Boulder Charter Debt Limit Based on Actual Value

Ordinance 8762, which the City Council referred to this ballot, amends the debt limit in Section 97 of Boulder's Home Rule Charter. It keeps the cap at three percent and replaces its base, the assessed valuation of taxable property in the city, with the property's actual value. The Boulder County assessor determines actual value each year, based on a level of value recalculated every two years. The present limit already follows the most recent assessment; what the amendment changes is the base.

City staff wrote that the change brings the charter "in line with all other Boulder County communities and state statute." Their table lists Louisville, Erie, Longmont and statutory cities at three percent of actual value, and Lafayette and Superior at the state constitution or three percent of actual value.

The limit counts only bonds or other debt, new or already outstanding, paid solely from property-tax revenue. Bonds repaid from utility revenue, from sales, use or other excise taxes, or from franchise fees and other charges fall outside it, even when the city also pledges its full faith and credit. The amendment does not change those exclusions.

Staff put Boulder's 2025 assessed value at $5.0 billion and its 2025 actual value at $51.7 billion. Staff wrote that the present limit, taken from that assessed value, allows $150.7 million of general obligation debt. The staff fiscal note says the change "would have no fiscal impact, but would allow the city to issue general obligation bonds above the current charter limitation," and the memo says the new base "will provide the city with flexibility to issue debt as a funding mechanism." Axios Boulder wrote that the change means "substantially increasing Boulder's borrowing capacity."

Staff brought 2M to the council with the $400 million Recreation and Safety Bond, ballot issue 2K on this ballot, and Axios Boulder called 2M "effectively a companion measure" to it. Voters decide the two questions separately. City staff and Axios Boulder both wrote that the city cannot issue the full $400 million unless 2M also passes. On that reading, if 2K passes and 2M fails, the bonds must fit under the assessed-value limit as the most recent assessment sets it, together with any property-tax-backed debt already outstanding. If 2M passes and 2K fails, the ceiling rises, but 2M does not authorize any bond. Whatever 2K's result, if 2M passes the new base stays in the charter for every later property-tax bond until voters change it. BizWest reported on September 10 that the Boulder Chamber opposes the $400 million bond and the debt-limit charter amendment that goes with it.