Westminster Public Schools asks to collect more of the property tax overrides voters approved in 1988, 2002 and 2018

Voters in Westminster Public Schools approved property tax overrides in 1988, 2002 and 2018, and state law has kept the district from collecting all of that money. Ballot Issue 4A would let the district collect the full amount, up to the limit that section 22-54-108(3)(b)(VI) of the Colorado Revised Statutes now sets for the district. A mill levy override is a property tax a school district levies with voter approval on top of the levy that pays its local share of the state school finance formula. State law caps what a district may collect from all of its overrides together as a percentage of its "total program," the amount the formula sets for the district. The district says Westminster's cap has been 25% of total program and that, under the new school finance formula, it can rise to 27% with voter approval.

The question opens "WITHOUT IMPOSING A NEW TAX." It names no dollar amount, no mill levy rate and no end date. The 2018 question for the same overrides, as the board's resolution of August 14, 2018, set it out, opened "SHALL WESTMINSTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS TAXES BE INCREASED BY $9.9 MILLION." Adams County's TABOR notice prints 4A under the heading "Notice of Election on a Referred Measure," while the Adams County Fire Protection District's question on the same notice runs under "Notice of Election to Increase Taxes on a Referred Measure." The district says the measure imposes no new tax or new mill levy. It also estimates that if voters say yes, the amount levied would rise as the district collects more of what the three earlier elections authorized. The money would be deposited in the general fund, "IN ADDITION TO THE PROPERTY TAXES THAT OTHERWISE WOULD BE LEVIED FOR THE GENERAL FUND," and the district could collect, keep and spend the investment earnings on it without limit under Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution, the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR), "OR ANY OTHER LAW." The statute under which districts hold override elections authorizes the added levy "for the then current budget year and each budget year thereafter."

The five members of the Board of Education, Mary Beth Murphy, Aaron Martin, Dan Orecchio, Audrey Yanos and Christine Martinez, voted on August 26, 2026, to adopt the resolution that sent the question to the ballot. According to the district, a no vote means it would keep collecting its earlier overrides under the 25% limit.

The summary of written comments in favor, printed in Adams County's TABOR notice, says the amount the district may collect "would increase from approximately $28.4 million to $30.4 million, providing approximately $2 million in additional annual revenue based on current financial information." The notice records that no comments against the measure were filed by the constitutional deadline.

The question does not restate the terms of the 1988, 2002 and 2018 elections. It asks to collect "THE FULL AMOUNT OF REVENUES PREVIOUSLY APPROVED" and to spend the money on the district's educational purposes "AS AUTHORIZED AT THE PRIOR ELECTIONS." The supporters' comment in the TABOR notice says those elections authorized approximately $34.2 million in revenue, and that Colorado law has limited how much of it the district may collect. Because the 2002 and 2018 authorizations are levies measured in mills, the dollar amount they represent changes as property values change.

The 1988 override brings the district $1.8 million, according to the district's adopted budget for 2026-27.

The 2002 override was approved as a dollar amount. In 2018 voters changed it to a mill levy calculation. Under the 2018 question, as set out in the board's resolution of August 14, 2018, the district may collect under the 2002 override the greater of $5.95 million a year or the amount a levy of up to 11.3 mills raises. The budget calls the change a success because "the mills are worth more today than in 2002."

The resolution's 2018 question asked to raise taxes by $9.9 million in 2018, for collection in 2019, and by whatever amounts a levy of up to 14.5 mills would raise each year after that, for "GENERAL FUND PURPOSES INCLUDING CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS AND EDUCATIONAL PRIORITIES WHICH MAY INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO" a list. The list named capital improvements for school safety and security, continuing and expanding vocational and career programs, partnerships with groups such as the Boys and Girls Club for community youth, and hiring and keeping teachers, mental health professionals and counselors "TO BE COMPETITIVE WITH SURROUNDING DISTRICTS IN ADAMS COUNTY." The resolution calls the taxing authority an election confers "a continuing authority," and the question as the resolution set it out named no end year for either levy. The district's 2018 override page, as archived in 2019, put the added tax at 14.35 mills, or $103.32 a year on a home worth $100,000, and called that a conservative estimate. The district's budget says it issued certificates of participation, a form of lease financing, to pay for capital projects, which let it "maximize the value of the additional mills approved by the voters in November."

The district's page describes 4A as "the additional authorization requested in the ballot question to collect the additional portion of the previously approved revenues." If voters approve, it says, the district would be authorized to collect the full amount of those revenues "permitted under current Colorado law, subject to the applicable statutory limit."

The district's budget shows property tax revenue from its overrides of $27,001,821 in 2023-24, $27,671,757 in 2024-25 and $28,437,925 in the amended budget for 2025-26. The adopted budget for 2026-27, dated June 9, 2026, before the board placed 4A on the ballot, plans $28,180,526 in override property tax. The overrides also bring in $1,650,259 in specific ownership tax, a vehicle registration tax shared among local governments. The budget says override revenue varies each year with assessed values.

For the 2025 tax year, the Colorado Division of Property Taxation lists the district's override levy at 22.44 mills on an assessed value of $1,254,906,978. The district's total levy was 57.67 mills, including 27 mills for its share of the school finance formula and 7.019 mills for bond repayment.

From May 21, 2009, state law generally held the total a district could receive from its override elections to 25% of its total program. When the board referred the 2018 override, its resolution stated that the new tax together with the earlier authorizations would not exceed 25% of the district's total program.

House Bill 24-1448, signed in May 2024, created a new school finance formula, phased in from 2025-26 through 2029-30, and added subsection (3)(b)(VI) to the override statute. Beginning July 1, 2024, a district's limit is the greater of its 2023-24 limit or a limit set by a Department of Education calculation using 2024-25 figures. The department compares two amounts for each district. One is the funding the district received above the statewide base per pupil, with added weight for at-risk students and English language learners. The other is what the district's cost-of-living and size factors produced. Where the second is smaller, the department converts the difference into a percentage of the district's total program and adds it to the district's 2023-24 cap. The supporters' comment in the TABOR notice says the department's calculation raised Westminster's limit from 25% to 27%. The district says that, although the law has changed, it cannot collect the added revenue without voter approval.

Because the limit is a percentage of total program, and total program changes each year with enrollment and with the new formula as it phases in through 2029-30, the dollar ceiling under 27% moves from year to year. The same subsection bars any district from submitting a question under it on or after July 1, 2030.

The district estimates that collecting the added revenue would raise the amount levied by approximately 1.6 mills, or about $4.70 a month on a $500,000 home. The Westminster Window reported in August that the increase works out to about $11 a year for every $100,000 of a home's market value, and it calculated about $52 a year by applying that rate to $458,500, the district's median home value in the Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey. Homeowners 65 and older and disabled veterans who claim the state's homestead exemption would pay closer to $40, the Window reported. For school district levies on 2026 values, the budget lists a residential assessment rate of 7.05% and a reduction of 10% of a home's value, up to $70,000. The district's and the Window's figures match 1.6 mills at the 7.05% rate on a home's full value without that reduction, which for a home worth up to $700,000 would lower each figure by 10%.

Ryan McCoy, the district's chief of advancement and strategic partnerships, told the Window that if voters say yes, property owners "would pay more than they would if the measure does not pass." He said the $2 million moves with state funding, property values and enrollment. "Future collections could be higher or lower than the current estimate," he said. "We would not characterize it as a fixed annual amount over the life of the measure." The district describes the figure as "Subject to voter approval, Colorado legal limits, and annual assessed property values."

The question funds the district's educational purposes "AS AUTHORIZED AT THE PRIOR ELECTIONS, INCLUDING" improving safety and security, expanding career and technical education programs, attracting and retaining effective teachers, and improving academic achievement of all students. Because the four follow the word "INCLUDING," they are examples of the purposes the prior elections authorized, and the 2018 question, as the board's resolution set it out, authorized "GENERAL FUND PURPOSES INCLUDING CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS AND EDUCATIONAL PRIORITIES." The supporters' comment says career and technical education programs require specialized equipment, technology, materials and consumable supplies.

The Window reported that the ballot language does not say how much goes to each purpose and that the district had not published a spending plan. McCoy wrote that expanding career and technical education might not add classes, because the money could instead buy equipment, materials and supplies for programs already running, and that expansion "should not be interpreted as a commitment to create a specific number of new pathways." A pathway is a sequence of courses aimed at a career field. The district ended its multimedia graphic programming pathway in fall 2025 and its horticulture and animal science programs at Westminster High School in May after a program audit, the Window reported.

Voters approved a separate $111 million bond question, Ballot Issue 4C, on November 5, 2024. The district says it extended its debt without a tax increase by keeping the tax formula voters approved in 2006. The district is spending $40 million of the bond money on the Iver C. Ranum Innovation Campus, where students train in fields such as aviation engineering, biotechnology and health sciences, $40 million on a PK-8 campus opening in fall 2028 and $20 million on school safety and building upgrades. The district issued the bonds in December 2024.

The district enrolled 7,631 students in 2023-24, down from 10,161 in 2014-15, according to National Center for Education Statistics figures published by Ballotpedia. Its 2026-27 budget projects 7,302 students this year, 7,083 in 2027-28 and 6,941 in 2028-29.

In March the board adopted a consolidation plan that merges two elementary schools into one campus this year, moves the Westminster Academy for International Studies to Harris Park, closes Mesa Elementary in 2028-29 and moves Hidden Lake Secondary into the former Mesa building by 2030, the Window reported. McCoy called the tax measure and the consolidation plan "separate financial considerations for the District" and said closing buildings would not materially change the $2 million projection.

The 2026-27 budget plans $130,689,004 in general fund revenue and $136,018,102 in spending and transfers, a planned decrease of $5,329,097 in the general fund balance. Its fund balance table puts the balance, reserves included, at $46,750,400 at the end of 2024-25 and projects $43,563,571 at the end of 2025-26. The adopted 2026-27 column starts from the $46,750,400 figure, not from the 2025-26 projection, and ends the year at $41,421,302, and the budget projects $35,585,983 at the end of 2029-30. The state constitution's TABOR requires an emergency reserve of 3% of spending, and board policy sets a contingency reserve of 5%.

Adams County's final official results show 12,592 votes for the 2018 override and 11,046 against, which the district reported as 53% to 47%. Chalkbeat reported that it was the district's first successful override since 2002, after an unsuccessful attempt in 2014, and that the $9.9 million request would have among the largest effects on property owners of that year's metro area school requests. Chalkbeat also reported that James Duffy, the district's chief operating officer, said the board was considering using about half the new money to borrow approximately $65 million for building improvements through certificates of participation.