Lakewood Sales and Use Tax Increase for Public Safety and Traffic Safety

Issue 2G raises Lakewood's city sales and use tax from 3% to 3.5%; the question names 2027, beginning January 1, as the tax's first full fiscal year. Lakewood City Council members voted 8 to 2 on August 24, 2026, to send the question to voters in Resolution R-2026-58.

Lakewood's 3% is one of five rates that the state's January 2026 table, DR 1002, lists for purchases in the city. The other four are 2.9% for the state, 1% for the Regional Transportation District, 0.1% for the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District and 0.5% for Jefferson County. For purchases subject to all five listed rates, the combined sales-tax rate is 7.5%; adding only 2G's half-percent increase would make it 8%. The state table notes that Lakewood's city rate is reduced in certain areas with a Public Improvement Fee or Retail Sales Fee, and it does not list all such fees.

Food as defined in section 3.01.430 of the Lakewood Municipal Code, which includes groceries, is exempt from the added half percent. A written comment against 2G in the county's TABOR notice says basic food for home consumption is exempt but Lakewood taxes prepared food from grocery stores and restaurants.

The question says "the tax revenues from such additional half percent sales tax" are to be used only for public safety and traffic safety; its other clauses name an "additional sales and use tax." Public safety uses include crime prevention and homelessness response. Traffic safety uses include street and sidewalk construction and maintenance, road changes to slow vehicles, and pedestrian and bicycle safety.

The TABOR notice in Jefferson County's 2026 booklet estimates the increase at up to $17,600,000 in 2027, the first full fiscal year. Without it, the notice estimates Lakewood's 2027 fiscal year spending at $213,184,093. The same notice lists fiscal year spending of $151,918,087 in 2022, $236,954,756 in 2025 and an estimated $205,253,840 in 2026, an overall change of 35.1% from 2022 to 2026.

For later years, the question authorizes "whatever additional amounts" the tax raises each year. The tax has no end date, and the city may collect, keep and spend the new revenue regardless of any revenue or spending limit in the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights or any other law.

The city calls sales tax paid by shoppers its main source of money for services. It says collections are flat and it expects them to stay flat, while costs such as police car fuel, asphalt, insurance and salaries have outpaced them. Its "Half a Penny" flyer says the increase would be the first addition to the city's sales tax in more than 20 years.

Lakewood voters approved ballot issue 2A in 2024. From 2026 on, it lets the city collect, keep and spend all revenue above the constitutional limits, with the excess split in thirds: parks, recreation and open space; public safety equipment, services and personnel; and maintenance and improvement of streets, sidewalks, paths and infrastructure. Issue 2G's permission to keep revenue above the limits and its list of purposes are separate from the 2A split.