Aspen City Council approves 2024 mill levy

The city of Aspen is finalizing its property tax rates for 2024, a process that directly impacts how much funding will be collected to support city operations and infrastructure. 

Property taxes are determined based on assessed property values in the city; for 2024, those values total approximately $2.93 billion. From this, the city expects to collect a total of $12.05 million in property taxes.

This process includes two types of mill levies: one for general purposes and asset management, and another specifically for stormwater infrastructure. 

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A mill levy is essentially the tax rate applied to the assessed property value. The general-purpose mill levy is governed by state law under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), which limits the amount of tax revenue growth to inflation and new construction, even if property values increase sharply. 

Aspen Finance Director Pete Strecker said during a Monday special session having tabor in place for property taxes actually helps homeowners.

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“The city decoupled from TABOR for all of the revenue streams except for one, which is the general purpose mill levy,” Strecker said. “Annually, this revenue stream cannot grow faster than what TABOR allows. “Property values last year went up 65%, but TABOR, using the formula of revenue growth plus new construction, equated 10%.”

He said the city had to reduce the amount of mill they were charging and adjust it down to the revenue allowed, which he said was good for homeowners.

“A lot of communities around Colorado found that TABOR limits were going to reduce the amount of tax they could collect, and decoupled (asked voters to opt-out) of the mill levy limits,” Strecker said. “Aspen decoupled out of all Mill Levys except the general-purpose mill levy.”

This cap prevents dramatic swings in tax revenues. For 2024, the general-purpose mill levy rate is set at 3.432 mills, which is lower than the maximum allowed rate of 5.410 mills due to temporary credits applied by the city.

“The temporary credit (3.432 mills) is caused by the mill levy limitation, and that is why we are not charging the full amount,” Strecker said. “We have to adjust down from 5.410 because of that limit.”

The stormwater mill levy, on the other hand, is not restricted by TABOR because voters approved it to operate independently of those limits. 

This allows the city to collect the full 0.650 mills, the maximum permitted, to address ongoing needs for stormwater infrastructure. This approach ensures funding for essential projects that are currently underfunded. Many of these stormwater projects began earlier this year and are expected to continue once the right-of-way season resumes on April 1.

“The mill levy for stormwater infrastructure was brought before voters to ask if this mill could be decoupled, and they said ‘yes.’ This is why we can charge the full amount,” Strecker said. “The stormwater program is fairly underfunded relative to the amount of projects we have. Even with this revenue stream, there are still plenty of projects for which we need resources.”

He said this stormwater mill levy will bring in over $2 million, but the amount needed for all the projects is around $20 million.

“In order to fund these projects, they will have to be spaced out over time because we do not have a fund balance to be able to cover this right now,” Strecker said.

City Councilmember Ward Hauenstein asked if the lost revenue imposed by the mill levy limits could be made up.

Stecker said that the lost revenue by not decoupling the general purpose mill levy would not be made up, except if the TABOR formula for revenue plus new construction were to reach that threshold.

Regardless, the city stated that these rates and collections align with the city’s 2025 budget projections, supporting vital services and infrastructure maintenance.

City Council is required to formally adopt these tax rates by Dec. 15 to comply with state law and has already incorporated these revenue figures into its budget planning. City Council unanimously approved the 2024 mill levies.