Starting next year, a closely watched measure of consumer inflation in the state will come out every two months rather than every six and cover price changes in a more limited geographic area, the .
The Denver-Boulder-Greeley Consumer Price Index will narrow its focus and rebrand as the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood Consumer Price Index. It will also come out on odd months rather than semi-annually, which it has done since 1987. The first report reflecting the changes will come out in March.
The consumer price index carries added weight in Colorado, where it plugs into state and local government finance formulas, along with measures of population growth, as required by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
“Being able to track the index on a more frequent basis could potentially increase the accuracy of our forecasts, but we won’t be producing the forecasts any more often,” said Natalie Mullis, financial director for the Legislative Council.
The geographic changes could also complicate comparisons of future inflation rates with past ones, Mullis added.
For the first half of the year, inflation in the northern Front Range was at 3.1 percent, up from 2.8 percent in 2016 and 1.2 percent in 2015. Nationally, consumer inflation was running 2.2 percent in the 12 months ended in September.
The first and only time the region’s consumer price index showed .
