PUEBLO — People in Pueblo might have to pay more at the grocery store next year.
Pueblo's Mayor, Heather Graham, is proposing a 3.5% sales tax be placed on all grocery store purchases in the city.
Sheri Van-Meter lives in Rocky Ford but grocery shops in Pueblo every week. Every time she shops for groceries, Van-Meter said she spends around $175.
“It's hard,” Van-Meter said.
If a 3.5% grocery sales tax were added, van-meter would have to pay about $6 more on her typical $175 weekly grocery bill, which is $24 a month and $294 for the year.
“I know I don't have that. I don't barely have enough for myself to go grocery shopping,” Van-Meter said.
According to Mayor Graham, the city currently has a 3.7% sales tax, but it doesn't include groceries. The mayor said .5% Goes to The Pueblo Economic Development Corporation and, .2% of the sales tax goes to the police.
“That was a public safety tax that was ran a couple years ago and passed overwhelmingly to the voters, which pays for 24 additional costs and all their technology,” Graham said.
“So really, the city of Pueblo, you know, runs its checkbook only on 3% of every dollar spent. So when you think about 3% that's three pennies. Every dollar that's spent in the community comes and that's how we provide services,” Graham said.
Graham said to continue to provide services, the city needs money. The city’s 2025 budget is in an eight-million-dollar deficit compared to 2024.
The mayor said every year money from the general fund is distributed and used for things like staff salaries, roads, and the police department.
In years past the funds that were not used by those departments were given back to the city and allocated to other projects.
But now that the police department is hiring more officers and using more of the general fund, the city has less money for other projects like capital improvements and roads.
“The city needs more. If you want to keep up with the times you have to pay that what it comes down to,” Graham said.
The mayor is proposing the grocery tax to fund capital improvement projects like roads.
"We're really just asking the citizens to continue to invest in the community and make sure that we can continue to provide essential services and bring amenities to the community.”
Why 3.5%?
“That's the average of what all of the other communities do. Some communities do as high as 8%, 13%, some do lower, but some also have higher regular sales tax rates. So 3.5% was the average between the 77 communities.” Graham said.
Why tax groceries?
“When you see sales tax continuously going up and down, you need something that's, you know, going to be not so volatile, and something that's really going to even out and be a continuous revenue source to the city, not and not an overall tax to everybody,” Graham said.
Van-Meter agrees the roads could use some improvement.
“That is a need because some of these streets in Pueblo are horrible. They need to be fixed,” said Van-Meter.
She said taxing groceries would be tough but she understands.
“If the taxes go to the city to be used the right way, then, yeah, let's, let's pay those and so we can get better roads, you know, more things that benefit us as a community,” Van-Meter said.
Mayor Graham said the city council must vote to put the grocery tax on the ballot for people to vote on in November.
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