Hayden Schools Property Tax Override

Under Hayden School District RE-1 Ballot Issue 4A, district taxes increase by $525,861 in budget year 2026-2027. In each later year, the question authorizes a property tax at whichever rate produces the higher revenue in that tax collection year: a rate sufficient to produce $525,861, or 3.0 mills. The tax carries no end date. Resolution 2026-05, which the Board of Education adopted August 31, 2026, makes any taxing authority voters grant a continuing one: using only part of it, or leaving it unused for a time, neither exhausts nor limits it.

The formula ties the rate to the district's assessed value. When 3.0 mills produces less than $525,861, the rate rises to whatever level produces that amount, and it climbs further if assessed value falls. When 3.0 mills produces more, the question authorizes 3.0 mills, and the revenue moves with assessed value. Neither figure alone caps this tax: the question authorizes whichever of the two produces more. The formula sets the levy, not the amount the district collects.

The Board of Education approves the educational purposes. The question lists funding for maintaining small class sizes, for attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers and staff, and for adequate maintenance, upgrades and renovation of facilities and equipment, and it says the purposes are not limited to those. The revenue goes into the district's general fund. Resolution 2026-05 says the district's treasury lacks the money for these purposes and the board does not expect existing revenue to cover them. The board also expects the total cost not to exceed the ballot's dollar amount, and it does not currently expect any state or federal grant to pay part of that cost.

The district keeps and spends all revenue from this tax and its investment earnings as a voter-approved revenue change, an exception to the limits of Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution (TABOR) or any other law. The new levy is independent of any other tax levy, whether or not voters approved it.

For tax year 2025, the state's property tax map lists Hayden RE-1 School District at 42.297 mills in total, including an override levy of 5.166 mills, on an assessed value of $175,286,900. The district's September 8 announcement describes this question as a request for an increase in its mill levy override.

The same ballot carries Hayden School District RE-1 Ballot Issue 4B, which asks whether to bring property in the school district into the Colorado Mountain College District and subject its taxable property to the college district's mill levy. The two questions are decided separately, and neither text mentions the other. Should both pass, owners of taxable property in the school district would owe this override together with the college district's mill levy.