The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Considering ballot language in July
After considering a number of ways to generate some additional revenue that could help cover the costs of maintaining the town’s beloved parks, the Crested Butte Town Council decided to put a question on the November ballot that would give voters the chance to raise the town sales tax a half-percent, to 4.5 percent.
If approved, the measure would be the first sales tax increase specific to the town of Crested Butte in more than 30 years.
Years of growth have spread the town’s Parks and Recreation budget perilously thin, risking a reduction in the services that are central to the town’s offerings and enjoyed by residents of Crested Butte and the entire upper valley, as well as countless visitors in the non-winter months.
“The last specific sales tax increase we had was for transportation,” Councilman Jim Schmidt said at a work session Monday, June 16. “I think it’s worked very well because there have been taxes specifically to run that and as demand has increased, sales tax has increased and fulfilled that need … and I think it will work well here also.”
Several ideas to raise revenue for parks have been bandied about, including an excise tax on recreational marijuana sales in town and a broader tax for parks and rec that would be levied on taxpayers in the upper East River Valley.
And while councilman Shaun Matusewicz voted against a November ballot question, saying he opposed a regressive tax that might further erode the competitive advantage of some Crested Butte shop owners, the other five councilmen in attendance were inclined to let the voters decide.
“I agree with you, Shaun,” Councilman Chris Ladoulis said. “I just support putting it on the ballot so the citizens can decide.”
The work session was held as a means of deciding how much of a tax to go for and a means of providing the town staff with some direction about what the ballot language should look like.
Town finance director Lois Rozman reminded the council that the ballot language would be brought to them as an ordinance, “so you’ll get at least two shots at it,” she said, asking for some clear direction from the council about whether they would like to see the question worded broadly or narrowly, in terms of how the sales tax revenue would be used.
Narrow language will make the question easier to pass, Rozman said, while broad language would make the money more available for parks-related opportunities, like grants.
Town manager Todd Crossett urged the council to “make that ballot language as clear as possible about where it’s going to go.”
Ladoulis said, “Should the voters go for a sales tax increase, they should know that it’s going for parks maintenance exclusively, with the understanding that by not using funds there we’ll have more for programs. But the sales tax dollars themselves should be going for parks maintenance.”
Rozman suggested that in years when the fund brings in a lot of money, broader ballot language could help the town move money around to where it’s most needed, instead of focusing it too narrowly on a job that might already be paid for.
“Wording it in a narrower fashion puts the money directly into parks maintenance. And I think I would say ‘parks maintenance and parks capital,’” Rozman said.
The council asked Rozman, Crossett and Lauren Alkire, who is working as the interim Parks and Rec director, to work out two sets of ballot language for the council to consider, one broadly worded and the other more narrow. Both could be available for the council to review as early as July 7.
