Colorado River Water Conservation District
BUDGET MESSAGE – 2024 Amended Budgets and 2025 Proposed Budgets
The District consists of all or part of 15 counties in the Colorado River drainage on the Western Slope of Colorado. The District’s purpose is to protect, conserve, use and develop water resources of the Colorado River and its tributaries. The District is charged by statute (C.R.S. §37-46-101) to safeguard for Colorado, all waters to which the State of Colorado is equitably entitled under the Colorado River Compacts and has such powers as are necessary to carry out this mandate.
The local government budget law of Colorado requires adoption of an annual budget by specified local governments. The basic purpose of this budget is to provide a complete financial plan, which reflects estimated revenues and proposed expenditures. The budget is a tool used to monitor revenues and to control expenditures.
The budgetary basis of accounting used by the Colorado River Water Conservation District is modified accrual.
The General Fund provides for directors, legal, administrative and engineering expenses of the District. Additionally, this Fund provides for studies, planning and diligence on various projects. The District, in cooperation with other governmental agencies, performs feasibility and cost effectiveness studies on these various projects.
The 2025 General Fund draft budget is $19,841,011. This is funded by a property tax on a mill levy of 0.500, S.O. tax, miscellaneous income, reimbursements, and interest earnings. We believe these budgets comply with the Colorado Constitution Article X, Section 20 and other budget laws.
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The Capital Projects Fund consists of the Capital Reserve Fund. The primary purpose of the Capital Projects Fund is to support Capital Acquisition and Capital Improvements for and within the District. In 1998 a Capital Project Grant Program was started, making funds available for project assistance and emergency project assistance within the District. Initially this was funded with annual interest earnings on the Capital Projects Fund. The grant program for project assistance was suspended in 2020 due to insufficient funds.
The total 2025 draft budget for the Capital Projects Fund is $3,583,708.
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This fund was established originally in 1985 as the Rock Creek Fund (now the Enterprise Fund) to operate and maintain the Wolford Mountain Project and to construct, operate and maintain other storage and conservation projects. In 1998 the Enterprise Fund became a shareholder in The Eagle Park Reservoir Company, purchasing initial 300 acre feet of yield. The Memorandum of Understanding which resulted in the initial creation of the Company as Phase I of a larger Eagle Basin Project contemplates the construction of additional projects for West Slope uses. In 2000, the Enterprise began purchasing contracts for water delivery from Ruedi Reservoir from the US Bureau of Reclamation. The initial contracts in 2000 were for 1,200 acre feet of water. In 2003, the Enterprise Fund purchased an additional 520 acre feet, in 2007, an additional 5,000 acre feet, and in 2013, an additional 4,683.50 acre feet. The 2013 purchase was initiated in the Capital projects Fund and will be purchased by the Enterprise fund on an as needed basis. In 2008, the enlargement of an existing dam and reservoir on Elkhead Creek, tributary to the Yampa River near Craig was completed.
The 2025 operation and capital draft budget for this Fund is $6,747,048.
Details of the budgets are available in summary on our website at www.coloradoriverdistrict.org . If you have questions, please contact Andy Mueller, or Ian Philips at (970) 945-8522.
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The Community Funding Partnership (CFP) Fund was established in 2021 as a result of the passage of Ballot Issue 7A in the fall of 2020, which increased the mill levy to 0.500. Consistent with the Fiscal Implementation Plan, approximately $4.2 million annually provides for water projects across five project categories: productive agriculture, infrastructure, healthy rivers, watershed health, water quality, conservation, and efficiency.
The total 2025 draft budget for the Community Funding Partnership Fund is $4,188,092 and includes an additional funds transfer from the General Fund in the amount of $2,700,00.
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CRWCD 2022 Audited Financial Statements– Final, as approved by the Board on July 19, 2023.
Details of the budgets are available in summary on the links to each fund above. If you have questions, please contact Andy Mueller or Ian Philips at (970) 945-8522.
Comments and inquiries relating to our financial statements may be made to Ian Philips, CPA, iphilips@crwcd.org, or phone 970-945-8522.
Kobe Water Authority
The Kobe Water Authority was created in 2015 to develop, manage, maintain, control, and preserve various water rights and related assets located in the vicinity of De Beque Colorado, as well as any additional water rights and related assets that the Water Authority may acquire in the future, for the benefit of the Contracting Parties and their mutual constituents within the territorial limits of the Bluestone Water Conservancy District.
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