A bond question from Archuleta School District (ASD). It authorizes the district to borrow up to $79,900,000 to build one new PK-8 school, with a maximum repayment cost of $156,500,000 and a maximum tax increase of $6,700,000 a year. It also includes about $1.7 million for facility improvements at Pagosa Peak Open School. The tax increase happens only if the district receives a state BEST grant that does not have to be repaid.

Ballots mail to active registered voters Oct 5 to 9. Return yours by mail or to an Archuleta County drop box; drop boxes open Oct 12. Ballots must be received by 7:00 pm on Tuesday, November 3. Postmarks do not count. Check or update your registration at GoVoteColorado.gov.

The district estimates about $5.15 a month for every $100,000 of your home's actual value, which is generally less than its market value: roughly $185 a year on a $300,000 home and $309 on a $500,000 home.

That $5.15 is a midpoint, not a guess. The bond advisor modelled several ways the bonds could be sold, and they range from $4.87 to $5.44 per month per $100,000. On a $500,000 home that is $24.35 to $27.20 a month, a difference of about $34 a year between the best and worst case. The figure is fixed once the bonds are sold and the mill levy is certified.

Check your own number: look up your actual value on the Archuleta County Assessor property search, then use the calculator on the About 5A page. Use actual value, not assessed value; assessed value is 7.05 percent of actual value for school taxes.

Both numbers are real, and both are ceilings. $79.9 million is the most the district can borrow. $156.5 million is the most it could ever repay, principal plus interest, over the life of the bonds. Colorado's TABOR law requires every bond question to state that maximum repayment figure, and it makes the number a legal cap: the district cannot issue bonds on terms that could exceed it. The actual interest cost depends on the rate when the bonds are sold, and the annual tax is capped at $6.7 million. One more safeguard is in the question itself: if the state BEST grant does not come through, no bonds are issued and your taxes do not go up.

BEST is Colorado's Building Excellent Schools Today program, which helps districts pay for school construction. ASD is first in line as the state's backup for a BEST grant of about $50 million, roughly 40 percent of the project. BEST requires a local match, which is what 5A provides. Without the local bond there is no grant, and that $50 million in state money goes to another Colorado district instead. If the state grant does not come through, no bonds are issued and your taxes do not go up.

Then you pay nothing. The ballot language says the tax increase occurs only if the district receives a BEST grant award from the State of Colorado that does not have to be repaid, and the board's resolution states that no debt will be issued unless a BEST grant is received. No grant, no bonds, no tax increase.

Not yet. ASD wrote a strong application this year and ended up first runner up, so the district reapplies in spring 2027. Eligibility depends on our community's ability to generate matching funds, and the order matters: the state wants the match in hand before it awards the money. That is what this bond does, and a successful bond campaign greatly increases the likelihood of getting the grant. If it never comes, no bonds are issued and your taxes do not go up.

The buildings do not get better. Our schools carry a documented minimum of $88 million in deficiencies, $29 million of it urgent today at four locations, growing past $36 million within three years, and that work escalates about 8 percent a year. Repairs still have to be paid for, entirely by local taxpayers, with no state grant on the table for repairs, and repairs cannot add a secure entry, daylight, a gym or a cafeteria that fits a grade level. See Our Buildings for the breakdown and the RTA master plan for the full assessment.

That number is real, but it buys less than it sounds. At the Aug. 5, 2026 board meeting, district staff presented an in-house list of about $17.4 million ($11.6 million at the elementary school, $5.7 million at the middle school) and called it the "limping-along scenario": mechanical repairs to keep students in the buildings another four or five years. It leaves out asbestos abatement (about $2 million or more) and does not fix windowless classrooms, undersized cafeterias or the lack of secure entries. RTA Architects put the urgent and important needs at the same two schools at about $59 million, and the full assessment found at least $88 million districtwide. Different lists, different scopes.

The district's master planning committee spent a year on exactly this question across six meetings. Renovating both schools ranked last. A single new PK-8 ranked first, and building one school costs less than building two. Renovation also means construction around students in occupied buildings for years.

There is a concept plan and a detailed budget, not final construction drawings, and that is the normal order. RTA Architects, who led the 2025 master plan, prepared a concept plan and a line-item conceptual budget for a two-story PK-8 of about 144,000 square feet on the Vista site. The architect of record and the general contractor are selected after the vote: the district's schedule hires an owner's representative and an architect in November and December 2026, with design running through 2027. What is already set is the site, the grade span, the size and the ballot's hard limits: no more than $79.9 million borrowed and no more than $6.7 million a year in taxes.

Enrollment has slipped from about 1,740 students in 2019 to roughly 1,580 today, and the district planned around that. The master plan's demographic study showed flat or slightly declining enrollment, which is a big reason the recommendation was one combined PK-8 campus for about 1,200 students instead of replacing the elementary and middle schools separately, a choice the superintendent estimated saves $20 to $25 million. Fewer students does not make 64-year-old buildings cheaper to run, and every repair dollar comes from the same general fund that pays teachers.

The 2018 mill levy override, renewed by voters in 2023, raises about $1.7 million a year for people and programs: teacher and staff pay, school resource officers, full-day kindergarten and the same services at Pagosa Peak Open School. It was never a building fund, and it is far too small to be one: the district's own keep-the-lights-on list is $17.4 million, and the architects' estimate for urgent and important repairs is about $59 million. As the district puts it, bonds are for building and mill levies are for learning. A bond is also the only way to unlock the $50 million BEST grant, which requires the local match to be in hand. Repairs paid for by a bigger override would compete directly with teacher pay.

It is district-owned land, chosen by the board in January 2026 after a civil engineering feasibility study (site, traffic, drainage, foundations and utilities) and community listening sessions. In a November 2025 memo, the district's engineering consultants called Vista the more favorable location for a new school and wrote that it "would be expected to cost millions of dollars less" to develop than the high school property. According to the district's analysis of where students live, it is closer to home for hundreds of families in the Pagosa Lakes and Aspen Springs areas. Approximately 67 percent of the student population lives west of Piedra Road.

Because waiting has never made it cheaper. In 2011 voters considered a $49 million bond for a new K-8 school. Fifteen years later the same project is estimated at about $129 million. Building costs have risen every year since, and the district's documented repair list grows about 8 percent a year. ASD was first runner up for a $50 million BEST grant this year and reapplies in spring 2027. The bond is the local match that application needs. And if the grant never comes, no bonds are issued and your taxes do not go up.

No. ASD carries no bond debt, and it owns the school site debt-free. Its last bond, approved in 1996 to build Pagosa Springs High School, which opened in 1998, has been paid off.

The 2018 override, renewed in 2023, is separate and pays for people and programs: teacher and staff retention, school resource officers, full-day kindergarten. Bonds build buildings. Overrides fund learning. 5A is a bond.

Colorado's senior homestead exemption removes half of the first $200,000 of your home's value if you are age 65 or older on January 1 and you have owned and lived in the home as your primary residence for at least ten years. It applies before any mill levy, including the 5A levy. The calculator has a toggle for it. If you qualify but have not applied, file with the Archuleta County Assessor by July 15.

The tax is billed to the property owner. Whether any of it reaches a renter is up to the landlord. Renters who are registered to vote at an address inside the district vote on 5A like anyone else.

August 15, 2029. Design runs through 2027, bidding and permits into early 2028, construction from spring 2028 to mid 2029. Students stay in their current buildings the entire time.

Yes, and they are treated differently.

The brick two-story building on Lewis Street holds 5th and 6th grade classrooms today.

The larger building on the corner of Highway 160 and 4th Street holds 7th and 8th grade classrooms, the office, the cafeteria, the gymnasiums and the library that serve the whole campus.

Both go out of use as schools when the new building opens, along with the elementary school. No decision has been announced about what happens to any of them.

No plan has been announced for any of the buildings yet. Students stay in every current building until the new school opens in August 2029.

The school board is committed to seeing the buildings continue to serve as community assets. The superintendent and the board are in conversations with county and town officials and with several nonprofit groups about future uses that would benefit the community. If local agencies do not want them, the buildings would be sold.

They belong to the district, so any decision about their future would be made by the school board in a public meeting. We will post the answer here as soon as there is one.

Yes. 5A includes facility improvements at Pagosa Peak Open School, our public charter school. The district puts the figure at about $1.7 million; the ballot names the school but does not fix a dollar amount.

The ballot itself requires it. Ballot Issue 5A commits the district to an annual audit by an independent third-party expert and to detailing the spending of all funds on the district website. That language is in the question voters approve, so it binds the district. A bond is also narrower than a mill levy override: the money can only be spent on the buildings named in the question, and it cannot be moved into salaries or operations.

Citizens for ASD, a volunteer committee of local residents. We are funded by neighbors and we advocate for a yes vote. The school district's own website is a neutral information source and does not campaign.