A survey regarding voters’ attitudes toward a 1 percent sales tax in Montezuma County has been completed.
Commissioner Jim Candelaria said on Monday that the results will be discussed soon in a commission workshop and the commissioners will then decide whether to put the sales-tax proposal on the November ballot.
The budget came up frequently during the commissioners’ informal “Coffee with the County” gathering Monday. Candelaria said the county is “running extremely lean and mean” and funding is deficient in some programs and departments.
“You can’t stay at a 1980s revenue level and expect 2026 services,” he said.
Montezuma County is one of just a handful of Colorado’s 64 counties that do not have a sales tax of their own.
The commissioners are considering putting a question on the ballot that, if passed, would impose a 1 percent county sales tax. Sixty percent of the revenues would go to the sheriff’s office, 30 percent to the Road and Bridge Department, and 10 percent to county clean-up efforts. They allocated money for a scientific survey of voters on their views of the possible tax.
Commissioner Kent Lindsay said that over the decades the county became addicted to money from carbon-dioxide producer Kinder Morgan, but now its CO2 production and thus the revenues it provides are declining.
He said the county is like an addict in withdrawal, becoming shaky and starting to sweat.
“Soon you’re going to have seizures,” Lindsay said.
Candelaria said Kinder Morgan currently provides about 34 percent of the county’s revenues.
“If we have to build our budget with 34 percent less money, how do you do that?” he asked.
Allen Maez of Lewis asked why the county clerk and recorder’s office is closed on Fridays, suggesting that time off there should be spread out among employees in order to provide hours on Fridays.
Candelaria said the employees in the clerk and recorder’s office are working 35 hours a week instead of 40 in order to save money, and it was decided to give them Fridays off because that’s when public schools are closed as well.
“If I give each person in that office five more hours, which I should,” Candelaria asked, “how does that affect my county budget?”
Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer pointed out that in many other counties, people have to make appointments in order to go to the clerk and recorder’s office instead of simply being able to walk in, as they are able to do here.
Asked about the county’s reserves, Candelaria said they earn interest income and they are used for things such as capital improvement projects. He said the idea that the county should just spend its reserves is “the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
In a phone interview, Candelaria told KSJD that the county does spend money from its reserves, but not on operational needs.
He said the county has to live within a budget, just as people do.
“Say you’re earning a wage and you overspend and you go into your savings account every year to cover your needs, and then you need to replace your roof. Now you have no way of funding that,” he said.
The county is soon going to dip into its reserves to do maintenance on some parking lots, he said. “Those are big-ticket items.”
Reserve funds are also kept in case of cyber-security attacks that could require major rebuilding of county computer systems and software.
“People say, ‘reserves, reserves, just blow through them’ but we can’t do that," Candelaria said. "It’s not sustainable.”
