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After two budget retreat work sessions, the Avon Town ߣÏÈÉú held the first public hearing on the town’s 2024 budget on Tuesday, Oct. 24. With planned expenditures of just over $51 million in 2024, Avon is cutting back on spending following a particularly expensive year in 2023.

The town took a “conservative approach” to estimating 2024 revenues, and maintained its focus on investing in community housing and maintaining current program levels, according to Paul Redmond, the town’s finance manager. Total operating revenues in 2024 will amount to $47.6 million, a relatively significant increase compared to revenues of just over $40 million in 2023.

Taxes are expected to account for much of the increase, bringing in over $34.5 million in 2024 compared to $29.2 million 2023. 

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Expenditures

Avon’s expenditures are currently planned to total just over $51 million in 2024. In 2023, Avon’s expenditures totaled $63.4 million, with almost the entire difference explained by a significantly smaller Capital Improvements and Equipment Replacement budget in 2024.

Capital improvements and equipment replacement accounted for over $20 million in expenditures in 2023. In 2024, the budget for this has halved, dropping to $9.3 million. While in 2023, capital improvements and equipment replacement accounted for over a third of the town’s expenditures, in 2024, the category will be reduced to one-fifth of total expenditures. 

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Following capital improvements and equipment replacement, the next largest categories are public works, engineering, and utilities ($8.2 million, 18.81 percent of the budget), general government and finance ($7.9 million, 17.91 percent of the budget), and transportation and public safety ($6.5 million, 14.74 percent of the budget). The first two of these categories will see slight decreases from 2023 to 2024, with general government and finance taking the largest hit of nearly $1.6 million.

Public safety and recreation ($3 million, 7.02 percent of the budget) are the two categories that are growing the most in 2024.

The Community Housing Fund, which is funded in part by the 2 percent short-term rental tax implemented in November 2021, is slated to account for just over $1.8 million of expenditures in 2024, a $55,000 deficit from its earnings for the year. Last year, the town spent more than it earned in the fund by nearly $460,000, though this was significantly less than the budgeted $1 million initially planned for the fund’s expenditures.

The town will be cutting back on its planned expenditures for the Mi Casa deed restriction program, from just under $1.5 million last year to $600,000 in 2024, because the number of applications to the program decreased dramatically in 2023, and are not expected to increase again in 2024. While in 2022, the program provided funding to 16 home purchases, just two homes had been purchased using Mi Casa Avon funding as of the July 2023 quarterly report, leaving over $1.3 million unspent.

Revenues

Avon’s total operating revenues in 2024 are estimated to be $47.6 million. Taxes will account for the vast majority of Avon’s revenues in 2024 — 72.47 percent of the budget, up from 66.53 percent of the budget in 2023. Charges for services ($7.8 million, 12.1 percent), intergovernmental ($5.2 million, 8.88 percent), investment earnings ($1.9 million, 4.03 percent), and licenses, fines, and other (2.53 percent) make up the rest of the town’s revenues.

The largest proportion of Avon’s tax revenue is derived from sales tax revenues, which are expected to bring in over $14 million in 2024, an increase of $1.3 million from 2023. The sales tax rate remains at 4 percent.

Avon’s property tax revenues are expected to increase, from just under $4 million in 2023 to $5.8 million in 2024. While the property tax itself will not change, with the 2024 rate for Avon’s General Fund remaining at 8.956 mills, the total assessed property value in Avon grew significantly, leading to higher tax revenues for the town. That’s a result of Eagle County property values being reassessed in 2023.

Following the new assessment, the total assessed property values in Avon in 2024 grew to $330.7 million, an increase of nearly $100 million, or 42 percent, from the previous assessment. This is the highest value assessment of property in Avon over at least the last 10 years.

Revenues from the town’s 2 percent real estate transfer tax are expected to nearly double, increasing from $4.5 million in 2023 to $8.5 million in 2024. Several new developments are due for completion in Avon in late 2023 and throughout 2024 — including One Riverfront, Frontgate, and McGrady Acres — and the sale of the units on these properties partially generates this significant increase.

Revenues from the real estate transfer tax go into the town’s capital projects fund. Capital projects expenditures in 2024 will include four additional DC Fast electric vehicle chargers, repairs to the aquatics deck at the Avon Recreation Center, and an updated irrigation system for Harry A. Nottingham Park, a two-phase project that will split the $1.5 million price tag over 2024 and 2025.

The Avon Town ߣÏÈÉú will hold a second public hearing of the budget at its meeting on Nov. 14, with the goal to approve the final budget at its meeting on Dec. 12.