Boulder County commissioners are considering a new sales tax that could bring in an estimated $15 million a year for mental health services, a potential funding boost as pandemic-era stimulus dollars dry up and demand for care remains steady.
The tax would help fill a gap in mental health services, at times resulting in people living on the streets or spending months in the Boulder County Jail while they wait for treatment to proceed with their cases.
But talk of the tax is stirring a debate over which services are needed most and how to distribute the proceeds. The county is hosting a public hearing on the potential measure on Aug. 12.
A draft plan would levy a 0.15% sales and use tax to pay for prevention, crisis response, addiction treatment, recovery services and programs that help people navigate the mental health system. The money would fund both county-run services and grants to private providers. Some of the funding would go toward programs already in place, such as mental health navigation services and a non-police response team that handles mental health calls.
The county spent about $12 million of its $65 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds on mental health initiatives, according to county data. Several of those programs could lose funding once the federal stimulus money runs out.
“That’s one-time money, and the need certainly is not going away,” County Commissioner Claire Levy told Boulder Reporting Lab.
Levy said she has requested county staff to evaluate which ARPA-funded programs have shown results and which should continue receiving funding. She said the proposed tax is modeled in part on the county’s “behavioral health roadmap” and conversations with county officials and experts who work in mental health.
Some mental health advocates in Boulder County worry the funding will primarily backfill existing programs and be spread too thin to create meaningful change. Another concern is that the initial proposal did not make longer-term residential treatment beds a primary focus for funding, which many view as a critical missing piece of the region’s mental health system.
State Sen. Judy Amabile is among those concerned about the proposal. Her son has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and has experienced homelessness, giving her firsthand experience with the gaps in the mental health system. She said people held on short-term mental health holds at Boulder Community Health are often discharged without a step-down plan, and others are jailed for months while waiting for a competency evaluation or treatment.
“Where I differ a little bit from the county is that I think that should be our priority — to focus on the people who have the highest level of need,” Amabile told Boulder Reporting Lab. “I think residential treatment would be a good way to address that problem.”
An early draft of the proposed tax largely excluded funding for residential treatment, stating it was “cost prohibitive.” But this week, Levy said she’s open to directing at least some of the revenue to support longer-term residential care. She said there is a need for such facilities as many group living homes in Boulder County have closed in recent years.
Members of the Boulder City Council are scheduled to weigh in this week at a study session on whether to endorse it. Opinions on the proposed tax appear to be mixed.
Councilmember Nicole Speer said the county’s proposal should reflect the city’s broader financial strategy at a time when sales tax revenue growth is leveling off and budgets are tightening.
“Rather than creating new infrastructure that is costly, inflexible and accessible to only a few, the county is proposing to take care of, and scale, what we already have,” Speer wrote in a Hotline post last week. “That includes treatment, prevention and crisis response services by local nonprofits that are trusted by diverse populations.”
Some were reminded of their differences with the county over how to spend revenue from the Affordable and Attainable Housing Tax, which voters approved in 2023. When endorsing that ballot measure, the city council specifically requested resources for permanent supportive housing, which pairs affordable housing with support services designed to keep people housed. But the county ultimately approved a spending plan that did not allow the city to use its share of these funds on such programs. Also, critics of the county’s spending plan argue the county is diverting too much money to existing affordable housing programs.
“Pardon my language, but I believe that the City of Boulder was absolutely screwed in the manner in which the County’s Affordable Housing Tax proceeds were distributed,” Councilmember Mark Wallach wrote in a hotline post. “I insist that any such distribution of Behavioral Health Tax funds be satisfactory to the City, and that the City be protected from changes to that allocation without its consent.”
Levy said the current proposal is not the final word on how the tax proceeds would be spent, and that she is still seeking input from experts and community members. She said she hopes to place the measure on this year’s ballot to avoid cuts to certain programs funded with ARPA dollars, which she said must be spent by the end of 2026.
It’s not clear whether other commissioners will want to place the measure on the ballot. Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann said they will decide after the Aug. 12 hearing. Commissioner Marta Loachamin said she shares concerns about mental health needs, but said she is unsure about the tax given the cost to residents.
This city needs to stop relying on sales tax for revenue and start taxing the ultra wealthy people living here. Sales tax isn’t very reliable in this economy and it disproportionately burdens everyday people shopping for their everyday needs.