Budget cut could leave Cortez's outdoor pool dry next summer

The City of Cortez’s proposed budget for next year would not pay to open the municipal outdoor pool, the city’s 50-meter pool and water slide on East Montezuma Avenue.

The 2027 budget the city has released for public review lists $5,000 for the outdoor pool, all of it for materials and supplies. It budgets nothing for salaries, benefits, or charges and services, the lines that pay lifeguards, cashiers and the pool’s operating bills. This year’s budget gave the pool $328,653, and the city’s figures show $279,041 for 2025.

In a news release Tuesday, the city called the closure “a budget decision for one year, not a final decision on the pool’s future.” Running the pool next summer would cost an estimated $477,000 and bring in about $86,000 in fees and sales, the city said, leaving taxpayers to cover $391,000 for about 11 weeks of swimming. That works out to about $5,100 for each day the pool is open.

“We never want to reduce services, but we must be responsible stewards of the community’s resources, especially during challenging times,” City Manager Drew Sanders said in the release.

Parks and Recreation Director Creighton Wright said he had expected to take up the pool’s future in the city’s Parks and Recreation Master Plan, which starts next month. “Unfortunately, this year’s tough budget position is forcing this issue,” he said.

Why money is tight

The city expects its revenue to fall by $539,291 next year, mostly because money the state shares with cities is shrinking. Cortez’s share of state mineral extraction, severance, tobacco and marijuana taxes is projected to drop by $468,233, and investment income by $71,058. Sales tax is expected to rise slightly, by about $280,000 according to the budget book, but not enough to close the gap, while the cost of goods, staffing, insurance, fuel and equipment keeps climbing. The budget book puts the rise in citywide labor costs at about $700,000.

The pool’s net cost would equal about 72.5% of that revenue drop, the city said. It said it must put four required services first: drinking water, roads, police and sanitation. Its 2027 plans include replacing water lines on Arbor, Cherry and Linden streets, repaving Cherry and Arbor afterward, and replacing six aging patrol cars. Other recreation changes, including higher fees and fewer youth camp and after-school spots, save more than $100,000 combined.

Wright had warned the city’s Parks, Recreation and Forestry Advisory Board on Sept. 17 that he expected “a rough budgetary year in 2027,” according to the board’s minutes, and that 2028 would be harder still.

The indoor pool at the Cortez Recreation Center is budgeted separately, in the Recreation Center fund.

The pool

The outdoor pool at 803 E. Montezuma Ave. is an L-shaped, 50-meter by 25-yard pool with a 125-foot double-loop water slide, a splash pad and a diving board over a 14-foot diving well. The city says it is one of two 50-meter pools on the Western Slope. Its 2026 season ended Aug. 9.

It is also about 70 years old. The city says the pool, built in the 1950s, needs “Band-Aid” repairs every year just to open, and leaks between 7,000 and 28,000 gallons of treated water a day, the most in the first week after it is filled. Over a season that adds up to roughly 570,000 to 840,000 gallons, about the volume of an Olympic pool. The city says it is not certain where the water goes, and that the pool’s foundation shifts slightly each year, likely making the leak worse. A real fix would cost about $1.5 million, nearly four years of the pool’s net operating cost.

Fees cover only about 18% of the pool’s cost. Raising them enough to cover the rest would mean $21 to $23 a visit, based on the 24,000 visits the pool had in 2026, the city said.

Swim lessons, which the pool hosts through the American Red Cross Learn to Swim program, can move to the indoor pool and might be offered year-round, the city said. But the indoor pool is not 50 meters long and cannot fully replace the outdoor pool for the swim team, and the city said it recognizes the “negative impact upon swimming sports teams.” Raising money in the community to keep the pool open is an option, the city said, but nearly $400,000 a year, with costs rising, is “a very high bar to reach.”

Residents organize

Residents are organizing to fight the cut. A call to action written by Nikki Berdzar and shared this week in The Original What’s Up? Dolores, Mancos, Cortez!, a Facebook group with about 25,000 members, urges people to pack the Oct. 27 council meeting.

“Our city pool is so much more than a place to swim,” Berdzar wrote. “It’s where our children learn water safety, families spend summer time together, friendships are made, and generations of Cortez residents have created memories.” She noted that the pool gives young people jobs, adding that she knows many who have worked there as lifeguards over the last 40 years.

She compared the pool to the public library, which no one expects to pay for itself. “Not everything our tax dollars support is supposed to make a profit,” she wrote. “Yes, facilities cost money to maintain. Yes, repairs are expensive, but closing the pool should not be the answer without exploring every single possible alternative.” She urged residents to ask city leaders what alternatives they have considered and what it would take to keep the pool open.

A Change.org petition, “Save the Cortez Outdoor Pool!”, went up Tuesday and had 701 verified signatures by 2:10 p.m. Its starter, Sarah Brock, describes herself on the petition as head coach of the Cortez Water Dragons summer swim team. The petition asks the City Council and city administration for transparency, public input and “a fair chance to save our outdoor pool before any decision to close it indefinitely.” In the group, Brock wrote that the pool is “in very real danger of closing down suddenly, and without much warning.”

What residents are saying

Most comments under the posts in the group back keeping the pool open, many from people who learned to swim there or raised children around it.

“I remember when my kids were little they did all their swimming lessons there,” Mary S Halcomb wrote. “The indoor pool just is not big enough for the community and all the kids on summer break. There’s got to be a way to keep this operating.”

Others pointed to cost and access. “Not everyone can afford the Rec Center which is the only option for the kids,” Barbara Roberts wrote. Amy Fariss called the pool “one of the reasons we moved here.” Lyneth Fuller said she would like to see the numbers on whether the pool is losing money.

Not everyone agreed. “Shut it down or pay more taxes, your choice,” John Perdue wrote. Aaron Lemay, commenting on a post sharing the petition, questioned whether a community Cortez’s size can support “two aquatic facilities within two blocks of each other” and said what the petition describes can be had at the indoor pool, which is open year-round. “Signing a petition because it feels good doesn’t have anything to do with the fiscal reality of running two aquatic recreational centers,” he wrote.

Lemay and others also pointed to the city’s sales tax holiday, which suspends Cortez’s 3.85% sales tax from Oct. 18 through Dec. 31. Lemay suggested that revenue alone would probably cover most of the pool’s operating cost, and Lorna Hernandez wrote that the city “should have used the tax overage for it, not a tax break.” The city has said the holiday is how it is refunding sales tax over-collected under the Recreation Center tax rate from 2021 to 2025, a refund it says Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights requires.

How to weigh in

The proposed budget is posted for review and comment on the city’s ClearGov page. The City Council holds the budget’s first reading at its regular meeting at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27. The city has also scheduled a public budget forum from 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, in the City Council Chambers, and the council’s public hearing on the budget is at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10. All three are at City Hall, 123 Roger Smith Ave. The Parks and Recreation Master Plan process, where the city says the pool’s long-term future will be decided, begins in November. Comments can also go to the city’s Finance Department or to council members, whose addresses are on cortezco.gov.

Sources: City of Cortez news release, “Pausing the Cortez Outdoor Pool in 2027: What It Means and What Comes Next,” Oct. 20, 2026 (PDF) · City of Cortez, 2027 Proposed Budget · City of Cortez on ClearGov, 2027 and 2026 Parks and Recreation expenditures · Parks, Recreation and Forestry Advisory Board minutes, Sept. 17, 2026 · Cortez Municipal Outdoor Pool · Nikki Berdzar’s call to action, Sarah Brock’s post and readers’ comments, The Original What’s Up? Dolores, Mancos, Cortez! (Facebook), October 2026 · Change.org, “Save the Cortez Outdoor Pool!”