Voters in November will get a chance to redirect sales taxes already collected on sporting goods equipment toward land conservation and wildfire mitigation.
State election officials this week approved signatures to land Proposition 137 on the November ballot. Previously called Proposition 308, the new ballot measure could divert $175 million to $180 million a year in already collected sales taxes on sporting goods equipment toward conservation, wildfire mitigation, watershed restoration and improved outdoor recreation opportunities.
The ballot measure would distribute $83 million to $85.6 million a year to Great Outdoors Colorado, nearly doubling its annual revenue from the Colorado Lottery. More than $83 million a year would go toward wildfire risk mitigation and watershed protection, with funds evenly split between the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and the Colorado State Forest Service. The state currently spends about $16.4 million a year toward wildfire reduction work and $5 million a year toward rehabilitating burned landscapes above rivers and streams.
If approved, the Colorado Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry and Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Outdoor Equity Grant Program would each get about $4.5 million a year, more than doubling the annual funding for both.
Jackie Miller, the head of Great Outdoors Colorado, or GOCO, said demand for conservation dollars “significantly exceeds” grant dollars. Colorado Parks and Wildlife, which gets about half of GOCO’s annual funding, has identified $900 million in capital needs over the next five years for parks and wildlife.
The ballot measure would rank alongside the 1992 statewide vote that created GOCO, which has invested $1.7 billion in Colorado Lottery revenue into more than 5,900 projects in every county of the state.
The list of GOCO projects includes a new pool in Haxtun, trail improvements along the High Line Canal across metro Denver and protecting 19,200 acres at the nascent Fishers Peak State Park near Trinidad.
GOCO funding from the Colorado Lottery is remarkably stable. In the last three decades, annual dollars rolling from the lottery to GOCO have declined from the previous year only three times: 2001, 2011 and 2015. Since the mid-1990s, annual lottery funding for GOCO has increased more than fivefold, reaching $84.9 million in 2025.
GOCO’s support of the Colorado Youth Corps Association has employed 11,300 young people on conservation projects across the state and its Generation Wild program has pushed more than 400,000 participants through 11,000 outdoors programs.
If voters approve Proposition 137, Miller said residents can expect “a significant increase” in GOCO programs.
“That will mean more projects, deeper investments, larger or longer-term efforts, and helping more communities turn locally and regionally identified priorities into action,” Miller said. “Impact will be immense.”
As the federal government reorganizes land management agencies and how it funds wildfire mitigation work, increased funding from the Colorado Forest Service’s Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation grant program “would be incredible,” said Josh Hankes, the executive director of the Routt County Wildfire Mitigation Council.
The council works to reduce fire risks across Routt County, with landscape-scale projects in the Yampa Valley and Colorado River headwaters and work with individual property owners. This year the council cut 20% of its budget after the Bureau of Land Management warned that future federal support is uncertain.
Rural wildfire efforts often struggle to compete for federal grants because “we can’t always demonstrate as big an impact in rural locations,” said Hankes, who sees increased state funding for wildfire mitigation helping implement the 2023 Routt County Community Wildfire Protection Plan as well as the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District’s Bear River Wildfire Ready Watershed Project that is thinning deadfall across 33,300 acres.
“If there’s more money, it makes it easier to make it over to rural areas,” Hankes said.
Outdoor access advocates are joining wildfire and conservation groups to support the ballot measure.
Climbing legend Craig DeMartino has been working with the Westminster-based Adaptive Adventures for the last decade. The group, which offers paddling, climbing and cycling excursions to children, adults and veterans with physical disabilities, received money from Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s debut of the Outdoor Equity Grant Program in 2022 that enabled the group to host 342 people on 514 days of outdoor fun.
Adaptive Adventures has applied for the grant every year since but not won. Since 2022, the program has received more than 1,000 applications and awarded $10.6 million to only 165 projects.
DeMartino said additional funding for the equity program could help Adaptive Adventures host more than its 600 programs a year and add more outdoor climbing sessions, which have long waitlists.
“We do have to turn folks away from our programs because climbing is more popular than ever, which we love,” he said.
The committee supporting the ballot measure, Protect Colorado’s Land and Water and Prevent Wildfires, has raised $2.96 million this year, with $1.57 million coming from Virginia-based The Conservation Fund, $300,000 from California’s Fund for a Better Future and more than $200,000 from the Trust for Public Land. Denver Water, in a rare political move, is supporting Prop. 137, calling it “a major infrastructure need,” as the state’s largest water providers spend tens of millions to restore wildfire-impacted landscapes in the South Platte River basin.
No committee has formed to oppose Proposition 137, but the League of Women Voters opposes the ballot measure, saying the “permanent transfer” of funds from the “perpetually short” state general fund, “does not allow for legislative judgment.”
The measure, which does not raise taxes or add costs to sporting goods or retailers, would divert sales taxes already collected by the state. The Legislative Council Staff would annually update calculated sales taxes — using federal North America Product Code data and sales tax numbers from the Colorado Department of Revenue — to determine the amount directed into GOCO and wildfire mitigation work.
“In low-budget years the legislature will retain the budgetary flexibility to meet existing state needs,” said Tarn Udall, senior attorney with Western Resource Advocates.