This fund is a Special Revenue Fund created in 2023 for the purpose of funding emergency services, including but not limited to:

• Capital facilities and equipment;
• Operating costs of search and rescue organizations;
• Supplemental funding for the needs of fire departments in mountain and rural areas;
• Ambulance services not covered by municipal or fire districts;
• Wildfire-fighting staffing;
• Trail and trailhead safety services

Revenue Source

• 0.10% Sales and Use tax effective 2023, to decrease to .05% on 1/1/2027 in perpetuity.

Background

There are 200 miles of foothills trails and 110,000 acres of open space in Boulder County, and the County is a local, national, and international destination for outdoor recreation enthusiasts. Each year, there is a significant need for rescue services for individuals who become injured or otherwise need to be rescued while recreating. Each year the County’s volunteer search and rescue organizations respond to approximately 200 calls for emergency assistance on incidents such as missing hikers, fallen climbers, avalanches, and water rescues, and the number of rescue calls continues to increase. These volunteer organizations also assist the Sheriff’s Office on additional larger-scale disaster and emergency response efforts.

Recreation visitation to open space and public lands in Boulder County continues to increase. This has caused trail and trailhead safety issues that include the need for parking, traffic, and accident control measures like increased public safety staffing and trailhead shuttles. Trailheads must be managed to ensure emergency services have proper access to trails and trailheads and the public utilizing our trails and trailheads have the ability to escape natural disasters like wildfires.

The County contracts with volunteer search and rescue (SAR) organizations to provide assistance to those individuals. While those SAR organizations provide the volunteer labor for rescue operations, those organizations have significant capital and equipment costs and needs. The County desires to provide financial support for these organizations so that they have the equipment, training, and resources needed to provide SAR and emergency response.

There is an urgent need to construct a building to serve as the base for the County Sheriff Office’s search and rescue volunteer organizations. The building is needed to house equipment and protect equipment from the elements and provide training and response facilities for SAR organizations to be most efficient and prepared for emergency response.

The County works with several volunteer search and rescue organizations that assist the Sheriff’s Office and the Boulder Office of Disaster Management (also known as the Boulder Office of Emergency Management) to respond to emergencies. These volunteer groups currently include, for example, the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group (RMRG), which is the County’s primary search and rescue contractor; the Boulder Emergency Squad, which performs a range of rescue services, including water rescue; Front Range Rescue Dogs, which assists with search and rescue efforts; and Mounted Search and Rescue, which provide horse-back searchers and assist with large animal evacuations.

There are over 20 fire departments throughout Boulder County that serve as the first line of defense for mountain and rural areas of the County not located within a municipality. These fire departments across the County respond to a total of over 13,000 calls per year.

The County’s rural and mountain communities, and the residents within unincorporated Boulder County, rely upon the County to provide ambulance services. The Unincorporated County ambulance service responds to approximately 1,500 emergency calls per year.

The Board finds that the most appropriate solution to these emergency response needs is to impose a County-wide sales and use tax of 0.10%, declining to 0.05% after December 31, 2027, in order to provide revenue to fund equipment, facilities, programs and operations that address these service needs. The Board further finds that this is an on-going need for which there is not now nor will there be an adequate alternative funding source, necessitating that this sale and use tax be permanent.