Montezuma County Assessor Leslie Bugg gave a grim report to the county commissioners Monday about revenues.
She said from 2023 to 2026, the county saw a reduction of $2.7 million in tax revenues.
“It would take 11 Walmarts to make up that deficit,” Bugg said.
Reduced oil and gas production is the main cause. From 2025 to 2026, the county saw a decline in assessed values in every tax classification except for residential, Bugg said. In that classification, there was an increase of $2.6 million.
However, that was not nearly enough to offset the other decreases, with the biggest decline being a drop of $55.6 million for oil and gas.
Much of that came from the county’s biggest single source of taxes, carbon-dioxide company Kinder Morgan.
“There’s hardly any production left in Montezuma County,” Bugg said.
She said Kinder Morgan is “at the point where they can’t sell the CO2 because it’s not being utilized to pull oil out of the ground any more. There’s no demand. . . .
“From here to west Texas, it’s just sitting in the pipelines and then in storage because it’s not being used.”
The total decline in assessed values from last year was $61.5 million, according to Bugg
“We all knew that at some point in time Christmas was going to go away,” commented commission Chairman Jim Candelaria.
“If you had to cut 50 percent of your household budget tomorrow, how would you do it?”
Commissioner Kent Lindsay said, “The golden fleece has lost pretty much all of its feathers.”
Lindsay noted that the decline in revenues affects not just the county budget, but schools, cemetery districts, library districts, fire districts, and other entities.
Bugg said she wanted to present the information to counter false reports that Kinder Morgan’s production was fine.
Candelaria said he hopes people will take heed and understand the situation the county is in.
