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General Land Office Plats
Welcome to the General Land Office Plats web page for Delta County, a joint effort by the Delta County Assessor and Delta County Clerk to make the original General Land Office (GLO) plats from the Delta County archives available on line. The images available here were scanned from the original GLO plats on file with Delta County, dating from the county’s inception in 1883. Since these plats are from Delta County records, they also may contain notations of original homestead entries or other information added by county personnel over the years. Please note that scans of the original GLO plats and field notes may be accessed at the Bureau of Land Management’s document search site. However, the scans found there will not contain the notes added on the plats archived here in the County.
We hope that you will find these plats useful. They are the base surveys upon which most subsequent land records are based and they also provide an interesting look at the history of our county.
To find a scan for a particular location, you will have to know the Township and Range from the Public Land Survey System that you are looking for. The file name of the Adobe Acrobat file is indexed by the Township and Range. For example, if you are searching for the GLO Plat for Township 12 South, Range 93 West of the 6th Principal Meridian, the file name would be “T12SR93WPG8.pdf”. The last numbers in the file name indicate either the Delta County assigned page number of the plat or other supplemental information. Please note that there may be multiple plats (either original or supplemental) for any given Township or area of Township.
Also, please note that Delta County shares the unique distinction with Mesa County of having all three Principal Meridians present in the state of Colorado—the 6th Principal Meridian, the New Mexico Principal Meridian, and the Ute Principal Meridian—also to be found within the County. (A BLM map of the Principal Meridians in Colorado is available online.) All Townships in Delta County beginning with 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15 (e.g., “Township 13” or “T13”) are in the 6th Principal Meridian; All Townships beginning with 51 are in the New Mexico Principal Meridian; and all Townships beginning with 3 or 4 are in the Ute Principal Meridian.
Please feel free to contact our offices if you have any questions concerning the plats or how to access them.
Jolene George
Delta County Assessor
Teri Stephenson
Delta County Clerk
- Who sets the tax rate or mill levy?
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Tax rates (mill levies) are determined by each taxing authority (County, Cities and Towns, School Districts, Fire Departments, Water and Sanitation Districts, and others) in the fall of each year. These authorities provide services to you and are listed on your annual tax notice.
Amendment I, the Tabor Amendment, was approved by the voters in 1992 and restricts the ability of taxing authorities to raise tax rates or revenue without voter approval. Some tax authorities have chosen to provide temporary tax credits, which allow the tax districts to maintain its official mill levy and not exceed revenue limits.
Additional revenue limitations for certain taxing authorities and school districts were enacted in 2025 through SB24-233 and HB24B-1001.
- I thought the “Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) Amendment” said that taxes could not go up, yet my valuation has increased. How can that be?
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The TABOR Amendment restricts the total amount of revenue growth an individual taxing entity (a cemetery district, for example) is allowed each year. This is computed by each entity utilizing a formula that takes into account inflation, new construction in the taxing entity’s boundaries, and other factors. The Amendment does not restrict the amount that an individual’s taxes may change, nor does it place a specific percentage limitation on any individual’s tax change. The Amendment does state that mill levies cannot be raised by a taxing entity without an election, except for very special circumstances. It also specifies that improved residential property must be valued using the market approach to value only.
- Why do Assessment Rates Vary so Much Based on How a Property is Classified?
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The differences in assessment rates between residential homes and other types of property began as a result of an amendment to the Colorado Constitution (known as the Gallagher Amendment) approved by the voters in 1982, which limited the residential share of the property taxes. Historically, the State Legislature adjusted the residential assessment rate each year to meet Gallagher statutory requirements. However, In 2020, Amendment B to the Colorado Constitution repealed the part of Gallagher that dictated how assessment rates were set. The rates continue to be set by the legislature annually, but under different rules. Rates cannot be increased without a vote of the people, but they can be decreased.
Senate Bill 24-233 made a significant change to the residential assessment rate beginning in 2025. In prior years, there was only one residential assessment rate used to determine the "taxable value" of a residential property. Now, two different assessment rates are applied; one for the school district and one for all other taxing entities. Under this bill, the school assessment rate will be maintained at a higher percentage than the all other local government rate.