Aurora sales tax for libraries, recreation centers and parks

Aurora's community facilities question would create a city sales and use tax, collected from January 1, 2027, through December 31, 2057. The question sets no dollar limit on the tax after its first year, allowing up to $12,640,000 "AND AS MAY BE GENERATED ANNUALLY THEREAFTER." It dedicates the tax "TO PROVIDE FOR THE OPERATION OF AND REPAIRS, MAINTENANCE, AND IMPROVEMENTS TO COMMUNITY FACILITIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION LIBRARIES, RECREATION AND COMMUNITY CENTERS." The same question would let the city issue revenue bonds, on terms the council sets, for purposes that include park renovations and new parks, recreation center improvements and new recreation center construction, and library branch improvements and new library construction, with repayment from the new tax "AND OTHER LEGALLY AVAILABLE FUNDS." Approval also lets the city keep every dollar the tax and the interest on it bring in, above the revenue limits of the state constitution, state law and the city charter.

A staff memo for the council's May 18 study session said the new revenue would pay yearly debt service on the bonds and additional operation, repairs, maintenance and improvements to community facilities, with further revenue planned for bond and program management expenses; for the three questions together, the session's slides assigned revenue above bond payments to "Additional capital improvements and repairs."

The council created the Build Up Aurora Infrastructure Task Force in July 2024. The task force recommended a $264,515,000 bond program split into three questions: community facilities in 3A, public safety in 3B and transportation in 3C. Each question carries a separate tax and borrowing and passes or fails alone; if all three pass, the city's sales and use tax rate rises by 0.325 percentage points, Colorado Politics reported.

The city's Build Up Aurora page lists eight community facilities projects. The largest are $36.5 million for a new Northeast Aurora Recreation Center and $28 million to renovate seven neighborhood parks. A new Northeast Aurora library branch would receive $15 million; both new buildings are in Ward II. The smaller items remodel the Mission Viejo and Central libraries, renovate the Aurora Center for Active Adults, build the first phase of Central Community Park and repair existing recreation centers. The May presentation put the facilities total, with contingency, at $104,975,000.

The ballot question describes categories of projects; the eight are named in a resolution the council passed on June 8. City Attorney Pete Schulte told the council on June 22 that those projects are "tied to the vote," Sentinel Colorado reported. He added: "But if we have excess, council’s always going to have the final say in any appropriation of that money." The council referred the question that night, ten members voting yes and Mike Coffman abstaining.

The same May presentation listed, among the bond program's parameters, "Balance operating costs and affordability of new facilities."

Less than a year before the council's vote, Aurora closed two library branches "because of budgetary issues," reducing its branches from seven to five, The Denver Post reported on June 22, 2026. Patrick Waggoner, president of the Aurora Library Board of Trustees, told the paper there is "absolutely nothing by the airport or south of it," where the new northeast branch would go.

The city is planning for a $20 million shortfall in 2027, and more than half of its proposed $570.5 million general fund appropriation for that year would go to public safety, including fire, Aurora911 and police, The Denver Gazette reported on September 11, 2026.

In 2009 Aurora voters rejected Issue 4A, a library district property tax of up to $12,514,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, for services, hours and facilities, 20,805 votes to 17,871. In 2011 they rejected Issue 301, up to $113,524,000 in debt repaid by property taxes for a new system of community recreation centers, 31,704 to 12,980. Issue 300 that year, a property tax for the Mission Viejo Library, failed 8,347 to 6,033.

Five efforts to raise money through tax increases have failed at Aurora's ballot box since 2005, The Denver Post reported. Council Member Curtis Gardner, who led the task force, told the paper: "One of the reasons it failed in the past is that there were no specific projects proposed."

Supporters who wrote to the city say Aurora needs to "preserve, renovate, and expand its public facilities and amenities" to keep pace with population growth, and that the projects reach all six council wards, the city's TABOR notice summarizes. Opponents point to rising costs for housing, food, fuel, utilities and property taxes. Some wrote that costs "should be shared more by developers and facility users through higher development or user fees," and others questioned "library and facility investments" and whether the projects are the city's highest priorities.