A new countywide sales and use tax for county purposes

Larimer County Ballot Issue 1A would add a 0.3% countywide sales and use tax beginning January 1, 2027, and continuing with no end date, in the cities and towns and the unincorporated county alike. The Board of County Commissioners referred it on August 25, 2026, by a 2-0 vote.

The question estimates the first-year increase at up to $34.5 million and authorizes "ANY ADDITIONAL AMOUNT GENERATED EACH YEAR THEREAFTER."

The county could collect, retain and spend all of the revenue without limitation by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR). Under the referring resolution, the county would budget the revenue and its investment earnings separately, outside its TABOR fiscal-year spending. The county's election notice, dated September 23, shows county fiscal year spending of $304,095,093 in 2022, an estimated $406,355,266 in 2026 and an estimated $446,990,793 in 2027 without this tax. All of the revenue would be subject to an annual independent audit, which the resolution names as "the County's annual independent audit."

The question lists three groups of county purposes after the word "INCLUDING," and the third ends with "OTHER COUNTY PRIORITIES AND EMERGING COMMUNITY NEEDS." The tax would work "ALL AS PROVIDED IN THE RESOLUTION REFERRING THIS BALLOT ISSUE." That resolution says county needs and priorities "will evolve over time" and that the commissioners intend the revenue to "provide flexibility to address those needs and priorities, rather than being limited to any single project, program, facility, or geographic area of the County, subject to applicable law and the County's budget and financial policies." It restricts the money to the purposes it sets out and fixes no share for any of them.

Ready Larimer, the issue committee registered on August 28 to pass 1A, tells voters the tax has "Four purposes. Nothing else." It names them as water, wildfire, roads and safety, and says the money goes to a dedicated fund, "not the county's general fund."

In the county's August 28 announcement, Commissioner Kristin Stephens cited a 100% rise in transportation costs over the last decade and said, "After cutting $6 million from our budget, we still face a shortfall to address critical needs like wildfire mitigation, watershed protection, and road safety as federal and state grant funding shrinks." The county's Choose Larimer's Future site says its $23.3 million reserve fund "would be completely depleted by a single large natural disaster, or a series of smaller ones," and that the Cameron Peak fire season cost the county $19 million.

The question excludes sales of food for home consumption, gasoline, diapers, prescription drugs and certain other items exempt by law, and the resolution adds residential gas, electricity and other specified fuels, period products and farm equipment, among others. The use tax would reach construction and building materials and registered vehicles, with credit for a like tax paid to another county. Under the resolution, commissioners could not add or eliminate exemptions without further voter approval, except to follow changes in state law.

Fort Collins and Loveland are the two Larimer County cities that state law places in the Front Range Passenger Rail District, and voters there join the rest of the district's voters in deciding the district's Ballot Issue 7A, a 0.333% sales and use tax for passenger rail. If both pass, sales in those two cities would carry both taxes, since the state's rate table computes each place's total rate "by adding all taxes applicable to that jurisdiction."

The county's sales tax today is five taxes, each dedicated to one program: open space, jail operations, the fairgrounds at The Ranch, behavioral health and early childhood. In 2014 voters extended the open space tax for 25 years and the jail tax through 2039, and in 2017 they extended the fairgrounds tax for 20 years. They approved the behavioral health tax in 2018, as the Coloradoan reported, and the early childhood tax in 2025.

Voters rejected a 20-year tax for regional roads, transit and county facilities in 2019, 61,918 to 49,209. A tax for road, transit, bicycling and pedestrian projects failed in 2024 by about 7,700 votes, as the Estes Valley Voice reported the certified results. In 2025 voters rejected a 15-year transportation tax, 68,936 to 62,077, and approved a preschool and child care tax set to expire in 20 years, 67,610 to 63,892.