\n

The money could benefit tourism in the area without raising property taxes on residents, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe long-term tourism and economic development planning would be greatly enhanced,\u201d Bartlett said. \u201cAnd it would give us an ability, finally, to create some reserve funding for tourism resiliency in case of fire events, drought impacts or catastrophic situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cortez typically allocates lodgers tax revenue to Mesa Verde Country and the city\u2019s beautification grant that provides businesses with funding to improve their facades. Mesa Verde Country received $125,000 of the $251,000 collected in lodgers taxes last year for tourism marketing this year. This year, the city also plans to spend around $25,000 from lodgers tax revenue toward tourism data collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are self-funded for everything from schools to roads to water \u2013 you name it,\u201d Sanders said. \u201cWe do have a sales tax and that helps, but things like a lodgers tax could also help a little bit more. And the best tax is one that somebody else pays, not our community members.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council discussed other uses for higher lodgers tax revenue, including upgrades to the recreation center. Council member Claire West advocated for the money to be distributed to infrastructure and city maintenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe infrastructure is a basic component of the tourism,\u201d West said. \u201cIf we have the most beautiful advertisements, but our roads are full of potholes, it\u2019s not going to encourage revisiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Journal<\/em> on June 16, Sanders said council needs to narrow down its priorities for the allocation of revenue generated from a higher lodgers tax. He will return to City Council on July 14 with specific suggestions for any future revenue uses, in the hopes that a potential ballot question would clarify council\u2019s intentions for the money to voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be as specific and explanatory as possible in that ballot question so the voters know exactly what they\u2019re getting into,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Both the county and city advocated for language clarifying to voters that the lodgers tax increase would not affect utilities, rent or other residential expenditures.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they don\u2019t understand, it will likely fail,\u201d Commissioner Jim Candelaria said, referring to county voters. \u201cIt\u2019s not the people in this county that are actually paying it unless you have a relative that you want to send to a motel room. Then they might be paying that extra $4.\u201d<\/p>\n

While city and county staff members work toward concrete proposals, deadlines are approaching for the November election. Ballot content needs to be finalized by Sept. 4.<\/p>\n

Sanders said putting two tax initiatives on the ballot could present potential risks if voters misunderstand who the tax hikes impact. Cortez Mayor Dennis Spruell proposed calling the potential ballot question \u201cThe Tax You Don\u2019t Pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA cat is a cat, a dog is a dog, and tax is a dirty word,\u201d Spruell said.<\/p>\n

avanderveen@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Separate November ballot initiatives propose higher taxes on hotel, vacation rental guests<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[28,29,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-133661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135105,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133661\/revisions\/135105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133661"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=133661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}