Why is This Important?

The responsible spending measure provides an approximate assessment on the County’s overall financial health.

What Does It Mean?

In 2024, the County continued to struggle with the inflationary cost growth of expenditures such as salaries, benefits, materials, equipment, and services outpacing the growth in revenue.  Property tax is the largest source of revenue accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total revenue.  Although there were significant increases in property values from the reassessment in 2023 for collection in 2024, the property tax revenue for the county is limited by the provision of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and the 5.5% statutory limitation.  This resulted in another tight budget year for the County with a large number of budget requests not recommended for funding by the Board of County Commissioners in order to structurally balance the budget.  There was additional funding set-aside due to the loss of economies of scale with the anticipation of the addition of the District Attorney’s Office at year end with a portion of the 18^th Judicial District splitting off into the newly formed 23^rd Judicial District leaving the 18^th Judicial District a single-county district.   

Reserves have remained at healthy levels with recent increases from the one-time federal funds from the CARES Act and ARPA.  The voters of Arapahoe County passed ballot measure 1A in November of 2024 which released the County from the revenue and spending limits imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to begin to address deferred expenses and projects.  As such, the reserves are expected to increase in 2025 as the Board of County Commissioners will begin to determine how to spend the additional revenue in the 2026 budget process.

Definition

4 components (balanced budget, adequate reserves, diverse revenues and strong bond rating) that provide an index score that gauges the County’s annual budget health.