Adams County sees $114.8 million open-space fund balance; commissioners press for faster grant closeouts

Adams County parks staff reported on Thursday that the county's Open Space sales tax fund had grown to an estimated $114.8 million, driven by rising revenue and a backlog of awarded grants that have not yet been reimbursed.

Director Byron Fanning told the Board of County Commissioners that of that balance roughly $91.8 million is "awarded and encumbered" for grants that have been approved but not fully paid out while grantees complete projects and seek reimbursement. "There's a lot of dollars now," Fanning said, adding that grantees submit quarterly reimbursement requests and some awards remain open while design, purchasing or construction proceed.

The memo from staff and the presentation highlighted how the fund is structured: 2% is set aside for administration, 30% is shared back annually with cities and towns, and 68% is available for competitive grants. Fanning said the county currently receives about $2 million annually as its share-back portion for the projects fund and that administrative receipts currently total about $600,000 a year, while staff have been spending closer to $200,000 annually from that 2% pool.

Commissioners pressed on performance metrics after staff showed historical data indicating roughly 10—11% of grant projects remain open beyond five years. "If every dollar that's in fund balance is a dollar that's not being released to the grant program," one commissioner said, "we need to focus on overall performance management for the grants." Another commissioner suggested giving higher scoring weight to shovel-ready projects to ensure awards are implementable and quickly drawn down.

Staff agreed to return with specific options for tightening award criteria or applying stronger weights (for example, for shovel-ready or trail projects) and to propose ways to reduce the growing administrative balance while complying with allowable uses. Fanning also noted some causes for multi-year delays, including municipal staff turnover, contracting cycles and cost escalations.

The board asked staff to analyze the tradeoffs between awarding more grants and ensuring applicants have the capacity to complete them on schedule; staff said the next grant cycle will open next month and committed to proposing changes before the fall cycle if the board wants them considered then.