Archuleta School District Bonds for a New PK-8 School

Archuleta County School District No. 50JT, which spans Archuleta and Hinsdale counties, can issue these bonds only if it receives a Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) grant from the state that it does not have to repay. The school board adopted the question by resolution on September 1, 2026. The resolution describes the borrowing as the matching share the district must supply to use BEST money.

The district's press release puts the grant it requested this spring at approximately $50 million and says the project is currently the first alternate for funding. Three projects ranked ahead of it need their local bond elections to pass this November; if enough money becomes available after those elections, the district could receive a grant. Otherwise, the release says, the district can apply again in the 2027 BEST cycle.

After the words "INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO," the question lists two purposes: constructing and equipping a new school for prekindergarten through eighth grade, and funding Pagosa Peak Open School, a charter school the district authorizes, to update and equip its educational facilities. The question requires an annual audit by an independent third-party expert and says the district will post all spending on its website.

Each year the district may levy property taxes at whatever rate is needed to pay principal, interest and any premium on the bonds or on refunding debt, or to build a reserve for those payments. The question limits the debt to $79.9 million, the total repayment cost to $156.5 million and the tax increase to $6.7 million a year, and allows no more than a 3% premium on redemption. The school board sets each series' interest rate, maturity, price and timing within the question's terms. The district may collect, retain and spend all of the new tax revenue as a voter-approved revenue change under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution, or any other law.

For tax year 2025, the district levied no property tax for bond repayment; its total levy was 28.82 mills, according to the state Division of Property Taxation. The district's press release estimates the tax impact at "approximately $5.15 per month for every $100,000 of a home's actual value." District staff told the Pagosa Daily Post that the figure is the midpoint of a range that depends on how the debt and the grant are structured.

Under Section 6 of the resolution, the authority a yes vote grants is continuing. The district may borrow and levy the taxes all at once or in stages, and neither partial use nor the passage of time uses the authority up.