{"id":15696,"date":"2025-11-14T21:34:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T04:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-lowers-rec-center-sales-tax-after-discovering-years-of-overcollection\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:50:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:50:35","slug":"cortez-lowers-rec-center-sales-tax-after-discovering-years-of-overcollection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-lowers-rec-center-sales-tax-after-discovering-years-of-overcollection\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez lowers rec center sales tax after discovering years of overcollection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cortez
Cortez City Hall. (Journal file photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A sales tax used to fund Cortez\u2019s recreation center has officially been reduced to the rate voters approved in 2018 after the city revealed it had mistakenly collected a higher amount for years.<\/p>\n

City Manager Drew Sanders told City Council in mid-October that the 0.55% collection rate \u2013 which should have dropped to 0.35% in 2018 \u2013 went unnoticed for years. Sanders said Wednesday the error was discovered Sept. 25.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday evening, City Council passed an ordinance restoring the 0.35% sales tax rate approved by voters seven years ago. The previous council should have passed an ordinance to implement the ballot measure, but it never happened.<\/p>\n

In a unanimous vote, the current council corrected the error. Questions remain about how much was collected under the 0.55% rate and the steps the city will take to address the mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur purpose right now is to come to you, and by extension the community, quickly, declare the omission that occurred and get that corrected,\u201d Sanders told City Council Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will and are working on trying to figure out what how much we actually took in erroneously during that time so that we can accurately declare that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based on preliminary calculations by The Journal,<\/em> the city might have overcollected about $2.6 million from early 2022 through September.<\/p>\n

Cortez\u2019s financial statements from 2017 to 2021 were not immediately available on the city\u2019s website. The Journal <\/em>is awaiting data after submitting a Colorado Open Records Act request Monday.<\/p>\n

Sanders told The Journal<\/em> Monday afternoon that he could not yet comment on the accuracy of our estimate.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fix it as soon as possible\u2019<\/div>\n

\u201cWhat safeguards do we have in place to make sure this doesn\u2019t happen again?\u201d said Councilor Bill Lewis. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s easy for us to say, \u2018well, those (past City Council members) aren\u2019t here anymore.\u2019 But you know, I think we need to have a better answer than just that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess for your answer, Bill, I think it\u2019s on us,\u201d said Mayor Rachel Medina. \u201cIt\u2019s on the elected body to to make sure that we\u2019re holding staff accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as it was brought to our council\u2019s attention, the direction was fix it now,\u201d said Council member Robert Dobry. \u201cDon\u2019t wait through the end of the year. Don\u2019t wait through anything. And our goal is to fix it as soon as possible and then we\u2019ll figure the rest out from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders said nothing in Colorado statute penalizes Cortez for making such a mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as we can tell, no, there is not a statutory penalty of any kind,\u201d Sanders told The Journal<\/em> Monday. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t make it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city has not been in touch with any relevant Colorado agency about the matter, such as the Department of Local Affairs, Sanders said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would just say this comes at a really bad time, but this is the right thing to do,\u201d Lewis said before making a motion to put the council\u2019s vote into place. \u201cAnd not only is it the right thing to do, it\u2019s the only thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

manager says amount overcollected is still being calculated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15696"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19793,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15696\/revisions\/19793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15696"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}