Lincoln County lodging tax would rise from 2% to 6%, with the added revenue allocated by an appointed board

Ballot Issue 1A would raise Lincoln County's lodging tax from 2% to 6% starting July 1, 2027, the date in the ballot text the county certified to the clerk and that she certified on September 18. Resolution #1187, adopted by the commissioners on August 6, gives January 1, 2027 in its text and in the ballot title it set. Voters decide the certified ballot. The 2% tax has been collected since 2009.

The tax applies to the price of rooms and other accommodations, and residents who rent a room pay it as visitors do. On $100 of taxable lodging charges the added county tax is $4, and on $1,000 it is $40. The county's resolution says no town in the county levies a lodging tax, so the tax reaches rooms inside the towns until a town adopts one; none of its revenue goes to the towns. The ballot states no end date.

The question puts the increase at $294,337 in the first full fiscal year and "BY WHATEVER ADDITIONAL AMOUNTS ARE RAISED ANNUALLY IN EACH SUBSEQUENT YEAR." The county budgets by calendar year, so with a July 1 start the first full year would be 2028, and 2027 would bring six months of collections.

The ballot keeps the existing 2% "FOR ADVERTISING, MARKETING, COMMUNITY BEAUTIFICATION, AND EVENTS AS CURRENTLY AUTHORIZED." The county's final 2026 budget estimates $138,000 for 2025 and budgets $140,000 for 2026, against $180,000 of spending from the Lodging Tax Tourism Fund, which draws the fund's balance down to a budgeted $121,340 at the end of 2026.

Revenue from the additional 4% is "TO BE ALLOCATED BY A LOCAL APPOINTED BOARD FOR PURPOSES AUTHORIZED UNDER COLORADO LAW." The ballot lists capital investments in public or community-benefit projects; public infrastructure; essential services including law enforcement, fire protection and emergency medical services; and match funding or other eligible investments for community priorities such as childcare "AND OTHER PUBLIC PURPOSES AUTHORIZED BY LAW."

At the August 6 meeting, County Administrator Jacob Piper said the ballot language came from the Tourism Board and that funding requests would still need its approval. The Lincoln County Tourism Board has five volunteer members appointed by the county commissioners, according to its website.

Before adopting Resolution #1187 unanimously, the commissioners added "law enforcement" to the proposed ballot language after County Attorney Kelly Lowery advised including the phrase if the sheriff's office might ever need to request lodging tax money. Michael Yowell, a sheriff's captain running for sheriff on the same ballot, said the added language made him uncomfortable and that he would rather seek money at the annual budget hearings than from the lodging tax.

The ballot would let the county "COLLECT, KEEP AND SPEND ALL REVENUES RECEIVED IN 2027 AND EACH YEAR THEREAFTER" without regard to any limit in TABOR, the constitution's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or in other state law. Section 4 of the resolution applies that exception to "all of the revenues of the Lodging Tax" and adds that it does so "without limiting in any year the amount of other revenues or funds that may be collected by the County." Read with the resolution, the exception covers the lodging tax revenue, not the county's other revenue.

Once voters approve the tax, the resolution says, it may be repealed or amended only with the approval of the county's voters. Its provisions still carry the purposes of the 2025 proposal: tourism advertising and marketing, housing and childcare for the tourism-related workforce and other workers, and visitor experiences. The resolution also bars capital spending from the tax except on that housing and childcare, visitor experiences and tourist information centers, "unless allowed for in subsequent legislation." The ballot's list is broader, so the two texts disagree on what the money may buy.

In November 2025, Lincoln County voters rejected raising the same tax from 2% to 6%, as The Sum and Substance and Chalkbeat reported. That question would have put up to 90% of the new money toward housing and childcare for the tourism-related workforce and other workers, and at least 10% toward marketing and promotion of businesses and events.