Boulder County voters have overwhelmingly turned out in support for three tax measures related to wildfire mitigation, emergency services and transportation.
In the first round of election results Tuesday, all three measures had wide margins in favor of increasing taxes to support various county efforts. If the support holds, which is likely, sales and use tax in Boulder County will go up by 0.2%.
“It’s great news. Voters continue in Boulder County to support initiatives and work that they feel strongly about,” Board of Boulder County Commissioners Chair Marta Loachamin said on Tuesday night “… I’m going to be really pleased for us to start working on and include community and our community experts on these different topics to get some great work done on behalf of voters.”
Ballot Issue 1C, an extension in perpetuity of the 0.1% sales and use tax for transportation, saw the most support by county voters with 80.9% of the vote in the first round. The transportation sales tax was first passed in 2001 and extended in 2007.
“We can assure voters now we’re not going to sunset in 2024,” Loachamin said. “It will be in perpetuity, so with the long list of multimodal transportation goals and projects, we’ll be able to start working on those and make commitments to and leverage more funding.”
The measure for wildfire mitigation, Ballot Issue 1A, saw the second largest margin of support with 72.7% of voters in favor in the first round of results. The measure would increase sales and use tax by 0.1% to fund countywide efforts to reduce fuels through forest and grassland management projects.
While the least supported of the three county tax measures, Ballot Issue 1B has still garnered 68.8% of votes in favor of the 0.1% sales tax increase for emergency services. The sales and use tax for emergency response would decline to 0.05% after five years.
The revenue from that measure is meant to bolster agencies providing emergency services and help the county pay for rising ambulance service costs.
Loachamin said the community has shown a lot of interest in being involved with the wildfire and emergency services measures, and that the county plans to involve them as they develop plans for how the funds will be spent.
“This is another example of being able to respond to what the community is wanting with tax measures,” she said.
The three measures are estimated to generate a total of $33 million in 2023.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with comments from Commissioner Chair Marta Loachamin. It was updated again at 9:35 p.m. with the most recent election results.
