Denver also faces possible increase.
Small business owners and their customers in Colorado Springs could face higher sales taxes if a proposal is approved next month.
Voters will decide on Nov. 3 whether to raise the city’s sales tax by 0.62 percentage points to fund road improvements.
The controversial plan would raise sales taxes from 7.63 percent to 8.25 percent, generating an extra $50 million a year for five years for roadwork. Groceries, prescription medicine and utilities are exempt from the sales tax.
Mayor John Suthers has said more than 60 percent of the city’s streets are in poor condition.
“When companies are looking around, they’re looking for the level of investment the community is making for infrastructure, and we need to show them that investment,” he said in his State of the City speech in September, as reported by KKTV.
“If I could find the money, I wouldn’t ask them for the money,” Suthers told radio station KRDO. “I have looked at every inch of this budget, my predecessor looked at every inch of the budget, we do not have the kind of money we need to accelerate our road repairs in the way we need to do it.”
That’s not the only sales tax hike facing Coloradans, however. Denver’s Nov. 3 ballot will ask voters to approve a new .08 percent sales tax to fund college scholarships. And residents of Alamosa County will vote on a 1-cent sales tax increase to pay for a new judicial building and work on the county jail.
