2026 Ballot Measure Taxpayer Calculator

Residential property is assessed at 7.05% of actual value for school district levies. Neither ballot question names a mill rate — TABOR requires the title to state a dollar amount, and the county sets whatever levy raises it.

The district's published figure is a net number, not the cost of the measures. Jeffco describes the package as about $3.58 a month per $100,000 of actual value. Chief Financial Officer Brenna Copeland confirmed that this figure already subtracts a coming reduction in the district's bond redemption levy, which falls 2.5 to 2.8 mills from the current 6.95 as debt rolls off and is not re-authorized. “When we talk about the net increase in taxes for voters, we have always factored in the decrease in mill collection for debt service,” she wrote.

That bond reduction happens whether the measures pass or fail. So this tool leads with the figure your vote actually controls: the gross cost of 5A and 5B, with the bond reduction on its own line and the all-in bill change beneath it.

The mills come straight from the district's own certification. Its Dec. 15, 2025 resolution certifies a combined net assessed valuation of $15,367,382,980 across Jefferson and Broomfield counties, which the CFO offered as the best available proxy for what will be certified this December. Against that base, $73 million is 4.7503 mills and $60 million is 3.9044 mills — together 8.6547, or about $61 a year per $100,000 of actual value. Subtracting the district's published $3.58 net figure leaves an implied bond reduction of 2.561 mills, inside the 2.5-to-2.8 range the CFO described.

That same resolution sets the current total school levy at 44.349 mills: 27.000 required under the School Finance Act, 10.130 in voter-approved overrides, 0.269 for abatements, and 6.950 for bond redemption. If both measures pass and the bond levy falls as expected, the school portion goes to about 50.4 mills.

Both are mill levies. Neither is a bond. 5A is a general override under C.R.S. 22-54-108; 5B is a capital and technology levy under the Debt Free Schools Act, C.R.S. 22-54-108.7. Because both fall on the same assessed base at the same rate, the cost to a given home has to scale with what each raises. The two are therefore split here in proportion to what each raises. That split is this tool's arithmetic, not the district's: Copeland said Jeffco “never talked about the net increase in taxes for voters individually for either measure, nor do we plan to,” preferring to present the package as a single year-over-year change. Voters are asked to decide the two questions separately all the same.

5A asks for $73 million in 2026 for collection in 2027, “and by such amounts in subsequent years” that bring total overrides up to the ceiling in C.R.S. 22-54-108(3)(b)(VI). For Jeffco that ceiling is 28% of total program rather than the standard 25%. Copeland said the higher cap is computed district by district, and that the legislature set it to give districts like Jeffco more capacity after the new school finance formula removed much of its cost-of-living funding and all of its size-factor funding. The $73 million is the headroom remaining under it, which is why the board referred $73 million rather than the $75 million its advisory committee recommended in May.

The arithmetic holds up against the certification. Jeffco's existing voter-approved overrides are 10.130 mills, or $155,671,590 — 18.9% of CDE's $822.7 million total program estimate. Adding $73 million brings the total to $228.7 million, or 27.8%. The small gap from a clean 28% is the district working from a slightly lower total program than CDE's, which is what the CFO described: “We believe this estimate is too high based on the enrollment data we are seeing.”

Because the cap is applied annually against total program, and Jeffco's enrollment is falling, the district expects to collect less than $73 million in later years. CFO Brenna Copeland: “If enrollment continues to decline on the current pace, the collections for the 2026 MLO will decrease on a year-over-year basis.” CDE currently estimates Jeffco's 2026-27 adjusted total program at $822.7 million; the district believes that is too high. 5B, by contrast, rises annually with inflation.

5B asks for $60 million with revenue that "may be increased annually (after the first full fiscal year) for inflation based on the annual changes in the Consumer Price Index."

So the figures above describe 2027 only. Both questions also require spending to be reviewed by a board-appointed citizens' committee, summarized in annual public reports and posted online.

Initiative 195 sets six brackets on federal taxable income as determined by section 63 of the Internal Revenue Code, for tax years beginning on or after Jan. 1, 2027: 3.70% to $25,000; 4.20% to $100,000; 4.40% to $500,000; 7.40% to $750,000; 7.90% to $1M; 8.40% above. They come from Section 3 of the filed initiative, which adds C.R.S. 39-22-104(1.8) and spells the rates out in words. "Three and seventy one-hundredths percent" is 3.70%. Several secondary summaries render these rates as 3.71/4.21/4.41.

A full-text search of the filed initiative returns no inflation or indexing provision of any kind, so the thresholds are fixed in nominal dollars permanently and the value of the cut erodes through bracket creep. Gain on the sale of a principal residence above the federal section 121 exclusion stays at 4.40% rather than entering the graduated brackets. Colorado additions and subtractions still apply on top of federal taxable income, which this tool does not model — it matters most for retirees with pension or Social Security subtractions.

Because taxable income is what the brackets act on, this tool converts your AGI using the standard deduction for your filing status (2026 estimates: $16,100 single, $32,200 joint, $24,150 head of household), which you can override. This distinction barely matters below $500,000 and decides the answer entirely near the bracket line.

Where this differs from the table on the ballot itself. The Title Board wrote a table of estimated tax changes into the certified ballot title for Amendment 87, so voters will read it on the ballot. It reports averages within bands of adjusted gross income drawn from filer data, and its $500,001–$1,000,000 band shows a $325 tax cut. That isn't a contradiction. The average filer in that band deducts enough that taxable income lands below $500,000, so they never reach the 7.4% bracket. That table answers a population question. This tool answers the individual one, what happens to you, and defaults to the standard deduction, which will overstate the increase for a high earner who itemizes heavily. Above roughly $400,000, enter your real deductions or treat the result as an upper bound.

Worth knowing where deductions do and don't move the answer. Between $100,000 and $500,000 of taxable income the cut is a flat $325, because Amendment 87's third bracket is 4.4% — identical to today's rate. Extra deductions inside that range change nothing. Below $100,000 they make the cut smaller. They matter enormously in one place: a household with income above $500,000 whose deductions pull taxable income under the line avoids the 7.4% bracket altogether. A couple with $600,000 of AGI pays about $1,709 more on the standard deduction and $325 less with $100,000 in itemized deductions — a $2,034 swing on the same income.

NN, referred by SB26-135, doesn't raise a tax — it lets the state keep revenue above the cap set by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, the 1992 amendment known as TABOR, that would otherwise come back to taxpayers as refunds. The figures come from Table 1 of Legislative Council Staff's Third Draft Ballot Analysis for Proposition NN, dated Aug. 14, 2026: “Estimated TABOR Refunds for Certain Income Levels.” The table gives the refund under current law for single and joint filers at five income levels, and $0 under Proposition NN, so the current-law figure is what a household would forgo. This tool uses the column matching your filing status. Like the rest of the tool, the table assumes the standard deduction and no other deductions, and it runs only through 2028.

Two limits worth knowing. State forecasts project a TABOR surplus only through FY28 — in any year revenue falls below the current cap, NN collects nothing and costs you nothing. And NN's designation of the money to K-12 and children's programs runs for ten years; after that the revenue is available for general state obligations.

Amendment 87 does not shrink NN's pot. Amendment 87 adds C.R.S. 24-77-103.3, which defines its excess revenue as everything collected above "the revenue that would be generated… by applying the income tax rate that existed as of December 31, 2026." That baseline is a counterfactual, not actual collections, so the pool of revenue subject to the TABOR cap stays exactly what the old 4.4% flat rate would have produced. The tax cut below $500,000 is absorbed within Amendment 87's own excess, not taken out of the TABOR surplus. On the refund formula itself, the two measures draw on separate pools. Any measure that changes total state revenue would still move NN's figures, because the size of a TABOR surplus depends on everything collected against the cap. That is a change in the size of the pool, not in how these two measures interact.

• Existing school levies dating back to 1994 and every other taxing district on your bill — this shows only the change.
• Growth after 2027 in either local measure, and any future reassessment of your home.
• What renters pay indirectly through rent. The tool prices a renter's income tax change, but landlords pass property taxes through over time and that is not modeled.
• Colorado additions and subtractions to taxable income, such as the pension and Social Security subtraction.
• Proposition 136, if it passes with more votes than Amendment 87, in which case the income tax line is zero.
• The disputed scenario in which both Amendment 87 and Proposition 136 pass and lawyers argue over which provisions survive.

Certified ballot language for Issues 5A and 5B, Jefferson County School District R-1, Aug. 14, 2026; the district's Certification of Mill Levies resolution and county letters, Dec. 15, 2025; correspondence with Chief Financial Officer Brenna Copeland, Aug. 2026; Jefferson County Assessor (assessment rates and the senior/veteran exemption); Colorado Secretary of State title board records for Initiatives 195 and 232, now Amendment 87 and Proposition 136; C.R.S. 22-54-108 and 22-54-108.7; the filed text of Initiative 195 as submitted to the Secretary of State; Legislative Council Staff Third Draft Ballot Analysis for Proposition NN, Aug. 14, 2026; Colorado Department of Education total program estimates; U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey for the renter share; Great Education Colorado for district revenue estimates; reporting from Chalkbeat Colorado, CPR News, Colorado Politics and Colorado Community Media.