On Tuesday, Routt County Commissioners formally adopted the county’s 2024 budget with $112 million in expenses and $101 million in revenues.

Both numbers are higher than they’ve ever been.

If the county’s budget stays course, it means revenues for the coming year could be about 19% higher than the projected revenues from 2023, and expenses could be about 37% higher than last year’s projected total.

“We’re spending some money here, right?” asked Dan Strnad, Routt County’s budget and finance director who assembles the county’s budget each year. “$112 million budget, so there’s some money happening.”

While the budget forecasts about $10 million being taken from the county’s reserves, much of that was set aside during previous years for specific expenses such as purchasing equipment, repaving roads or funding projects for which the timelines have been pushed back.

The COVID-19 pandemic shutdown was especially disruptive and created a backlog of projects the county is eager to finish.

“It’s not that we’re going south or anything like that,” Strnad said. “It’s just that we built the reserves up and now we’re going to spend some of it.”

The county’s Purchase of Development Rights program, for example, accounts for $6.9 million of the county’s 2024 reserve spending. The PDR program involves purchasing land in the county to set aside for conservation and open space and is funded by its own voter-approved mill levy. Because last year’s PDR revenue was never spent, it rolled over into the 2024 budget.

Last year’s county budget also anticipated a $10 million reduction in reserves, but because of higher-than-expected revenues from sales taxes, fees and other revenue sources — combined with the county’s PDR money being put into reserve — the county now expects a $4 million increase to its reserves from 2023, setting Routt up with about $83 million in reserves at the end of last year and about $73 million budgeted at the end of 2024.

The county’s Road and Bridge department is also expected to take a chunk out of reserves with about $900,000 budgeted for road improvement projects and $1.7 million for purchasing equipment.

Personnel costs account for about $40 million, or about 37% of the county’s total budget, and are expected to increase by about 12%, mainly because of a 5% across-the-board pay increase for county employees that is expected to cost $1.7 million in 2024.

Also, medical claims spiked in 2023, and the county expects a $1.2 million increase in health insurance costs. However, last year is seen by county staff as somewhat of an outlier, and they expect employer and employee contributions to remain flat in 2024.

The county’s capital and infrastructure costs are expected to jump by 78% to almost $30 million, but that’s almost entirely because of an additional $11 million budgeted toward the Yampa Valley Regional Airport, which is its own source of revenue and is expected to receive about $8 million in federal money in 2024.

Phase 1 of the terminal expansion design, which is expected to cost about $5.1 million, is on the budget this year, along with other projects at the airport such as a rental car wash facility.  

The county is also replacing the wastewater treatment systems in Phippsburg and Milner for a total cost of $7.6 million, which will be covered with a mix of loans, grants from the Department of Local Affairs and pandemic relief money. The county expects the two facilities to be completed and paid for by the end of 2024.

While expenses are high for the county, their expected revenue could surpass $100 million for the first time ever, largely because of an influx of federal funds for the airport, state funds for the Milner and Phippsburg wastewater treatment plants, and property taxes.

Property tax accounts for 28% of the county’s expected revenue at $28.7 million. Last year the assessed valuations on properties in Routt County jumped by 54%, so the county’s total property tax revenue is expected to increase by 14%, or $3.5 million, over 2023’s budget.

The county’s base property tax rate is restricted by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which caps property tax revenue at 6.2% of the previous year’s total. The voter-approved mill levies that fund the county’s Purchase for Development Rights program, Developmental Disabilities program and the Museum and Heritage Fund, however, are not restricted by TABOR.

Because the rise of valuations was a shock to so many in Colorado, the Colorado General Assembly approved the Property Tax Relief Bill in November, which meant counties across Colorado had to recalculate their assessments and property taxes. In Routt County, the Senate bill lessened the increase of valuations on residential real property to about 52%.

“The treasurer’s and assessor’s office all had to kind of scramble over the last three weeks, four weeks and got it all done,” County Manager Jay Harrington said.

Normally, the county works against a December deadline to adopt the annual budget, but that deadline was moved to Tuesday to account for the extra work.

On Tuesday morning, moments before adopting the budget, County Commissioner Tim Corrigan said to his other commissioners, “The good news is we will soon start working on the 2025 budget.”