The Aspen City Council is still undecided on whether to ask voters to double a dedicated Aspen School District sales tax in November.
District leaders met with the city council for the second time this month to make their case for doubling the 0.3% Aspen Public Education Fund sales tax, which is one of a handful of questions the district is pursuing in the fall to make up for current and anticipated funding shortfalls. Mayor Rachel Richards was concerned about overburdening taxpayers, while some council members preferred to let the voters decide whether they wanted to increase the city’s sales tax by an additional 0.3%.
“The school district is one of the pride and joys of this community, and so my feeling is that we let it go to the ballot and let the voters decide what sort of appetite they have for sales tax increases,” said Councilwoman Christine Benedetti. “It could be one, it could be two, it could be all three, but I’d like to see the community make that decision.”
The district also plans to ask voters to approve a mill levy override and a bond measure in November.
Councilman John Doyle said he would also like to let voters decide. Councilman Bill Guth did not attend the meeting, but told Richards beforehand he would support posing the question to voters and potentially reducing some city sales taxes, like the city’s dedicated parks and open space or Elected Officials Transportation Committee’s taxes, instead. Councilman Sam Rose recused himself from the conversation because he works for the school district.
District leaders want to double the education fund sales tax to help pay staff salaries as they grapple with state funding changes that will negatively impact the district and try to rebuild low reserves. The 0.3% sales tax brings in about $4 million to the district annually. Since it was first levied in 2013, it has brought in $31 million to the district, according to the city.
Interim City Manager Pete Strecker told the council on Monday that it could choose to do nothing with the tax this year since it sunsets at the end of 2026, extend the 0.3% sales tax for another five years, increase it a certain amount, or change the mechanism of the funding. ASD Assistant Superintendent of Business Mary Rodino said the first two options would impact the district’s ability to increase staff salaries.
“Both of those options do not allow us any room, at this point, to have any raises, and I’m not even sure how we pay for a step raise for our staff, which is generally expected with additional years of experience,” she said. “The raises for our unionized staff, which is a large majority, came only because we worked really hard with the representation and reduced seven employee positions through attrition.”
The district convened an expense cutting task force at the start of the 2024-25 academic year to identify ways for the district to cut costs and rebuild its reserves. The cost-savings plan that the committee landed on will save the district about $1 million in the upcoming academic year. Seven educator positions were cut and three support positions were cut through attrition.
“This year, we had an expense task force which pared down staff, and also was able to make up for a lot of costs we experienced with healthcare and give a cost of living adjustment for our staff, but we’re predicting a similar situation next year and I think the town of Aspen has a very high expectation for the level of service that they’re expecting from the schools, that being class sizes, that being the sports that we offer, that being Outdoor Ed,” Superintendent Tharyn Mulberry told council members. “In most school districts, when faced with these same funding constraints, the very first things to go are those programs.”
Richards suggested taxing property instead of sales through the education fund. In previous meetings, the school board chose to pursue doubling the Aspen sales tax because it also places a burden on tourists rather than just homeowners.
The district also asked the Snowmass Village Town Council to increase the Snowmass Village Public Education Fund property tax from $500,000 to $1 million. It would increase the town of Snowmass’ contribution to the district to 20% of the district’s operating budget, which is about how much of the student body is made up of Snowmass residents.
The town council is still weighing the request.
Some city council members were concerned about Aspen’s outsized role in funding the district, compared to contributions of Snowmass students or out-of-district students. Nearly 60% of the district’s students live in Aspen or the surrounding 81611 area, and help contribute the $4 million in education fund tax revenue for the district, Strecker said. About 20% of the district’s students live in Snowmass, 3% live in Woody Creek and 20% are out of district, according to Strecker. The Woody Creek and out of district areas are not directly taxed for the schools.
The district accepts out-of-district students through lotteries when space is available. It also accepts out-of-district students whose parents are district employees. Students who were in the district but whose families moved out of the district during the pandemic were allowed to stay in the district until they completed schooling at ASD.
“We don’t really look at our students based on where they live … and so if we’re truly looking at all of our students through an equity lens, regardless of where the funding originates — and I’m split on whether Aspen actually does bear more of it, between the visitors, the locals who live within the municipality and the locals that shop within the municipality but don’t necessarily live in it — but if we reduce or don’t adequately fund our schools, that hurts all of our students, whether they’re in the municipality of Aspen or outside of it,” said ASD Controller Max Marolt.
Richards said she would support renewing the tax at 0.3% or increasing it slightly to potentially 0.4%. But she also wanted to see the district pursue a special taxing district, which would tax all district residents, and include revenues from on-mountain dining, the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport and the Aspen Airport Business Center, all of which aren’t included in the boundaries for the APEF sales tax.
She was concerned with the city’s sales tax potentially increasing above 10% (if a special tax district for early childhood education passes in the fall and if the Aspen Fire Protection district places a sales tax question on the ballot and that passes, the city’s sales tax would increase above 10%), especially if the city council needs to pursue sales taxes for its own initiatives in the future, like the entrance to Aspen.
“I would think about continuing what we have and maybe increasing it some until there is a point in time in which you could go for a bigger question,” she said. “Just doubling (the tax) may have triggered a greater look at who’s contributing, who’s not, and how else could we broaden the base so that more are contributing and we could bring down the ask.”
The city council will continue its conversation about the APEF tax during its Aug. 11 work session, with hopes of making a final decision to submit ballot language to the Pitkin County Clerk and Recorder’s Office by Aug. 26.
“I definitely want to commit to at least the existing tax for sure, and ideally … let it go to a vote for the total doubling of it,” Doyle said. “But somewhere in between, maybe the maximum I don’t know, but I do want you to leave here feeling positive that we’re going to find a solution to get our schools funded.”
