Silverthorne looks to tackle a myriad of capital improvement and housing projects with it’s 2024 budget, which it officially approved on Nov. 8.

The town budgeted for $63 million in expenditures for 2024, which is slightly lower than 2023. While overall expenditures are lower, the budget for capital improvement is higher than last year due to some capital improvement projects being pushed back a year. In 2024, Silverthorne’s capital improvement fund budget is expected to be around $19 million. 

The town underwent some major developments in 2023 — such as the completion of the workforce housing neighborhood at Smith Ranch — and currently has 21 developments under construction according to the town’s website.  

Silverthorne staff had planned for more projects than what actually occurred, and this delayed the timeline of some developments.

“We have a number of projects that we are hoping to get done in 2023, but due to a number of either opportunities or issues that we’ve had, they’ve been pushed to 2024,” Silverthorne finance and administrative services director Laura Kennedy said.

Kennedy explained that issues with construction and timing caused changes in these timelines in addition to developments in grant application processes for certain projects. 

One of the town’s most expensive 2024 projects — a town employee/workforce housing development —  is slated to cost $6 million. This apartment complex will be on a parcel of land that the town owns near the river across the highway from Annie Road.

The town looks to extend Adams Avenue in the upcoming year and has budgeted $3.2 million for this project. This extension is making a connection over to Willowbrook Road and is the last piece of an off-highway connection on the west side of town. 

In conjunction with the Adams Avenue extension, Silverthorne is also taking on the Trent Park expansion project in 2024. It expects to pour $1.6 million into it next year. 

This project will expand Trent Park on Willowbrook Road and will also serve the Smith Ranch neighborhood. 

The town also looks to wrap a project it has been working on for a few years in 2024, the traffic signal at Ruby Ranch Road. Something that held up this project, which the town will put $1 million into in 2024, is getting permission to install a traffic light from the Colorado Department of Transportation. 

Silverthorne is continuing to work on projects related to recreation in 2024, namely the completion of the recreation center locker room expansion. This project cost the town $2.5 million in 2023 and is budgeted to cost the town another $2.5 million in 2024. So far this year the town has collected $1.6 in revenue from the recreation center.

In terms of revenue, the last couple years Silverthorne has consistently collected around $3 million from housing sales tax and anticipates collecting $3.3 million in 2024.

Kennedy noted she takes a very conservative approach to budgeting for the town of Silverthorne and never budgets for projects the town does not have money for.

A significant source of revenue for the town is fees collected from real estate transfer assessments. Silverthrone collects this fee in lieu of collecting property tax from its residents.

“The real estate transfer assessment is a 1% fee that’s paid upon the transfer of ownership of a property within certain developments,” Kennedy said. 

She explained every single new residence that gets built expects to have necessary services provided by the town, and other towns would generally fund these services through the collection of property taxes. Collecting these fees is a way the town can get some revenue to help pay for the services that are required by residents.

The town had a decent amount of residential developments this year and so far in 2023 has collected $1.3 million in real estate transfer assessment fees. In 2024 the town expects to collect $1.5 million.

“There’s so many of the new developments that have the real estate transfer assessments included in their development agreements and that’s why we’re seeing more revenues in that area,” Kennedy explained.

Another notable source of revenue came from Silverthorne’s 6% lodging tax which yielded $1.3 million for the town through Oct. 31. The town anticipates collecting approximately $2 million in lodging tax in 2024.