South Metro Fire Rescue levies 12.250 mills on property inside the Town of Parker for tax year 2025, collected in 2026. The Town of Parker levies 2.602 mills for the same year. The fire district charges a Parker homeowner 4.7 times what the town charges, and not one dollar of it appears in the town's budget book.
That is not an anomaly. Of the six Colorado municipalities in this study, four operate no fire department at all. Parker, Centennial, Greenwood Village and Breckenridge each rely on an independent fire protection district with its own elected board, its own audited statements and its own mill levy billed to the same households. A resident can watch the council hold spending flat and still open a larger tax bill, because the costly service is run by a body most people cannot name and few elections turn on.
The four towns and the districts that outcharge them
| Municipality | Municipal levy (mills) | Fire provider | District levy (mills) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parker | 2.602 | South Metro Fire Rescue | 12.250 |
| Greenwood Village | 2.932 | South Metro Fire Rescue | 12.250 |
| Centennial | 5.076 | South Metro Fire Rescue | 12.250 |
| Breckenridge | 5.07 | Red, White and Blue Fire Protection District | 14.019 |
Every levy above except Breckenridge's town rate is the tax year 2025 certified levy, collected in 2026, taken from a county assessor's abstract. Breckenridge's 5.07 mills is Ordinance No. 21, Series 2025, which sets the town levy for 2026 against the 2025 assessed valuation. Centennial's 5.076 reconciles exactly to its own Resolution No. 2025 R 70: a tax of 4.982 mills plus 0.094 mills for abatements and refunds.
In all four, the fire district's levy is larger than the municipality's.
Parker collects $81 on a $500,000 house
The Town of Parker publishes the arithmetic itself, in the Revenue Manual of its 2026 adopted budget. Eleven taxing authorities appear in all 118 certified tax districts inside town limits and total 85.123 mills for tax year 2025. The town's 2.602 mills is 3.1% of that, which is also what the town prints on its own pie chart: Town of Parker 3.1%, Other Governments 96.9%.
On a $500,000 home at the tax year 2025 residential assessment rate of 6.25%, which is $31,250 of assessed value, the town says the owner pays approximately $81 to the Town of Parker and $2,579 to the other governments common to all Parker taxpayers. Run South Metro's 12.250 mills through the same worked example and the fire district takes about $383 from that house. That last figure is my arithmetic on the town's numbers, not a published town figure.
South Metro is not small. Its 2026 adopted budget reports a total revenue appropriation of approximately $303.3 million and budgeted 2026 expenditures of approximately $244.1 million. Property and specific ownership taxes supply about 82.1% of revenues. The district covers roughly 571,500 residents across 287.5 square miles in Arapahoe, Douglas and Jefferson counties, with 30 stations and about 785 full-time employees as of 1 January 2026.
On 4 November 2025 its voters approved 3.000 additional mills, worth about $50.7 million a year, stacked on a 9.250-mill base operating levy unchanged since at least 2016. Parker's council did not vote on that. Neither did Greenwood Village's or Centennial's. The district's own electorate did, 57 to 43.
Breckenridge: a 47% fire levy increase in one year
Summit County is the clearest case, because the town levy did not move and the fire levy did. The Summit County Assessor's 2025 taxing entities list shows Red, White and Blue Fire Protection District at 14.019 mills for 2025 against 9.531 mills for 2024, a 47% increase.
The Town of Breckenridge's 2025 ACFR statistical section shows the total levy on a Breckenridge property, all direct and overlapping governments, rising from 53.414 mills to 58.061 mills over the same year. The stack rose 4.647 mills. The fire district accounts for 4.488 of them, about 97% of the increase. The town's own 5.07 mills is 8.7% of the 58.061-mill total.
Red, White and Blue is a statutory fire protection district formed in 1976, covering roughly 138 square miles including the ski resort, with 66 full-time personnel and four stations. Audited 2024 expenditures were $16,414,606 in the general and capital expenditure funds. Its 2026 figure of $19,049,320 is proposed, not adopted: the board adopted a 2026 budget by Resolution 2025-07 on 4 December 2025, but the dollar figures in that resolution are not published.
The Town of Breckenridge has no fire or EMS appropriation in any of its twenty funds. There is nothing to cut, hold flat or explain at a town budget hearing.
Greenwood Village budgets $0 for fire. Centennial budgets $0 for both.
Greenwood Village's 2026 adopted budget appropriates $55,041,491 in the General Fund and $71,543,391 across all funds, over nine departments. None of them is fire. Police is $17,465,078, or 31.7% of the General Fund. Fire is $0, because South Metro provides it.
The city's levy has been 2.932 mills every year from 2016 through 2025, confirmed independently in the ten-year table of South Metro's audited statements. The city describes it as generating approximately $185 per $1,000,000 in residential appraised value and accounting for less than 4% of the total annual property tax payment. When South Metro's voters added 3.000 mills, Greenwood Village households absorbed a levy increase larger than the city's entire levy, without the city changing anything.
Centennial goes further. It has no fire department and no police department. Fire is South Metro, stated in the audited note defining the city's reporting entity. Law enforcement is a contract with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office, appropriated at $43,589,360 for 2026 against $34,179,580 adopted in 2023. The city prints Public Safety at 59% of its $74 million in 2026 General Fund expenditures. A city of about 109,015 residents runs on 92.0 authorized full-time equivalent employees.
Denver is the counter-example, structurally
Denver is a consolidated city and county. It runs its own fire department, appropriated at $158,081,466 in the 2026 General Fund and $221,963,456 across all funds, with an authorized uniform strength of 1,105. No separate fire district sits on top of it.
That shows up in the levy. Denver's total county direct rates are 26.328 mills for 2025, and total general taxes on a Denver property are 79.602 mills. Denver's own government is 33.1% of what its property owners pay, the highest municipal share here, and it gets there by doing the expensive thing itself.
How the South Metro levy was resolved, rather than averaged
South Metro's own 2025 annual report shows 9.290 mills. Both the Douglas County and the Arapahoe County assessor abstracts certify 12.250 mills for the 2025 levy year collected in 2026. Averaging those produces a number that exists nowhere.
The district's ten-year table is indexed by collection year, not tax year, so its column headed 2025 is the tax year 2024 levy. The proof is on the same page: that table shows Centennial at 5.002 for 2025, which is Centennial's tax year 2024 figure in the Arapahoe abstract, while the 2025 abstract shows 5.076. A one-year offset, confirmed against an unrelated jurisdiction in the same table. Two independent county assessors agreeing beats one district table reporting a prior year.
The base needs the same care. Tax year 2023 was 9.250. Tax year 2024 was 9.290, which is the 9.250 base plus a temporary 0.040 abatement and refund levy. Tax year 2025 is 12.250: the 9.250 base plus the 3.000 voter-approved mills plus no abatement levy, the board having voted on 8 December 2025 not to certify one. The increase is 3.000 on the base, not 12.250 minus 9.290.
There is no single Parker tax bill
One denominator warning, because it is the mistake most likely to be repeated. The 85.123-mill figure is a floor, the eleven authorities every Parker parcel pays. Across the 118 certified tax districts inside town limits, totals run from 85.123 to 210.035 mills, because metropolitan districts sit on top in many neighbourhoods. Hess Ranch Metro District 5 alone adds 82.702 mills, which drops the town's share below 1.3%.
A figure of 90.894 mills also circulates. It is real, but it applies to 12 of the 118 districts, because it adds Parker Water and Sanitation District's 5.771 mills, which only 47 of the 118 districts levy. Using it puts the town's share at 2.9%, computed against a base most Parker parcels do not pay.
Judging a Colorado municipality by its own mill levy, or by its own budget, tells you very little about what its residents pay for local government. In four of these six places, the largest line on the property tax bill after schools belongs to a government the city does not control, does not appropriate for and does not report.
Fact-check notes and sources
- Parker: 2026 Annual Budget, adopted, Revenue Manual pp. 239 to 240, for the 2.602-mill levy, the 85.123-mill stack, the 3.1% share and the $500,000 worked example. The 85.123 to 210.035 range across 118 districts is from the Douglas County Assessor, 2025 Tax Districts and Mill Levies. The approximately $383 South Metro figure is my arithmetic on the town's worked example.
- South Metro Fire Rescue: 2026 Budget Report, adopted, pp. 1 to 2. The 12.250-mill certified levy is in the Douglas County 2025 mill levy report and the Arapahoe County 2025 Abstract of Assessments and Levies. The 9.290 in the district's own FY2025 ACFR is the tax year 2024 levy.
- Greenwood Village: 2026 Annual Operating and Capital Improvement Budget, adopted, for the fund totals, the $17,465,078 police appropriation and the absence of any fire line item across all nine departments. The 2.932-mill levy is Ordinance No. 09, Series of 2025.
- Centennial: 2026 Adopted Budget for the $43,589,360 sheriff contract, the printed 59% public safety share of $74 million, and 92.0 FTE; 2025 ACFR, Note 2, for the audited statement that fire protection is provided by South Metro and sits outside the city's reporting entity.
- Breckenridge: Summit County Assessor 2025 Taxing Entities List, Tax Area 3, for 14.019 mills against 9.531; Town of Breckenridge 2025 ACFR statistical section for 58.061 and 53.414; Ordinance No. 21, Series 2025, for 5.07 mills. The 2024 expenditure figure is audited actual. The 2026 figure of $19,049,320 is proposed, not adopted, and is the only unadopted number in this article. The district's 2026 budget summary labels its property tax line "(8.5 Mills)". That is a stale account name, not a levy, and it contradicts the certified 14.019 mills in both the assessor's list and the town's audited report. Do not repeat it.
- Denver: 2026 Mayor's Budget, final, for the fire appropriations and authorized strength; 2025 ACFR statistical section for 26.328 and 79.602 mills. The 33.1% is 26.328 divided by 79.602.
- Colorado mill levies are certified in December for a tax year and collected the following calendar year. Every levy here carries its tax year. All municipal budget figures are calendar-year adopted budgets unless labelled otherwise.
Related reading
- Colorado and Idaho State Budgets: What Taxpayers Actually Fund: the state general fund comparison these local figures sit underneath.
- Colorado and Idaho City Budgets: Public Safety's Share: why police and fire shares of a general fund are not comparable across cities with different service boundaries.
- Colorado and Idaho Local Taxes: the levy stacks and overlapping districts, side by side.
- Public Money Programs Index: the running index of programs, budgets and taxing bodies covered here.
This post is informational, not legal, financial or municipal advisory advice. Budget figures are appropriations as adopted or proposed and change through the year. Mentions of named municipalities, districts and retirement systems are nominative fair use. No affiliation is implied.
