{"id":31792,"date":"2023-09-11T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-statewide-cap-on-property-taxes-could-be-on-next-years-ballot\/"},"modified":"2023-09-11T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T10:30:00","slug":"a-statewide-cap-on-property-taxes-could-be-on-next-years-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-statewide-cap-on-property-taxes-could-be-on-next-years-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"A statewide cap on property taxes could be on next year\u2019s ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Houses
Houses dot the landscape at Colorado's Steamboat Ski Resort, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022, in Steamboat Springs, Colo. The city council passed a rule in June that could prove to be a model for other vacation towns: A ban on new short-term rentals in most of the city and a ballot measure to tax bookings at 9% to fund affordable housing. (AP Photo\/Thomas Peipert)<\/span>Thomas Peipert<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Colorado voters could face another property tax question next year. Supporters say this one offers a simple, statewide remedy for property owners, but opponents argue it would come with a host of complex consequences for local communities.<\/p>\n

A conservative coalition says it submitted about 225,000 voters\u2019 signatures in support of the potential ballot measure, currently known as Initiative 50. If at least 125,000 of them are deemed valid by the Secretary of State\u2019s office, it will go to a statewide vote next November.<\/p>\n

If voters approve, the measure would put a cap on how much total property tax payments can increase in the state in a single year.<\/p>\n

The proposed cap would kick in whenever property tax revenues are expected to grow faster than 4% per year for the entire state. That growth rate is driven higher when property values increase, but also as a result of new construction, as well as when local voters approve tax hikes for things like schools and public safety.<\/p>\n

Critics say the cap would make a mess: While it\u2019s triggered by the total amount of property taxes paid statewide, property tax rates vary from city to city and county to county.<\/p>\n

So when property tax collections grow faster than 4%, the state and local governments will have to collectively make changes, although the proposal doesn\u2019t detail exactly how they would do that. Some local governments could grant tax refunds, for example. Or the legislature could approve discounts in some or all of the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf [revenues] are projected to go up over 4%, this gives the legislatures and local governments the ability to figure out how to stay under that 4%,\u201d said Michael Fields, who heads Advance Colorado Action, the group behind the campaign.<\/p>\n

Advance Colorado is known as a \u201cdark money\u201d group \u2013 a political nonprofit that, like many other groups on the left and right, will not say who its donors are.<\/p>\n

Negotiations over such a cap could get complicated \u2013 since, for example the hot real estate market in suburban Douglas County will contribute a lot more to statewide revenue growth, compared to places like rural Otero County where the population is shrinking. Or if voters in one large county agree to raise their property tax rates, it could affect other counties by \u201ceating up\u201d disproportionate space in that year\u2019s cap.<\/p>\n

If the cap were in place, it would require the refund of approximately $115 million in revenue in 2026, according to state fiscal analysts.<\/p>\n

The measure does allow the state government to ask voters to override the cap in a statewide vote. If a majority of Colorado voters agreed, then property tax revenues could grow at full speed for the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of it kind of like TABOR,\u201d Fields said, referring to the Taxpayer\u2019s Bill of Rights, which sets similar limits.<\/p>\n

Critics of the measure warn that a strict cap would limit local governments\u2019 ability to keep up with demand for school funding and maintenance of basic services, especially in years when inflation is running high.<\/p>\n

\u201cCutting across each district\u2019s diverse needs to set a 4% cap would be administratively burdensome, if not impossible. A cap would force local communities to [obey] a further state mandate like TABOR,\u201d warned the progressive Bell Policy Center, which also operates a dark-money group, in a recent memo. \u201c \u2026 If Initiative 50 appears too simple, that\u2019s because it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Property tax revenues have grown by an average of 6.5% per year since 2000, according to Bell. TABOR and another state law already place limits on the growth of property tax revenues, but many voters in many cities and counties have chosen to permanently override those limits.\u2028 Initiative 50 would effectively put some of those revenue limits back in place \u2013 and replace local votes with statewide decisions on whether to let property taxes grow.<\/p>\n

Before voters can consider Initiative 50, however, there\u2019s still a property tax vote in 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prop. HH is set for the November election this year, after a legal effort led by Advance Colorado to keep it off the ballot was rejected by the courts.<\/p>\n

Backed by key Democrats, it would make a complex series of changes: Property tax rates would be reduced, meaning that tax bills wouldn\u2019t rise as fast.<\/p>\n

But TABOR refunds also would be reduced, with hundreds of millions of dollars instead being used to stabilize and grow the state budget for schools. (Some of that money will also reduce the effect of property tax cuts on local governments.)<\/p>\n

Democratic Senate President Steve Fenberg described Prop. HH as the \u201cresponsible alternative to provide immediate property tax relief,\u201d in a statement on Friday, while conservatives have argued that it doesn\u2019t do enough on property taxes, while also cutting TABOR refunds that go to all taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The fight over Prop. HH is ramping up now. Supporters have raised nearly $750,000, including from dark-money advocacy groups that support Democrats and education reform.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, conservatives have raised significant money to defeat the Democratic proposal. The \u201cNo on HH\u201d campaign has collected more than $1 million, almost entirely from the dark-money groups Advance Colorado and Defend Colorado.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houses dot the landscape at Colorado’s Steamboat Ski Resort, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022, in Steamboat Springs, Colo. The city council passed a rule in June that could prove to be a model for other vacation towns: A ban on new short-term rentals in most of the city and a ballot measure to tax bookings at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31792"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}