Rico Street Fund Revenue Options to be Explored at March Board of Trustees Meeting

Town of Rico shop

Ore Cart photo - March 16, 2021

Town of Rico Board of Trustees will review options for a property tax increase to generate more revenue for the Town Street Fund at its regular monthly meeting, March 17, 2021 at 6:30 PM. The format is web conference (Zoom). Agenda with instructions for joining the meeting are at Town of Rico website.

The March 2021 Trustees packet contains a history of recent annual Street Fund revenues and expenses. Chart below shows expenses exceeding revenues for each of the past four years.

Ore Cart chart - Town of Rico data

At its February 2021 meeting, the Rico Board of Trustees instructed Town Manager Kari Distefano to prepare a proposal to keep the Street Fund solvent for the next several years. The Street Fund proposal forecasts average annual expenses:

The next chart compares the annual estimated Street Fund expenses with recent years' annual average revenue.

Ore Cart chart - Town of Rico data

To make revenues equal expenses, the Street Fund needs an annual revenue increase of $123,760, achieved as described below (excerpt from Trustees Packet):

. . . Using the most recent Rico valuation of $6,003,815, the Town would need an additional 20.62 mills to achieve this.

- - -

The proposed increase approximately doubles the current Town of Rico property tax levy:

existing . . . . . . . . . . 18.744 mills

proposed increase . 20.62 mills

resulting total . . . . . 39.364 mills

change from current . . . 2.1 X

The Street Fund proposal includes lower tax increases for Trustees to consider:

Town Shop construction expense is not included in the Street Fund proposal. Options for funding this project are described below (excerpt from Trustees Packet):

The Town shop is a separate expense. San Miguel County built a new shop in 2015. It cost just over one million dollars. To design and build a new shop would likely require an additional 16 mills. It could be possible to share that expense with SMART, in which case we would be eligible for CDOT funding. CDOT funding only requires a 20% match and it is possible that we could use the value of the land on which the shop sits for the match. We could also explore the option of Department of Local Affairs funding, which has a 50% match.

Note: Tables above are edited versions of the originals, which are contained in the March 2021 Town of Rico Trustees packet. Charts created by Ore Cart.