The Aspen School District board of education gave district leaders the go-ahead to ask the city of Aspen and town of Snowmass Village to authorize ballot questions in the November elections asking to extend and potentially increase expiring property and sales taxes.
In a special meeting Wednesday, the board discussed next steps for four ballot measures that would extend or create new revenue sources for the school district. ASD leaders will ask the Aspen City Council and Snowmass Village Town Council to place a question on their respective ballots about the Aspen Public Education Fund sales tax and Snowmass Village Public Education Fund property tax later this month.
They will seek to increase the 0.3% Aspen sales tax to a maximum 0.6% and raise the Snowmass property tax revenue from $500,000 to $1 million. The district will also likely ask voters to approve a new bond for capital projects and a mill levy override to supplement funding that the district anticipates losing in the next several years due to changes to the Colorado school finance formula.
Polling conducted in the spring showed that voters generally would support the tax increases for Aspen schools.
“It shows that everyone is supportive of our schools and that this is our chance to ask for a lot of things, because I think that’s what we are up against right now,” said board member Sarah Daniels.
She said while the ballot questions might appear confusing because of Taxpayer Bill of Rights requirements for Colorado tax question language, “I think that we’re so early in the process that we’re going to be able to get behind how we message it, and we’ll just make sure that we’re going to stick with that, ‘Yes on schools,’ (message).”
The four different revenue streams would support significantly different financial needs at the district. A bond would go toward major capital projects, including housing for ASD teachers and staff, and the district would pursue a one-time ask of between $75 million and $100 million. A mill levy override would increase property taxes and bring in roughly $5 million in recurring annual funding to help make up for flat or decreasing state funding projections by 2031. Mill levy override funding is unrestricted and could go toward a number of things, including increasing staff salaries.
The Aspen and Snowmass public education fund taxes are recurring revenue streams. The Aspen funding can go toward education programs, recruiting and retaining staff, technology, special education and professional development expenses. Snowmass dollars can go toward school programming and other educational purposes.
Of the 253 responses to the survey, more than half of them showed support for each measure. The mill levy override and bond received the most support from survey respondents.
Respondents who would oppose the measures said they would do so because of concerns about taxes, cost of living and government accountability. One Snowmass resident who responded to the survey said the valley is “overtaxed in many areas and increasing taxes won’t improve anything,” according to a presentation to the board about the survey responses.
ASD Superintendent of Business Mary Rodino, however, said voter approval of the four revenue streams could keep the district from making similar funding requests in the near future.
“These asks, I think, would put the district in … a situation to not really need to go back to voters like that,” Rodino said. “We think this will satisfy the housing needs; we also think that the mill levy override will replace the state funding loss.”
“I feel like, yes, there’s an option to space things out, but then also there might be a feeling that you’re coming back every year to ask for something,” she added.
No single voter would see all four questions on their ballot. Every voter in the district’s boundaries would see the bond and mill levy override, but only voters in Aspen’s city limits would see the Aspen education sales tax question and voters just in the Snowmass town limits would see the Snowmass property tax question.
A majority of survey respondents said the most important project the bond should tackle is housing for ASD staff. The district has a number of capital projects it is looking to complete — including new career and technical education classrooms, a new athletic facility and new or upgraded Aspen District Theater — that a potential bond could also tackle.
In addition to housing, respondents favored improved CTE spaces and deferred maintenance or facility repairs over an athletic facility or District Theater upgrades, according to the survey.
“It doesn’t mean that other projects aren’t important and that you should not prioritize the things the school district needs. The innovative CTE classrooms, the athletic space, the theater is just what the public is saying, you know, we recognize those are other important things,” said Bill Ray, a consultant working with ASD who helped conduct the survey. “But our priority, our motivation as the community is to, at least first, above all else, kind of take care of the teachers and staff because we recognize that’s the basis of a great school district.”
The school board will approve ballot language for the bond and mill levy override during an Aug. 20 meeting. Aspen City Council and Snowmass Town Council will vote whether to place their respective tax questions on their ballots later this month.
All ballot language must be sent to the Pitkin County clerk and recorder by Sept. 5. Three seats on the ASD board will also be up for election in November.
