On December 11, 2024, the Board of County Commissioners adopted a $708 million balanced budget for the 2025 fiscal year. The budget will fund infrastructure, services, and programs for county residents.

The guiding principles of the 2025 budget process were the commissioners’ current strategic priorities, which include:  

• economic security and social stability 

• climate action and environmental stewardship 

• good governance 

Underpinning all of these priorities is the belief that good governance is impossible without racial equity. 

• In partnership with the City of Boulder and the Town of Erie, the county will move forward with the BERT Plan to develop location and design options for an 8.5 mile east-west multi-use trail connection between Erie and Boulder. The county will also advance the design and engineering for the US36 North Foothills Bikeway connecting Lyons and Boulder. Using local transportation funds, the county will continue to work with state and federal partners to improve CO119 Diagonal Highway between Longmont and Boulder.

• The new Climate Equity Fund is putting the power of climate action in the hands of those most impacted by climate change. Designed with a first-of-its-kind in Boulder County, community-driven approach, this fund will provide resources to grassroots leaders and organizations creating tailored solutions that advance racial equity and climate resilience.

• Prairie Run Open Space, located along Boulder Creek from Highway 287 to Erie, is set to open to the public in late 2025 as the county’s newest open space park. Restoration projects will enhance wildlife habitat and make the stream flood-resilient as the climate changes. The park will include picnic areas, trails, and fishing access.

• The Sheriff’s Office will utilize funds from the Wildfire Mitigation Tax to increase Fire Management personnel and to purchase equipment that will be used to help with fire mitigation work. Eight seasonal positions will become full-time positions, allowing for 3,700 staff hours to be dedicated to wildfire mitigation efforts in 2025. This means more preventative work including controlled burns.

• Through the voter-approved Affordable and Attainable Housing Tax, $9.7 million will be put towards the development of affordable housing across Boulder County.

• New housing supportive services include additional housing exit opportunities for previously homeless families and youth exiting Continuum of Care (CoC) Rapid Re-housing (RRH) and strengthening partnerships with behavioral and mental health providers to provide stronger wrap around supports.

• The voter-approved Alternative Sentencing Facility will open in 2025 as The Pelle Center with the goal of keeping low risk offenders out of expensive jail beds and enable better outcomes for people who are eligible for community-based sentences. The county will fund the startup operational costs this coming year and once it’s open and occupied, future funding will come from grants, programmatic revenue, including state funding for community corrections services, and the county’s annual general fund budget. The Boulder County jail expansion will be completed in order to operate the jail safely both for offenders and staff.

Adopted 2025 Expenses:  $708,120,537

General Government – $276,966,414

Includes all expenditures for the administrative branch and covers a range of core functions of county government. Services are provided by the Board of County Commissioners, Office of the County Administrator, Assessor, Treasurer, County Attorney, Office of Financial Management, Clerk & Recorder, Community Planning & Permitting, and Surveyor.

Health & Welfare – $113,565,130

Includes all expenditures for the conservation and improvement of public health, to provide public assistance and institutional care for individuals economically unable to provide essential needs for themselves, and to eliminate or ameliorate poverty and its causes. Services are provided by the departments of Public Health, Community Services, and Human Services.

Public Safety & Judicial – $136,924,079

Includes all expenditures for the agencies whose purpose is to provide for the protection of persons and property. Services in this category are provided by the Sheriff, District Attorney, and Coroner.

Urban Redevelopment and Housing – $23,101,962

Includes all expenditures for the agencies whose purpose is to provide quality, affordable housing for income qualifying families, the elderly and disabled throughout Boulder County. Work also focuses on the development and acquisition of properties for future housing projects with the goal of finding resources from different sources to fund housing units that use renewable energy and create green jobs in our community. Services are provided by the departments of Housing, Human Services, and Community Services.

Conservation and Sustainability $107,122,465

Includes all expenditures to conserve and manage natural resources such as land, water, soil, historical assets, and energy as well as broader sustainability programs to improve environmental health, combat climate change and build resilience. Services are provided by the Office of Sustainability, Climate Action & Resilience, the Public Works Resource Conservation Division, and the Parks & Open Space Department.

Highways and Streets - $41,415,843

Includes all expenditures for the construction and maintenance of roadways, walkways, transit, bikeways, bridges, and storm drainage. Includes intergovernmental expenditures for payments to cities for road improvements. Services are provided by the Public Works Department.

Economic Opportunity - $9,024,644

Includes all expenditures for programs that foster self-sufficiency and financial stability for individuals, families, youth, and people of color with low income. Programming also addresses alternatives to incarceration. Services are provided by the departments of Community Services, Housing and Human Services, and Parks and Open Space.

Property Taxes – $258,959,615
The Boulder County revenue budget reflects net property tax, which is the total levied minus uncollectible amounts.  More information on property taxes appears in the section "Where do my property taxes go?"

Sales & Use Taxes – $107,261,633
Restricted to voter-approved initiatives designated to Sustainability, Open Space, Offender Management, Worthy Cause, Wildfire Mitigation, Emergency Services, Transportation/Trails and Affordable and Attainable Housing.

Other Revenues – $151,901,465
Major “other revenues” include specific ownership taxes, motor vehicle fees, recording and filing fees, Treasurer’s fees, building permits, various other fees, rents, and charges for services.

Intergovernmental – $88,575,479
These revenues are primarily federal and state pass through monies for human services programs, state shared monies for roads, state lottery proceeds, and other various grant programs. County ARPA dollars are included in this budget category.

Property tax revenue for the coming budget year is calculated by using the current year assessed valuation multiplied by the certified mill levy. The total assessed value certified in 2024 is $11,542,975,548 which serves as the basis for levying property taxes that will be collected in 2025. The process to establish the county’s assessed valuation is a biennial one. A total re-appraisal of all taxable property is performed in odd years and used for levying taxes in the subsequent even-numbered year.

Boulder County will levy 22.661 mills for fiscal year 2025 in comparison to a 2024 levy of 21.287 mills. A -2.133 temporary mill levy credit will be utilized in 2025. This reflects a -2.032 mill levy credit to comply with the growth limitation of 5.5% in the county’s general use funds as well as a -0.101 mill levy credit to limit growth in voter-approved property tax funds. The county’s mill levies were formally approved by the Boulder County Board of Commissioners on December 11, 2024, at a public hearing.

Boulder County budgets property tax revenues at 99% of the total levied amount to allow a 1% margin of uncollectible property tax. The General Fund will receive most of these revenues with $203.2 million in property tax revenues budgeted. In addition to the General Fund, several other funds receive property tax revenue including the voter approved Health and Human Services Fund, Developmental Disabilities Fund, and Human Services Safety Net Fund. The Boulder County Commissioners provided guidance to apply temporary mill levy credits to the county’s general use mill levies as well as the Developmental Disabilities Fund to further reduce the tax burden on owners of taxable property.

The following table presents general use and dedicated mill levies, and their relative percentage of the total:

The Boulder County sales and use tax rate remains at 1.185% for 2025. In 2022, voters passed Resolution 2022-048, extending in perpetuity the Transportation tax at the rate of 0.10%. This tax was set to decrease to 0.05% in July of 2024.

In the November 2023 election, voters approved two sales and use tax measures that took effect in 2025. The first is a continuation of the 2005 Open Space tax at 0.10%, which was scheduled to drop to 0.05% at the end of 2024. The second is a 0.185% Affordable and Attainable Housing tax. The result of these two measures, along with the 2024 expiration of the Alternative Sentencing tax (0.185%) is that there will be no net change to the county sales and use tax rate.

The Boulder County sales and use tax rate is comprised of individual, voter-approved county sales and use tax ballot measures adopted to support county programs. These revenues are dedicated to supporting the following funds:  The Road and Bridge Fund, Offender Management Fund, Worthy Cause Fund, Parks and Open Space Fund, Sustainability Sales Tax Fund, Wildfire Mitigation Sales Tax Fund, Emergency Services Sales Tax Fund, Affordable and Attainable Housing Sales Tax Fund, and trails projects in the Dedicated Resources Fund.  

Sales and use tax collections are reviewed monthly and annual projections are created based upon historical trends, current economic indicators, and partial year actual 2024 collections.  We currently forecast 2025 sales and use tax revenues to be $107.3 million, a 1.2% increase over 2024 estimates.

Sales and Use Taxes, Resolutions and Expiration Information