Golden Gate Fire Fleet Property Tax

Issue 6B adds 4.5 mills to Golden Gate Fire Protection District property taxes, starting with taxes collected in 2027, and sets no end date. As an example, at 4.5 mills, $10,000 of taxable assessed value owes $45 a year. The question does not increase the district's operations levy, set at 9.0106 mills for the 2026 budget.

The question estimates $137,376 in the first year, 2027. After that, the levy raises whatever 4.5 mills yields as the district's assessed valuation changes. Without the increase, the county's TABOR notice estimates spending in the first full fiscal year at $299,567.

Every dollar goes into a dedicated Fleet Revitalization Fund. The fund pays only to acquire, replace, revitalize or rehabilitate fire apparatus and fleet vehicles, including permanently installed equipment integral to operating them.

The district's fleet white paper describes about 63 square miles of mountain terrain in western Jefferson County, all of it wildland-urban interface, with about 1,200 residents. Golden Gate Fire runs 11 apparatus and support vehicles from three stations. The paper puts the frontline engines' average age at about 27 years and names Engine 83, built in 1995, and Engine 81, built in 1998, as immediate priorities. It prices a modern wildland-urban interface engine at $750,000 to $1 million.

The November 2025 budget message set aside $100,000 in the 2026 budget toward replacing Engine 81, money it said will likely serve as a grant match. The board's Aug. 27 minutes record a recommendation, if the levy passes, to buy a mini water tender with that $100,000. In August, Fire Chief Kyle Kociemba-Benson reported that the district had submitted a $720,500 federal grant request to cover 95% of the cost of a wildland engine. The white paper's borrowing example, $1.78 million over 20 years at 4%, comes to annual payments of about $131,000 and about $840,000 in interest. The board's July resolution says it weighed grants, capital reserves, debt and a dedicated levy, and found the levy the most fiscally responsible long-term mechanism.

A yes vote also makes the levy's revenue, with any earnings on it, a voter-approved revenue change. The district collects, retains and spends it as the board authorizes, without regard to any revenue or expenditure limit in Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution or any other law. In 2018, district voters approved Ballot Issue A, which asked whether "all district revenues" should "be collected, retained and spent notwithstanding any limits provided by law," according to a July 2023 board resolution.

The question the district certified to the Jefferson County Clerk differs from the wording the board adopted 4 to 1 on August 20 in Resolution #2026-20-08. The board's wording put the first-year increase at $140,000 and carried no revenue-limit clause. The district's 2026 election information page prints that version. The certified question, which the county's TABOR notice reprints, states $137,376 and adds the revenue-limit clause.