County planning possible 2026 ballot initiative

Addressing $38M in road and bridge deferred maintenance

By Katherine Nettles

Gunnison County officials are preparing a potential ballot initiative for November which would likely ask voters to approve a 0.5% sales tax increase to address a road and bridge funding deficit. County commissioners and public works staff have discussed the issue for several years, and have taken initial steps to place the issue in the hands of voters this election cycle. The increase would likely not include fuel and groceries.

“We haven’t had dedicated road and bridge fund increases since 1993,” said assistant county manager for public works Martin Schmidt in a work session with county commissioners on January 13.

Schmidt reviewed how the county is limited in the funds it uses for road and bridge maintenance, as it cannot use general funds based on state statute. “And we are really tied to the cost of construction,” he said. “We all know how that has gone up significantly since the ‘90s.”

He described the department’s “slow starvation” situation in which road quality and conditions are diminishing with increasing rapidity as decisions are made based not on maintaining standards but on a constrained budget.

The county hired consulting firm KLJ in 2024 that took a pavement condition index for all paved and gravel roads, prioritized roads based on conditions and created a deferred maintenance cost plan to address the past three decades of budget shortfalls. They determined the county has in excess of $38 million in deferred maintenance, “to get roads back to a generally acceptable condition,” said Schmidt. He has also been working with the county finance team to review different revenue sources and “try to right-size the request to the budget need.”

Creating a new 0.5% sales tax would cover the minimum expense determined by KLJ, providing $1.9 million per year to chip away at the needs over a 20-year time frame, “and maintaining the assets that we have,” said Schmidt.

Commissioner Liz Smith asked to clarify why a sales tax would be targeted as opposed to other approaches.

“There are different levers to pull,” said Schmidt. He noted that residents, visitors, renters and property owners all use the roads, versus a property tax or a lodging tax that would target only some groups. “Sales tax is kind of a middle ground for all users without discriminating,” he said.

KLJ representatives gave commissioners a presentation on their findings, and their recommendations for a public outreach campaign.

Existing conditions

According to KLJ’s findings, the county’s road and bridge department is responsible for 418 miles of roads, 30% of which are paved, 48 bridges and major culverts, and the county is responsible for snowplowing 215 miles of roads when needed. The county also helps maintain roads that access public lands, including Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service roads.

KLJ representative Sarah Brooks reviewed the county’s budget problem, whereby state statutes do not allow property taxes to be used for road maintenance and the primary funding pool comes from a static gasoline tax called Highway Users Tax Fund (HUTF), then to a smaller degree from payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) from public lands, oil and gas severance tax and vehicle registration fees.

Schmidt said that severance taxes vary widely each year. “This year it was projected to be just north of $1 million, and we ended up getting $65,000,” he said of 2025.

Public outreach would allow for public input on whether to move forward with the ballot initiative, what roads to prioritize, and how to time various projects.

“There’s a lot of deferred maintenance,” said commissioner Jonathan Houck. “You can’t do it all at one time.”

KLJ’s cost analysis showed that paved roads cost $200,000 per mile for minor repairs such as crack sealing and fog coating; that cost goes up to $800,000 per mile for roads in fair condition that need chip sealing, and $2 million per mile for minor reconstruction. Full reconstruction is estimated at $3 million per mile. These figures do not account for inflation, but the plan to address projects in small batches over the next 20 years calls for a minimum annual cost of $1.9 million. The idea is that sales tax would increase accordingly as inflation occurred, keeping pace with road and bridge maintenance costs, and that the annual budget could be used to match grant funds available for certain projects.

Existing tax rates

Commissioners considered the other tax options, and the effects that a 0.5% sales tax increase would have county-wide, if gas and groceries were exempt. The sales tax rates throughout the county are set at 2.9% for the state, 1% for the county and 1% for the Gunnison Valley Regional Transportation Authority (RTA). The city of Gunnison adds 4% for a cumulative rate of 8.9%; the town of Crested Butte adds 4.5% for a cumulative 9.4% and the town of Mt. Crested Butte adds 5% for a cumulative rate of 9.9%.

“It would push Mt. Crested Butte over 10% at a base level, but not on fuels and groceries,” said Houck.

Schmidt noted that the county shares back half of its 1% sales tax portion if it is collected within a municipality, and that overall, the county gets less than 1% of aggregate sales tax collected. Houck said that even municipality sales tax funds generally go to things that benefit the citizens of Gunnison County, whether buildings and facilities or maintaining programs. “I am glad to see that we’re moving toward sales tax,” he said. “I think it’s the right way forward.”   

Commissioner Laura Puckett Daniels agreed to the sales tax approach but struggled with the likelihood that campers would not be contributing when they purchase only groceries and don’t spend any other money here. “If we’re trying to tether this to impacts,” she said it would not capture that population.

Schmidt agreed, “There is no perfect mechanism that matches exactly one to one the impact on the roads.”

Schmidt said it would be important to run a thorough and transparent outreach campaign to explain the need to the public and determine if a ballot initiative is viable. The plan includes initial public outreach meetings in February and March, and again in October with community presentations, and a website that will go live in February. Surveys and in-person meetings throughout the following months would allow for community feedback. KLJ estimated they will have a full public engagement summary in April or May.

“Hopefully the seriousness with which we are taking on this… reflects our seriousness as a public works department, and how seriously we would take our responsibility in using these funds,” said Schmidt.

Houck added that the decision to wait a year from the county’s initial strategic plan goal also reflected how seriously they as county officials take the responsibility.