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El Paso County CFO reports steady revenues; sales tax trailing last year by 2% in Q1 budget update
Summary
Chief Financial Officer Nikki Simmons told commissioners the county’s first-quarter revenues are mostly on track, with sales and use tax collections about 2% below last year and several capital reappropriations in play. Staff said no current budget shortfall is expected.
Nikki Simmons, El Paso County chief financial officer, briefed the Board of County Commissioners on the county’s first-quarter budget status for March 2025.
Simmons said property tax collections were “right where we should be” and that sales and use tax collections were approximately 2% below the same period last year, offset in part by other revenue sources. "As you can see, obviously, we are right where we should be at collecting property taxes," Simmons said.
She reported an overall 1% realization of unrestricted revenue budget through March and noted a roughly $10 million variance to budget on expenditures, $8 million of which she described as operating reappropriations from 2024 to 2025 tied to multi-year capital projects. Simmons said departments and elected offices expect to spend to budget by year end and that road-and-bridge revenues are running higher than budgeted, in part because of increases in state-collected gasoline taxes and vehicle registration fees enacted in recent state legislation.
On human services, Simmons said revenues and expenditures can be harder to forecast but that current allocations are “very close to our allocations” and she reported no county-level budget concern. She flagged prescription claims within the county health trust as a monitoring area but said overall the health trust was trending at about 99% of budget.
Commissioners asked for additional detail on the gasoline tax increase and related state legislation; Simmons said she would follow up with a fuller analysis. Commissioner Bremer praised work to improve Human Services billing and forecasting processes.
No board action to change appropriations or adopt new policy was recorded during the presentation.
