Ballot Question 2B: What the Pueblo Zoo Sales Tax Would Raise, and for How Long
The ballot text caps first-year collections at about $3.77 million and ends the tax after 2031. Some earlier reports gave a different term.
Updated November 1, 2026: We checked the amount (up to $3,769,615 in the first full year) and the January 1, 2027 to December 31, 2031 term against Pueblo County's official 2026 sample ballot; they match. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. Mail ballots must reach the county by 7 p.m. that day, so use a drop box rather than the mail.
City of Pueblo voters will decide Ballot Question 2B, a one-sixth of one percent (0.167%) sales tax for the operations and capital improvement of the Pueblo Zoo, running from January 1, 2027, through December 31, 2031. That is according to the ballot question text published by KRDO on October 9. The question says the tax would raise up to $3,769,615 in its first full fiscal year.
That works out to about 17 cents on a $100 purchase in the city, according to earlier coverage of the zoo’s proposal.
What the ballot question says
- Rate: an added 0.167% city sales tax.
- Term: January 1, 2027, through December 31, 2031. That is five calendar years.
- Amount: up to $3,769,615 in the first full fiscal year, and whatever the tax raises in later years.
- Use: money goes into a special fund and may be spent only on zoo operations and capital improvements.
- TABOR: the question asks voters to let the city collect, keep and spend the money as a voter-approved revenue change, an exception to the limits in Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution.
- Enabling law: Ordinance No. 11244.
KRDO’s page header says “Pueblo County,” but the question is a City of Pueblo tax. Only voters inside city limits will see it.
Four years or five?
City Council voted 7-0 on August 10 to send the measure to the ballot, KKTV reported. KKTV described the tax as lasting “four years,” starting in 2027 and ending in 2031. The ballot text runs from the start of 2027 to the end of 2031, which is five years. The Pueblo Star Journal also described a five-year sunset in May. The ballot text controls.
Why the zoo is asking
Zoo leaders have warned the zoo could close within two to three years without steadier funding, the Star Journal reported. KKTV said the zoo has faced funding cuts that began in 2024, along with rising costs.
The Star Journal’s May review of budget figures found:
- City operating support of about $930,000 in 2023, more than $1 million in 2024 and roughly $903,000 budgeted for 2025.
- Zoo budgets of about $2.79 million in 2023 and $2.93 million in 2024.
- Zoo estimates of more than 90,000 visitors and 10,000 students served a year.
Those figures suggest the first-year cap in the ballot text is larger than the zoo’s recent total annual budget. The Star Journal raised that question in May, noting that long-term financial projections and reserve plans had not been made public. The ballot text does not say how the zoo would spend money beyond operations and capital improvements.
What it does not settle
Two practical questions are not answered in the sources the Ledger reviewed.
First, whether the city’s general-fund payment to the zoo would stop if 2B passes. One search summary said it would, but we could not open a source that says so, and the ballot text as summarized does not address it.
Second, who oversees the special fund. The ballot text, as published, limits the use of the money but does not describe reporting or an oversight board. Ordinance No. 11244 may say more. The Ledger has not read it.
One other city sales tax is on the same ballot: Question 2A, a quarter-cent for fire and public-safety technology. Council rejected three other quarter-cent proposals. See our explainer on Question 2A.
Records worth reading
- Ordinance No. 11244 and the August 10 council packet.
- The zoo operator’s most recent audited financial statements and 2027 budget.
- The city’s current agreement with the zoo operator, and the 2027 proposed city budget line for zoo support.
- The official TABOR notice for the city, mailed to voters before the election.