Child care tax measure passes in mountain resort region, fails in Larimer County

“Everyone is really struggling here with costs of everything, especially child care,” said Ana Mata, a Silt resident with three kids, ages 10, 8 and 18 months old. “We need any kind of help we can get.”

Mata’s 18-month-old daughter was born with a cleft lip and had surgery on her lip at 5 months old. She uses a feeding tube to eat and won’t be able to eat normally for at least another six months. Mata can’t take her daughter to a day care center because she said every day care center she contacted told her they couldn’t assist with a feeding tube. She eventually  cut her working hours as a certified nursing assistant to part time so she could care for her daughter.

“It’s a bummer because I like to work and be very independent, but I also have to prioritize caring for my child,” Mata said.

Mata and her partner bought their house in Silt in 2021. Their mortgage costs around $1,900. Her partner’s salary as a construction manager covers the couples’ mortgage, but groceries, gas and school supplies for their kids. Mata’s mother watched her first two children for free while Mata worked full-time, but her mother passed away in 2022.

Mata knows paying for child care would squeeze her family’s budget in the Parachute to Aspen region, where an average family with two children uses 35% of its income for child care, according to data from the Confluence Early Childhood Education Coalition, a group of advocates for affordable and accessible child care in the Parachute to Aspen region. CECE Coalition spearheaded the effort for a ballot measure.

Mata said she is excited to vote in favor and has encouraged her neighbors to do the same.

Many families in the valley live 20 or more miles from their workplaces, said Maggie Tiscornia, CECE Coalition’s director. Because the region depends on tourism, working parents often commute large distances to the region's tourist attractions, like ski resorts, hot springs, restaurants and bars. 

Parents who work evening or night shifts can't rely on standard day care centers and have to search harder for child care opportunities. Only 44% of children in the valley have access to a licensed child care provider. Down valley — from Glenwood Springs to Parachute — the number drops to 29%. 

“It’s also hard to justify staying in the workforce when it feels like an entire check goes to child care,” Tiscornia said.

Tiscornia’s 3 and 4-year-old children attend preschool four days a week at a preschool in Carbondale, where she pays $2,500 a month. The Aspen Community foundation kickstarted the coalition in 2017 as a grassroots community effort. Tiscornia joined in 2023. 

Though both Larimer County and the Roaring Fork Valley are attempting to solve the same problem — making child care more affordable and accessible through a .25% sales tax increase — they’ve taken slightly different approaches. If voters in Larimer County pass the ballot measure, the Early Childhood Council will manage and distribute 80% of the funds, while the county commissioners will handle the remaining 20%.

Residents in the Roaring Fork Valley will vote whether or not to create a five-member tax district board of directors to decide how the money is spent. Members would be elected and serve four-year terms.

“We don’t need more government bureaucracy and a runaround around TABOR,” said Frieda Wallison, a retired attorney who lives in unincorporated Pitkin County and serves as Pitkin County Republicans vice chair. TABOR, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, dictates how the Colorado Legislature can spend money. 

Neither child care ballot measure has drawn formal opposition, and county commissioners in both Larimer County and the Roaring Fork Valley unanimously approved placing them on the ballots. 

But adding on more taxes in what she sees as an already tax-heavy area will do more harm than good, Wallison said. Pitkin County has a 3.6% sales tax countywide, and some municipalities within the county have added rates. Garfield County has a 1% sales tax rate in addition to the state’s 2.9%, and Eagle County has a 1.5% rate.

“We all understand that there's a child care affordability and accessibility crisis, but I don’t see anything in this particular initiative that gives us any comfort,” she said. 

Wallison and her husband spent “a lot of money,” though she declined to name a dollar amount, on child care when they were raising children in Pitkin County. Her kids who live in the area are burdened by the same costs with their own children, she said.

“These things are difficult to weigh against each other,” Wallison said of the need to address affordability with the issue of raising taxes.

Pitkin County commissioners and the CECE Coalition expect the tax increase to bring in between $10 and $12 million per year, according to the board of commissioners’ service plan approving the measure for ballot. The plan does not outline a specific breakdown of funds, but Tiscornia said the counties will prioritize tuition assistance, provider pay and improved facilities.

Those advocating for the measure in Larimer County hope the new tax, if passed, will keep qualified child care providers in their jobs, which have high turnover rates due to low pay and high-pressure work.

“It’s a really hard work environment and they’re being paid crappy wages,” said Christina Taylor, Larimer County Early Childhood Council CEO. 

Twenty-one Colorado counties, including Larimer, have frozen enrollments for the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program. The state, federal and county governments funded CCAP, which paid a portion of child care costs directly to licensed providers, leaving low-income, qualifying families with a small co-pay. 

In 2024, the United States Department of Health and Human Services required states, including Colorado, to raise reimbursement rates for child care providers receiving CCAP funds. That new mandate, combined with the expiration of federal COVID-19 relief funding, left Colorado counties with significant budget shortfalls. As a result, 21 counties have frozen new CCAP enrollments to ensure they can continue supporting families already receiving assistance.

If the ballot measure passes, Taylor hopes the tuition assistance can fill the gap created by the CCAP freeze.

“More privileged families are able to find care and figure out how to pay for it, but less privileged families don’t have that option,” Taylor said.

The Larimer County Early Childhood Education Council, which will distribute 80% of the funds, estimates the sales tax increase would bring in about $28 million annually. The council hopes to allocate up to $11 million for tuition assistance for kids zero to 5 years old, $9 million for increased wages for providers and $2.5 million for new centers and improved facilities. 

Families in Larimer County spend about 11% to 35% of their income on child care, the council’s data states. 

“We need to lower costs and invest in teachers,” Taylor said. “The response here has been overwhelmingly positive.”

Corrections: This story was updated October 21, 2025, to make multiple corrections. First, we clarified that ballot measure 7A is for the Parachute to Aspen region, not the Roaring Fork Valley. Second, we updated the information about the percentage of income that families in the Parachute to Aspen region spend on child care to reflect the most recent data set from 2024. A previous version of the story used a 2023 data set. Lastly, we removed a line that incorrectly characterized Tiscornia's comments about the potential benefits if the ballot measures pass.