The two processes will work in parallel this summer, likely resulting in either a question on November’s ballot or a solution born out of negotiations.
The city of Steamboat Springs will hold negotiations about a potential lift tax with Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. over the next four months — talks that will unfold alongside a process to draft a lift tax policy that City Council may choose to send to voters in November.
The parallel process will allow Council to decide how to proceed with a potential lift tax later in the summer, with the options being either proposing a lift tax to the city’s voters or moving forward with an alternative path reached through these negotiations.
Tom Leeson, who was named the next Steamboat Springs City Manager last week, said negotiations would continue until later in to the summer, with August being the loose deadline for when Council would need to approve ballot language for a lift tax.
Diversifying city revenues has long been a goal for this and previous iterations of City Council and this round of lift tax talks is not the first. In 2021, Council discussed numerous options to diversify city revenue including a potential lift tax, but ultimately abandoned each of the options as the city enjoyed repeated records for sales tax collections that year.
But sales tax revenues are no longer surging, with the city’s preliminary report for January collections showing a 3.6% decline when compared to January of 2024. The decrease comes after 2024 saw just a 2% growth in sales tax revenues over the prior year.
Loryn Duke, communications director for Ski Corp., said the resort has long supported a lift tax, as long as that revenue wouldn’t go toward the general fund. Duke specifically said the resort has concerns about earmarking money for transportation, saying they favored some degree of separation from the general fund.
“We do support a lift ticket tax, as long as it’s equitable and it goes specifically to transportation, with an emphasis on [a regional transportation authority] right now,” Duke said. “We’ve always had an issue with a lift ticket tax going to the general fund but quote, unquote earmarked for transportation because there is room for it to be placed elsewhere.”
Council will continue fiscal sustainability talks at a work session next week, including another update on a lift tax. Another option for diversifying revenue being discussed is a vacancy tax, which would target homes that are not occupied for a certain number of days each year.
After several mentions of a potential property tax at the start of 2024, City Council has largely shifted to other revenue options — many of which seek to tax the so-called “man behind the tree,” a reference sometimes used at Council for tourists. Council members indicate they think both a lift tax and a vacancy tax are likely easy to sell to the electorate.
A public commenter who spoke Tuesday against the idea of a vacancy tax agreed that it would likely pass muster with Steamboat Springs voters, a group of people that noted is unlikely to include many second homeowners that would end up paying the tax.
“I may be wrong, but I can feel an animosity toward the ski mountain and second homeowners from some of those on this council,” the commenter said. “Please keep fairness in mind as you proceed down this path of a vacancy tax. Don’t make it a big revenue grab from those that don’t have representation on this council.”
West, Swintek to be city’s negotiators
Council agreed that members Joella West and Bryan Swintek would represent the city in negotiations with Ski Corp.
Swintek volunteered himself to be in on talks, which was backed by Council member Amy Dickson, each of whom has expressed a desire to obtain more revenue from the resort. Dickson reiterated Tuesday that she doesn’t feel the resort pays its “fair share.”
West said she worried about Swintek representing the city, as he has “a very well-defined opinion of where we start.”
“I’m not saying you are right or wrong, I’m just saying you have been very upfront about that,” West said. “It kind of needs to be a smart, but neutral room. Can you do that?”
“I can do that,” Swintek responded.
“I feel strongly that one of us needs to be at that table,” Dickson said, adding that she considered volunteering as well. “We actually share some similar views. I said at the last meeting I don’t think Ski Corp. is paying their fair share. I’m glad Councilor Swintek is stepping up.”
“That’s my thought as well,” Council President Gail Garey said. “We have diverse perspectives on council and that needs to be represented in that room.”
When asked about Dickson’s assertion that Ski Corp. is not paying its fair share, Duke pointed to money the resort is already voluntarily giving to the city each year.
Duke said That includes $125,000 to support the city’s bus system annually, in addition to sales taxes collected on the mountain that are technically outside of the city’s taxing jurisdiction. In 2024, those voluntary sales taxes amounted to about $465,000 in revenue to the general fund, and another $58,000 for the Steamboat Springs Education Fund Board.
“We just want to continue to reiterate our commitment to the community and our commitment to transportation,” Duke said. “We are annually contributing $500,000 to transportation in Steamboat.”
Leeson said talks with the resort would happen every two weeks and be scheduled in a way so that they could quickly relay updates to City Council. City Attorney Dan Foote said council would be able to enter executive sessions to discuss negotiations.
Talks will be facilitated by a neutral third party, a strategy used in talks with Ski Corp. about a lift tax in 2021 as well, Leeson said. Council members noted that the outcome of these talks needed to be better than negotiations done in a similar way on the Brown Ranch Annexation Committee, a process that officials on all sides look back on as flawed.
“I think you will find this will be very different,” said Council Member Joella West, who represented the city on the Brown Ranch committee. “It’s a blank sheet of paper, not a sheet of paper with the conclusions already written on it. That’s what we had when we walked into the room for Brown Ranch, and we won’t do that again. Or at least I won’t.”