Loveland adopts 2027 rates; staff estimates $7.30 average monthly residential power bill increase

Loveland City Council adopted its 2027 utility rate schedule. A utilities staff memo estimates average monthly bill increases of $7.30 for residential power customers, $3.73 for single-family wastewater customers and $2.41 for single-family water customers.

The schedule replaces prior city, Stormwater Enterprise and Utilities Department rates for bills mailed Jan. 1, 2027, or later. The utilities staff memo proposed average rate increases of 7% for water, 8% for wastewater and 6.63% for power. Its monthly bill estimates assume single-family customers use 7,100 gallons of water or 3,200 gallons of wastewater.

Council also adopted two 2026 property-tax rates for taxes due in 2027. The General Fund rate remains 9.564 mills, unchanged from the rate set for 2025. The rate for Loveland General Improvement District No. 1 was set at 2.684 mills, its 2023 level.

Council adopted the 2027 city budget with $803,169,424 in estimated revenues and fund balances and $565,175,484 in expenditures. The General Fund budget projects a $5,448,816 draw on accumulated fund balance. After adjustments, the budget presentation projects a $494,588 shortfall against a $1.5 million reserve target. A council member objected to approving obligations before difficult budget talks: “I won't approve financial obligations simply because the conversations we need to have have been scheduled for another day.”

The budget presentation calls the 2027 budget balanced but says it significantly underfunds capital maintenance. It estimates annual facilities maintenance spending at about $2.2 million against a best-practice target of about $7.1 million, and identifies $15.2 million in critical infrastructure needs. A public commenter urged council to consider emergency aid during threatening weather rather than reserve unexpected excess revenue exclusively for capital maintenance. “It's appropriate for a city to help its most distressed citizens,” the commenter said.

A staff member said Loveland could not remain in its current financial condition and needed a multiyear discussion with residents about services, taxes and available resources. Councilor Zeke Cortez cited an estimate of about $15 million annually in deferred capital maintenance. In response to Cortez’s question, a staff member estimated that a sales-tax increase of about 0.77 percentage points, rounded to 0.8, would raise the rate to 3.8% and make substantial progress toward addressing that need.

Staff said the only change since the prior budget presentation was moving $250,000 from the City Council budget to the City Manager’s Office. Cortez asked when a proposed package of service cuts would be ready and said the $250,000 community outreach should come first. Staff said the city wanted to begin gathering residents’ feedback as soon as possible to inform council’s decisions on service reductions. The engagement should ideally be completed by March 2027 and no later than April, staff said.