Greeley City Council places food sales tax extension to 2026 on ballot

GREELEY — The Greeley City Council has approved adding an extension of the city’s food sales tax through 2026 on the November ballot.

The grocery tax of 3% was first enacted in 1990 to supplement the cost of repairing or replacing roads and public buildings and is renewed in five-year intervals. City staff estimate it brought in approximately $45 million of revenue between 2014 and 2018 and would bring in around the same amount between 2021 and 2026 if approved.

It would expire in December 2021 if defeated at the ballot in November.

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The council voted 6-1 against a separate proposal asking voters to extend the “Keep Greeley Moving” tax through 2029. That levies a .65% tax on all sales except groceries for repairing and expanding roadways and is estimated to bring in $80.5 million over seven years. The current iteration of the tax expires in December 2022.

Councilmember Tommy Butler was the lone vote against delaying the transport tax, saying he preferred to bring both ballot measures forward this year.

Former Greeley mayor Tom Norton, who is leading a committee supporting the initiatives, said initial opinion polling suggested if both taxes were sent to voters at the same time, there would be “a distinct possibility” that the food tax would fail with little time to convince voters in a later election due to the image of the city extending taxes during an economic downturn.

He recommended submitting the food tax to the November ballot and bring up the transit tax at a later time.

Mayor John Gates echoed that sentiment.

“These are challenging times and while I’d like to go for both, I am concerned about the margin of error, that we run the risk of losing specifically the food tax,” he said.