What Cortez Question 2A would do to the lodgers' tax
The city wants to raise the tax on hotel, motel and short-term rental stays from 2% to 6%. The ballot caps the first year's take at $900,000, and the city manager says the money is for tourism, downtown and the arts.
Cortez voters have a single city question on their November 3 ballots, and it is about what visitors pay to sleep in town. Ballot Issue 2A would raise the city lodgers’ tax from 2% to 6% on hotel, motel and short-term rental charges, effective January 1, 2027.
Graphic: Cortez Current. Source: Montezuma County notice of election to increase taxes
The ballot language, printed in the county’s certified notice of election, asks whether city taxes may be increased “not more than $900,000.00 in tax collection year 2027” and by whatever the higher rate generates after that. On a $100 lodging charge, the tax itself would go from $2 to $6, before the other taxes and fees a guest pays.
The question names three purposes for the money: tourism marketing, including advertising the community; attracting and facilitating economic development and the redevelopment of properties and infrastructure inside the city, including walkability, landscaping and structures; and investing in arts and cultural events, programs and facilities. It does not divide the money among them or name any particular project.
Two other features of the question matter. The council would have to pass an implementing ordinance setting out how the tax is collected and enforced and what is exempt. And once voters approve the 6% ceiling, the council could move the rate up or down over time without going back to the ballot, so long as it never goes above 6%.
What the city says it would do with the money
City Manager Drew Sanders told KSJD that the existing 2% brings the city about $250,000 a year, so tripling the rate could bring in roughly $750,000 a year. He said the 6% figure came out of council discussion rather than any formula.
Sanders said an advisory committee would recommend how to spend the money and the council would allocate it through the annual budget, and that the city would probably need about a year to build up a balance before taking on anything large. Ideas raised in council discussion, he said, have included improvements at the entrances to town, signs and landscaping, cultural events, pickleball courts and grants to help businesses spruce up their buildings. The city now puts about $32,000 a year into a matching business grant program, mostly for exterior work, and reimbursed more than a dozen businesses last year; Sanders did not commit to a figure for business grants out of the new revenue. He told the station the money is meant for community investment rather than staffing, and that the city plans an online dashboard showing what was spent and on what.
Two lodging taxes, two ballots
2A is the city’s question and appears only on Cortez city ballots. It is separate from County Lodging Tax Question 1B, which would raise the county lodging tax from 2% to 5% and specifically excludes Cortez because the city levies its own. A voter outside the city limits sees 1B; a voter inside sees 2A.
Neither has anything to do with the city sales tax holiday, which the council has already approved and which takes the city’s 3.85% sales tax off purchases in Cortez from October 18 through December 31. That is not on the ballot.
The city held information sessions on the proposal through September and early October; our earlier story on those sessions has the background, and our voter guide lists every question on Montezuma County ballots. Ballots went out October 5 and must be received by the county Clerk and Recorder by 7 p.m. on November 3. Postmarks do not count.