Ski Corp. quickly approves three years of RTA funding after Steamboat Council resurrects Lift Tax proposal
- Dylan Anderson
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Council agreed to $2.75 million annual deal with Resort, but could opt to move forward with a $6 million per year lift tax proposal on Sept. 2.
After Steamboat Springs City Council revived the idea of sending a Lift Tax to city voters at its Tuesday meeting, Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. quickly committed to a three-year funding pledge for a Yampa Valley Regional Transportation Authority by the end of the day on Wednesday.
A signed pledge sent to the Formation Committee includes a commitment from Ski Corp. to continue to negotiate toward that initial contribution of $1 million a year until 2046, saying those talks will be completed by April 1, 2027.
“Thank you for your continued collaboration and passion for the RTA and seeing that it goes to ballot this November,” wrote Ski Corp. President and COO Dave Hunter in an email to formation committee members obtained by The Yampa Valley Bugle. “[Ski Corp.] remains committed to the RTA and its future success.”
The funding pledge meets the terms of what the Routt County Commissioners called a “reasonable compromise” in a letter to Formation Committee members on Monday. Whether this agreement is enough for Steamboat Springs City Council to back off sending a Lift Tax proposal to voters remains to be seen. They will consider the second reading of a Lift Tax on Sept. 2.
“This is not on council,” Council member Amy Dickson said of the revived Lift Tax talks. “We are having this conversation because Ski Corp. did not honor their commitment.”
The Lift Tax talk was resurrected after what public officials saw as a last-minute reversal from Ski Corp. when the resort balked at signing a longer, 20-year RTA funding agreement. That $1 million a year pledge was in line with what Ski Corp. had long said they would commit to the RTA, and language about the pledge was printed in mailers about the RTA sent to voters earlier this month.
But as Ski Corp. is “a large company that has shareholder oversight,” Hunter said they would not be able to make that long of a commitment prior to sending RTA ballot questions to voters, a step that needs to happen in six different jurisdictions before Sept. 5. Instead, they offered a one-year funding commitment that fell flat with County Commissioners and Steamboat Council members.
“I’m still not comfortable with the $1 million,” said Council President Gail Garey on Tuesday. “We still have the ballot language discussion regarding a Lift Tax.”
Later in the meeting Hunter said he could sign a two-year, $2 million pledge, but Council members said that was for the RTA Formation Committee to consider.
Return of the Lift Tax
Near the end of Council’s meeting, they approved the first reading of a Lift Tax in a 4-1 vote, with Council Member Michael Buccino voting against and Council members Brian Swintek and Steve Muntean absent from the meeting. The tax proposal, if approved by voters in November, would garner $6 million annually for the city by assessing the resort $6 per skier day.
(It is technically called a “Business and Occupation Tax on the Operators of Ski Lifts,” but I’m going to keep calling it a Lift Tax for simplicity. As it is a tax on ski lift operators, the city would also need to pay the tax as the operator of Howelsen Hill.)
Council members directed staff to add language to the ballot measure that would allow $1 million a year from the Lift Tax to flow toward an RTA, as well as adding two provisions that hope to make the tax more popular with voters. While polling earlier this summer indicated that voters did support a Lift Tax, it wasn’t by much until they learned more.
The first idea would create a provision to the tax allowing local skiers to get a rebate if they bought a season pass, as officials expect Ski Corp. to pass the cost of a Lift Tax along to skiers. The other provision discussed would allow some of the Lift Tax revenue to be spent in support of local nonprofits. This was in response to Ski Corp. officials saying that the city passing a Lift Tax would force them to rethink their philanthropic contributions locally.
“We need to protect our nonprofits,” said Council member Joella West. “We need to make sure that the non-profits don’t suffer if this ballot passes and Ski Corp. as a matter of their operations has to say they can’t give like that to the non-profits.”
Tuesday’s conversation was perhaps Council’s most robust public conversation about a Lift Tax since it first came up, and one of the first times members of the public were able to speak directly to Council about the idea. This is because Council has primarily discussed negotiations with Ski Corp. to avoid a Lift Tax, and those negotiations have been talked about behind closed doors in various executive sessions.
The deal with Ski Corp. approved on Aug. 5 nets the city $2.75 million a year, though that amounts to roughly $2.25 million in new revenue for the city as it consolidates some existing resort contributions. This funding would be designated for Steamboat Springs Transit. This deal doesn't go away if Council refers a ballot measure, but if voters approve a tax and Council assesses it, then the deal could be canceled.
This deal doesn’t give the city enough money to increase transit service, though it helps stave off more immediate cuts to the city’s free bus system — at least for now. While Ski Corp.’s contribution will eventually increase at a level of inflation, that doesn’t start until 2029, and the city has struggled to fund transit fully in recent years because costs are increasing faster than inflation.
“The resort is negotiating hard and the city is not,” said resident Bill Pass during public comment on Tuesday. “Some on Council are willing to bend over backwards to do whatever it takes to keep the resort in best regard, but, you know, I think you need to focus on the amount of money that you need for running transit.”
In his comments, Hunter said pursuing a lift tax after signing a deal with Ski Corp. would undermine their partnership.
“We’ve reached a consensus and made a meaningful, long-term financial commitment,” Hunter said. “Pursuing a ballot measure now, after completing that process, would undermine our partnership that we’ve built and could create long-term impacts that not only affect our resort, this City Council and the city of Steamboat, most importantly, our broader community.”