A 1% sales tax for the Adams County Fire Protection District, with no end date

Ballot Issue 6E would give the Adams County Fire Protection District, which operates as Adams County Fire Rescue, its first sales tax: 1.0%, "ONE DOLLAR ON EVERY $100 PURCHASE." As an example, at 1.0%, $1,000 of taxable purchases would add $10 in district sales tax.

The question says the tax would exclude "EVERYDAY NECESSITIES LIKE GROCERIES, GAS, PRESCRIPTIONS, AND DIAPERS." The 2024 state law behind it lets a fire district tax only the sales on which the state levies its sales tax. The district's election page says items exempt by law "include prescriptions, food for domestic home consumption, diapers, feminine hygiene products, and purchases benefiting schools," and that consumers "would not be charged on everyday necessities like groceries, gas, medicine, and diapers." The Colorado Department of Revenue's January 2026 rate table lists "Gas, electricity, and other specified fuels for residential use" among the exemptions for fire district sales taxes, and the rail district question on Denver's ballot names exemptions under Colorado law "FOR GASOLINE, FOOD, RESIDENTIAL ELECTRICITY AND GAS." Gas for the home and gasoline at the pump would both be outside the tax.

The district covers parts of Adams and Denver counties and runs four fire stations and a training center, and it plans to open a fifth, Station 10, late in 2026.

The ballot puts the first full fiscal year's increase at $11,732,488, "AND BY WHATEVER AMOUNTS AS ARE RAISED ANNUALLY THEREAFTER." The TABOR notice, the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights notice Adams County mails to voters, calls $11,732,488 the district's estimate of the maximum for 2027, the first full fiscal year, and estimates the district's 2027 spending without the tax at $44,790,409. The district's note beside that estimate says it "assumes a 5% increase over 2026 estimated expenditures" because the 2027 budget was not finished.

The tax would be "IN ADDITION TO ALL OTHER TAXES LEVIED BY THE DISTRICT." The question asks that the district be allowed to collect, keep and spend all of the revenue the tax raises as a voter-approved revenue change under the TABOR amendment, Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution, and as an exception to the limits in section 29-1-301 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, the state's 5.5% limit on the growth of a local government's property tax revenue, "AND ANY OTHER LAW." The question sets no start date and no expiration date, and it states a dollar figure only for the first full fiscal year. The notice treats 2027 as the tax's first full year.

A yes vote authorizes the district to impose the tax and keep all of its revenue. A no vote leaves the district funded as it is now, mainly by property tax.

The question says the money is for "MAINTAINING VITAL EMERGENCY SERVICES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO" four purposes:

• reducing emergency response times;
• maintaining adequate numbers of first responders and firefighters;
• replacing and updating essential equipment to protect the safety and health of firefighters and paramedics;
• updated training and equipment for medical emergencies, fires and rescues.

Those words make the list a set of examples rather than a limit. The state law that authorizes the tax does set a limit: its net revenue may be used only "TO FUND FIRE PROTECTION SERVICES IN AREAS OF THE DISTRICT IN WHICH THE TAX IS TO BE LEVIED," and it may not replace funding the district would otherwise receive from the state or any of its political subdivisions.

The ballot promises that all revenue and spending will be reported in the district's annual independent audit, published on its website "AND REVIEWED BY A CITIZEN BOARD OF DIRECTORS." The district's directors serve staggered four-year terms and must be registered voters in Colorado who live in the district or are property owners in it, according to its 2025 budget.

Senate Bill 24-194 gave the board of a Colorado fire protection district the power to levy "A UNIFORM SALES TAX, AT A RATE DETERMINED BY THE BOARD," on every transaction the state taxes within the district, once a majority of the district's voters approve it; the board sets the rate it asks for, and this question sets it at 1.0%. The district's election page calls it an option available to fire districts for the first time. The act requires the ballot question to say the tax is in addition to the district's other taxes. The Colorado Department of Revenue collects the tax the way it collects the state sales tax and sends the district monthly distributions, and the district pays the department's added cost of collecting it.

The Colorado Municipal League reported in April 2026 that at least 13 fire and ambulance districts had put a sales tax question on the ballot since the law passed, and it listed 13 whose taxes passed in 2025, at rates from 0.5% to 2%. One was the South Adams County Fire Protection District, which covers the Commerce City area; the Colorado Department of Revenue's January 2026 rate table lists its tax at 0.5%, and Adams County's tax-district table shows no territory it shares with the Adams County Fire Protection District. The league wrote that the new authority "can undermine municipalities’ efforts to streamline their taxation system, attract businesses, and plan their budgets by introducing competition for sales tax revenue."

The same Adams County notice carries Bennett Fire Protection District's Ballot Issue 7F, a 0.75% sales tax estimated at $1.2 million in its first full fiscal year; the county's table shows no territory shared between the two fire districts. In the Denver part of this district, Denver's sample ballot also carries Front Range Passenger Rail District Ballot Issue 7A, a 0.333% sales and use tax for passenger rail.

The department's January 2026 table sets out the sales taxes already charged in the district. The state's is 2.9%. The Regional Transportation District's 1% and the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District's 0.1% apply in all of Denver and in the Adams County part of the district. Adams County's 0.75% applies in the Adams County part, and Denver's 5.15% in the Denver part. Adams County's tax-district table places parts of four cities inside the district, and their taxes apply there as well: Westminster's 4.25%, Federal Heights' 4%, Thornton's 3.75% and Arvada's 3.46%.

The district's 2025 budget says nearly 80% of its revenue comes from property tax. It set the 2025 general operating levy at 17.270 mills (a mill is $1 of tax for each $1,000 of a property's assessed value): a base levy of 17.207 mills and 0.063 mills for abatements and refunds. Emergency medical service charges are the second-largest source, at more than $3.5 million. The district's 2024 audit says it also collects impact fees on new development through Adams County: $183,437 in 2024.

In May 2020 the district's voters passed Ballot Issue 5A, which the district's 2024 audit calls "a tax extension": it converted 1 mill of bond repayment levy into a permanent general operating levy once the district's 2011 bonds were paid off in 2022. Ballot Issue 5B, passed the same day, lets the district raise or lower its mill levy to offset changes in the state's assessment rates. The audit says both passed "by a wide margin." The district's funding study page, "Building a Safer Future Together," describes its record in narrower terms: "For more than 17 years, the District has not asked voters to increase funding through an additional property tax."

The newest audit on the district's website covers 2024; the board accepted the audit for 2025 on June 17, 2026. The 2024 audit reports property taxes of $32,416,673 out of total revenue of $40,794,475. Revenue rose about 26.7% from 2023 to 2024, while expenses rose about 12.1%. The audit attributes the revenue growth mostly to increased property values. The district ended 2024 with $24,118,651 in its General Fund. Of that, $14,689,374 was unassigned and $5,592,280 was held as a stabilization reserve. Its Capital Reserve Fund held $13,847,962 after a transfer of $4,683,992 from the General Fund, and $8,873,675 of the capital reserve was assigned to stations and grounds. The district owed $7,265,000 on a lease-purchase for Fire Station 11 and smaller amounts for an office remodel and a fire engine.

The district's original 2025 budget was adopted in December 2024. The figures below describe that original version; the district subsequently posted an amended budget adopted on September 24, 2025. It expected the General Fund to begin 2025 at about $26.5 million, higher than planned because of a state reimbursement that made up revenue lost to lower assessment rates, more than $2 million in Medicaid reimbursement grant funds and money carried over from 2024. The original approved 2025 budget table projected General Fund expenditures of $31,933,861, about 27.6% or $6.9 million above the $25,035,662 projected for 2024. The budget message attributed the increase mainly to wages, pensions and benefits, including a one-year union contract with a wage increase of about 6%. The table projected a year-end General Fund balance of $24,730,947, about 77% of annual operating expenditures. The TABOR notice later put the district's fiscal year spending for 2025 at $46,725,469, up from $30,210,216 in 2024. The budget reports a Moody's rating of Aa2 and says the district's 2015 merger with the Southwest Adams County Fire Protection District "doubled the District’s tax base, budget, and nominal reserve position."

The TABOR notice lists the district's fiscal year spending:

• 2022: $23,806,608
• 2023: $24,814,222
• 2024: $30,210,216
• 2025: $46,725,469
• 2026 (estimated): $42,657,532

Measured to the 2026 estimate, the notice puts the change from 2022 at 79%, or $18,850,924. The district's election page says General Fund spending rose roughly 126% over the past decade, and spending across all funds, including capital and bond funds, roughly 137%, "while the district’s primary funding source, property tax, has not kept pace."

The district's case, from its election page and the supporters' statement in the TABOR notice:

• Calls for service in 2026 are on pace for a record year, up almost 30% since 2019, and nearly six in ten calls are medical emergencies.
• Training one firefighter and emergency medical technician costs $38,000, and the price of a fire engine has doubled in 10 years. The 2025 budget adds that a new engine now takes 24 months to arrive, against about 11 months before.
• Its finance division estimates about $33 million in capital improvements over the next 10 years, and some stations "approach 50 years old."
• A sales tax is also paid by visitors and others who shop in the district, not only by property owners.
• The district "has not sought a tax increase in over 17 years."

The supporters' statement says: "There is no blank check here: this is a dedicated, transparent funding source for a specific, essential purpose." No statement against the measure was filed by the constitutional deadline.

The district's election page also lists arguments against: household costs, economic uncertainty, the state, county and special district taxes people already pay, the view that the district "should fully exhaust operational efficiencies and alternative funding sources before asking voters to approve a new, permanent tax," and the concern that "a permanent sales tax increase may not fully address the underlying, long-term drivers" of its funding and cost challenges. The funding study page says sales taxes generally take a larger share of spending from lower-income households because they are based on purchases rather than income, and that collections can fall when consumer spending slows.

The board's minutes and agendas trace the question through the summer. In June, Fire Chief Clinton Garner reported that a survey had gone to 300 residents, half asked about one rate and half about another. At the same meeting Deputy Chief Jamie Wood said the opening of Station 10 was delayed by staffing shortages, and the firefighters' union, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 2403, said the Colorado Professional Fire Fighters and the international union support the ballot measure. At a special meeting on July 1, Lynea Hansen of Hansen Communications presented the results of a survey "to gauge community positions on a potential .66 or .88 sales tax initiative," with a margin of error of about 6%. Garner told the board that no decision had been made and that the board would be asked later whether to go forward.

In mid-July Wood said the district expected to open Station 10 in the fourth quarter of 2026, and the union said it was ready to help pass the measure if the district put it on the ballot. The August 19 agenda listed a "Discussion on Sales Tax Diversification Exploration," and a special meeting on September 9 was called to discuss a "Resolution for Advocacy."