Colorado voters will make their feelings known in November on a ballot question that, depending upon one’s point of view, will either provide tax relief to property owners, or will gut funding for critical public services and infrastructure.
The Colorado Property Tax Revenue Cap Initiative would, if passed, limit property tax revenue to just 4% of all statewide property tax revenue collected in any previous year.
The proposal has won the backing of various citizen’s and business groups who contend that property taxes in the Centennial State, imposed locally, have been steadily increasing in the last decade to the detriment of homeowners.
Perhaps the most prominent supporter of the initiative is a Denver-based group called the Advanced Colorado Institute. On its webpage, the group asserts that “Colorado is in the midst of a property tax crisis, with property taxes rising an average of 30% across the state.”
The Institute, and other supporters of the proposal, additionally contend that unless a voter-mandated cap is imposed, property taxes are likely to continue on an almost annual basis in the years to come.
Opponents of the move have said that its passage would put too much on the table: “Local governments, school and fire districts,” reports CPR News, have argued that the proposal would “devastate funding for critical public services.”
A separate think tank, the Bell Policy Center, also of Denver, has released a statement remarking that the proposal is a “hard, irrational, and impractical cap on property taxes that would not only defund communities, but put local community decisions in the hands of voters from very different regions in Colorado.”
Governor Jared Polis has now stepped into the controversy, announcing his intention to call the Colorado State Legislature into a special session beginning during the final week of this month in an effort to pass a bill that will gut the need for Revenue Cap Initiative.
Polis has told reporters that recent property tax increases have been too erratic. “We need predictability. We need stability,” he remarked.
Watching property tax fights erupt on a yearly basis, added Polis, “is not good for the state, and we want to end it.”
Various studies have pegged the overall property tax increases in the double digits, with homes valued at $500,000 or more seeing increases of more than 50%.
By Garry Boulard
