Eagle County School District Property Tax Override

Issue 5B adds a property tax to the general fund of Eagle County School District RE50J, whose voters live in Eagle, Garfield and Routt counties. The tax raises $10.1 million in tax collection year 2027. In each later year it raises an amount that, combined with the district's earlier voter-approved general-fund levies, equals the maximum that section 22-54-108(3)(b)(VI) of state law allows. The question names no dollar figure for those years and sets no end date.

A yes vote also lets the district collect, keep and spend the revenue and its investment earnings as a voter-approved revenue change, exempt from the limits of the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR, and any other law. The district's election notice estimates spending in 2026-27, the first full fiscal year, at $158,218,055 without the tax, 26.9% above actual 2022-23 spending.

The ballot estimates the cost at $11 a month per $1,000,000 of assessed value, based on assessment rates as of December 2025, and says the estimate does not reflect future changes in assessed value, assessment rate or law. The supporters' statement instead gives about $133 a year for the average home valued at $1,000,000. It does not state that home's assessed value, so this should not be treated as the annual cost for the same assessed-value base used in the ballot's estimate.

The question funds the district's educational purposes, including four it lists. The first is retaining and attracting teachers and support staff with salaries competitive with neighboring mountain districts. The others are reading, writing and math instruction; restoring art, music and physical education; and continued student access to mental health professionals. None of the money may go to senior district administration.

In December 2025 the Vail Daily reported the district's base teacher salary at $50,500, with the Summit County and Roaring Fork districts' schedules starting at $54,000 or higher. Philip Qualman, superintendent at the time, called the district's yearly step increases of about 3% a flaw in its salary schedule and said reducing them would give the district more money for the base salary. By the paper's figures, district revenue rose 1.1% a year on average over two years while step increases ran about 3.2%.

Roaring Fork School District RE-1, which also reaches into Eagle County, has an override on the November ballot, with increasing teacher and staff pay among its listed purposes.

The supporters' statement says the district cut more than $4 million and eliminated about 60 jobs for the 2026-27 school year. District voters turned down an override in November 2023, the Vail Daily reported.