The results of a survey to gauge voters’ attitudes about the Colorado River Water Conservation District and Western Slope water returned some good news for the district. But due to concerns about the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, River District officials are still mulling whether to push ahead with a plan to ask voters to restore part of its original mill levy.
River District general manager Andy Mueller said the overall
results of the survey, which found that 65 percent of respondents would support
a mill levy increase, were a ray of good news in an otherwise dark time. But at
the board’s April quarterly meeting, Mueller recommended that it postpone making
a decision about whether to move forward on a ballot initiative until at least
its July meeting.
“Given the economic devastation that is occurring throughout
the district, the question we have to ask ourselves in July is: Isit
appropriate to go to the voters to ask for additional funding at this time when
they are suffering such great economic hardship?” Mueller said. “I don’t know
the answer to that.”
The River District board is considering whether to ask
voters to raise its property tax rate from a quarter-mill to a half-mill,
taking its budget from about $4 million to $8 million. That works out to 50
cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value. One mill is the equivalent
of $1 per $1,000 of assessed value.
According to numbers provided by the River District, for the
median home value in Grand County, at $344,895, the mill levy would increase
from $5.80 to $12.33 per year.
For several days in mid-March, River District consultant Arvada-based
New Bridge Strategy surveyed about 600 residents and voters via email and phone
to assess the feasibility of a ballot question. The survey results found that residents
trust that the River District manages taxpayer funds wisely, and three out of
five people said they would support a tax increase if it were on the ballot
measure in November.
“I think, overall, this is positive,” said Lori Weigel,
principal of New Bridge Strategy. “It’s pretty rare to see something testing at
60 percent or higher in Colorado these days. It speaks to the primacy of water
and people’s concern about water in this part of the state.”
Survey-takers said protecting western Colorado water for
agriculture and preserving clean drinking water were the most compelling
reasons to vote yes on a tax increase. Eighty-eight percent found these reasons
convincing. The River District is not a direct provider of drinking water, but part
of the organization’s mission is to keep water on the Western slope.
Women over 55 years old made up the backbone of support for a
tax measure — 73 percent said they would back it. Residents across the
political spectrum supported a tax increase, but it found the most support from
Democrats, with 75 percent saying they would vote yes. Fifty-six percent of
Republicans were supportive.
Mesa County
The Glenwood Springs-based River District, created in 1937
to protect and develop water supplies in western Colorado, spans 15 counties: Grand,
Summit, Eagle, Pitkin, Rio Blanco, Routt, Moffat, Garfield, Mesa, Delta,
Montrose, Ouray, Gunnison, Hinsdale and Saguache. The survey found broad
geographic support overall, but the numbers were lowest in one key, populous
county: Mesa. Only 59 percent of survey respondents there said they would
support a tax increase.
“What it means to me is that we need to do better and make
sure that if there are places that others perceive we are not speaking and
advocating well for agriculture, then we need to do it more uniformly,” Mueller
said.
Steve Acquafresca, who represents Mesa County on the River
District board, said probably only a small percentage of voters know what the
River District does, and although the River District has ramped up its outreach
to Western Slope communities this year, more is needed. Those efforts, however,
have been sidelined by the pandemic. The River District had scheduled a series
of State of the River meetings this spring, which were canceled.
“It’s a huge challenge,” Acquafresca said. “That’s a huge
disadvantage of going forward with a question in 2020 if we can’t get out and
do the campaigning.”
He also pointed out that the results of the survey may no
longer be valid because of its timing.
“Although some of the results look pretty good, all of that
was done before the pandemic really impacted our Western Slope communities,”
Acquafresca said. “Nobody had any concept of the economic consequences of this
pandemic on big cities and small towns alike.”
For the median home value in Mesa County, at $218,601, the
mill levy would increase from $3.67 to $7.81 per year.
Projects plan
River District staffers have also unveiled a fiscal
implementation plan for how that additional funding could be spent should
voters pass a ballot measure. Of the projected $4.9 million in additional
revenue, $4.2 million of that would be spent on projects identified as
priorities by local communities and basin roundtables in five categories:
productive agriculture, infrastructure, healthy rivers, watershed health and
water quality.
Some representative projects that River District revenue
could help fund are the White River Storage Project; maintaining flows secured
by the Shoshone call; and the Windy Gap Reservoir connectivity channel.
The state engineer is opposing the water rights tied to the
White River Storage Project in water court over concerns that the project is
speculative and that the applicant, the Rio Blanco Water Conservancy District,
has not proven there is a need for the water. The project would include a
90,000-acre-foot conditional storage right, and a dam and reservoir on the
White River between Rangely and Meeker. But Mueller said it’s too early to know
what specific projects the River District’s tax money might fund.
“We can’t say we would fund any one of those in particular;
those are examples,” Mueller said. “We are not making a commitment to funding
any of those that are listed.”
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