Early totals put Eagle County’s 2026 expenditures at $223 million — but $50 million in proposed projects have yet to be addressed

In early estimates, Eagle County plans to spend $223 million in 2026.

That’s $126 million less than the county spent in 2025, largely due to the many capital projects taking place this year that will be mostly or entirely completed by 2026.

Jill Klosterman, the county’s chief financial officer, presented an overview of the budget as it stands to the Eagle County Board of Commissioners on Monday.

Projects that run into 2026 will see a budget amendment early in the year, rather than a budgeted allocation in advance.

“You can expect to see … a fairly significant budget amendment early in 2026 that will capture all of these projects that are underway and don’t get finished just because the calendar says they should,” Klosterman said.

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The Board of Commissioners does not need to approve the county’s final 2026 budget until Dec. 9, but is participating in several discussions beforehand.

“We’re continually trying to make improvements to make our financials more transparent,” Klosterman said.

The many large capital projects not yet included in the budget may cost the county $50 million. “The community has a lot more requests than we have money to fund,” Klosterman said.

The board will address the remaining budget requests through the framework of the county’s strategic priorities on Oct. 28. 

“They’re not our priorities. It’s the community priorities,” Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney said. “We’re here trying to channel what we’ve heard from the community.”

The finance team is holding some space within the “finance administration” section of the budget for $5.3 million, the remaining balance in the general fund after all expenses were squared away, to fund a portion of the remaining community priority requests. These funds will be allocated during the Oct. 28 meeting.

“We did not go organization by organization, we zeroed out the current year’s revenue,” Klosterman said.

How did the county reduce its 2026 budget?

Following a meeting in July, during which the commissioners directed staff to take a “moderately conservative” approach to the 2026 budget, the county’s finance team asked department heads to match their non-salary funding requests to 2024 expenditure levels.

“The bulk” of departments’ budgets is salaries, Klosterman said.

There are 515 full-time equivalents working for Eagle County, including the Board of Commissioners, the District Attorney’s office and the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office. One-hundred and 55 of those work within elected offices, which, combined, plan to spend $32.9 million in 2026.

“The elected offices do manage a big chunk of that overall FTE,” Klosterman said.

Most of the county’s largest funds decreased planned expenditures by several million dollars from 2025 spending.

As a group, the human services, public health and housing departments decreased their budgets by more than $20 million (from 60 million to $39 million). This was mostly due to changes in the Eagle County Housing and Development Authority’s expenditures.

In 2025, the county spent big on several projects, which including completing the third Colorado Mountain College housing building, contributing to the Roaring Fork Valley mobile home parks residents’ effort to purchase their homes and providing funds in partnership with Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley to reduce the cost of Timber Ridge Village units in Vail.

The county’s mental health fund is funded by marijuana tax collections, which have been declining “relatively steadily” over the last several years, Klosterman said. The county expects to take in $605,000 in marijuana tax revenue in 2026, down from $665,000 in 2024.

The planned $606,000 in 2026 expenditures will go to improving mental health services throughout the community, but the exact allocations have not been set as the advisory committee has not yet met.

Commissioner Tom Boyd requested a future discussion about stabilizing the mental health fund at a certain amount as revenue disappears.

“In my mind, this is one of those funds that I’d be happy to see it go away,” he said. “But as it goes away, the benefit that it’s provided, I’m not sure that I would like that part to go away.” 

The county’s “protect our mountain ecosystem” category of combined funds, which includes the county’s climate programs, open space programs, landfill fund and more, is currently budgeted for expenditures of $12 million in 2026 after spending close to $36 million in 2025.

A reduction in open space purchases is the reason for the $23 million decline. No large projects are expected to close in 2026, so there is no budget for large investments, though this could change with a budget amendment in 2026.

The county’s resiliency and fire mitigation funds both currently show marked decreases from 2025 funding, but some of those dollars are expected to be reinstated in a future budget conversation.

“We’ve pulled them out for now, knowing we will likely put some climate funding and some wildfire mitigation funding back into the budget,” Klosterman said.

Though there may be some changes following future budget conversations, “This is likely pretty close to what you’re going to see,” Klosterman said.

The county’s transportation budget decreased by $27 million from 2025 spending. The 2025 budget was higher due to a large capital project at the airport and two capital projects within the ECO transit fund.

Public works will see a decrease of $54 million, from $95 million to $41 million from 2025 to 2026, following the completion of several large capital projects.

The Eagle Valley Trail Construction Fund has $8 million budgeted for 2026, which would clean out the fund. The next segment, which runs from the CDOT building to Highway 131, is expected to cost $12 million.

The county’s next budget conversation is scheduled for Oct. 28 at 1:30 p.m. at the Eagle County Government building in Eagle.