Align Arapahoe Performance Dashboard

The Financial Health Index provides an approximate assessment on the County’s overall financial health.

Medium – the County operates in a fiscally responsible manner but some components that go into the Financial Health Index are influenced by outside economic conditions.

Please note this measure is updated in Q3 of each year.  The County continues to struggle with the inflationary cost growth of salaries, benefits, materials, equipment, and services combined with constraints on the largest source of revenue, property tax.  Property tax accounts for nearly 40 percent of the total revenue and is limited by the provisions of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and the 5.5% statutory limitation.  While many residents experienced large growth in their property values, the County, because of these limitations, did not see a corresponding large increase in revenue.  This resulted in another tight budget year for the County where a number of budget requests were not recommended by the Board of County Commissioners.  While structurally balanced for 2024, the budget includes a $1.5 million set-aside in preparation for the split of the judicial district at the end of 2024.  Like with public health, the dissolution of the existing 18^th Judicial District will eliminate some economies of scale and result in higher costs for 2025 and beyond for the District Attorney’s Office.

Reserves have remained at healthy levels, bolstered by one-time federal funding such as CARES and ARPA.  But, by Q3 of 2024, the County has spend $105 million of the $127 million in ARPA funds with most of the rest of the funding obligated to eligible projects and expected to be spent later this year or during 2025.  This one-time funding has been very helpful in providing needed services, programs, and funding for projects but it will be depleted soon and we expect the trend in fund balance to begin to decrease if additional revenue is provided and deferred expenses and projects become necessary.