Ahead of the 2027 budget season, the town of Silverthorne has received its 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. That report — along with trends and numbers from 2026 — will help inform the creation of next year’s budget.
A preliminary version of that budget will be presented to the Town Council on Wednesday, Sept. 23, during a council work session. Per Colorado law, the town will then adopt an official plan for 2027 by Dec. 15.
According to Pam Ness, Silverthorne’s finance director, the town is in a “financially solid position” as it looks ahead to 2027.
Much of this stability, she says, is thanks to the town’s reserves.
Despite decreasing general fund revenue and increasing expenditures in 2025, Silverthorne ended the year with $20.4 million in its unassigned general reserve fund. According to Ness, that number is “well above” what is mandated in the town’s reserve policy, which requires Silverthorne to have at least six months worth of general fund expenditures saved for unexpected emergencies.
Because of this healthy reserve fund, Ness explained that the town’s budget for next year won’t be excessively impacted by 2026, which saw low snowpack and, as a result, increased pressures on many of Summit County’s tourism-driven economies.
“Silverthorne’s core financial resilience tool is its reserve policy, and its healthy reserves allow the Town to absorb a soft year without disruption to service levels,” Ness said in an email.
She also noted that — because the town receives revenue from varied sources like sales tax, lodging tax, property fees and service charges — decreasing revenue in some categories can be balanced by other areas.
“The Town’s conservative reserve and budgeting practices are specifically designed to weather this kind of revenue variability,” she said.
The town’s largest income source is sales tax, which accounted for 41% of its governmental activities revenue in 2025.
Still, sales tax revenue was down 2.8% in 2025 compared to 2024, which Ness said reflected a “regional softening,” rather than a problem unique to Silverthorne.
“A challenge the Silverthorne government faces in both the short and long term is the dependence on sales tax revenues,” says the town’s 2025 financial report. “Sales tax revenues can be volatile and susceptible to forces outside the direct control of the Town government.”
After 2025, sales tax revenue continued to decrease throughout 2026, though Ness noted that, in June, the town generated 5.4% more sales tax revenue than it did in June 2025, bringing the town closer to meeting its end-of-year goals.
Other major revenue sources for the town have seen a drop in 2026 as well, including Silverthorne’s Real Estate Transfer Assessment, which is a type of fee paid by residents in some Silverthorne developments like Summit Sky Ranch.
Ness said that revenue from this source is down 44% compared to the 2026 budget through July, and is on track to fall $650,000 short of its planned budget for the year.
But despite the shortfalls, Ness said that none of the town’s core services — or in-progress improvements, like the recreation center expansion project — should be impacted by a tightened 2027 budget.
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Author: Summit Daily