In Colorado, all property tax revenue is used to fund local governments, school districts, municipalities and special districts like fire, sanitation, water, hospital, business improvement and metropolitan districts.

Every fall, taxing entities develop their budgets for the following year. Expenses and revenue are projected, and the budgets are approved at public hearings. When putting together that budget, a taxing entity relies on property values in the area provided by the Assessor’s Office to help figure out both the revenue and the limits on spending.

All of the elements are interconnected from the beginning, so we created this timeline to help walk through it easily.