From the Four Corners to the Eastern Plains, a hidden price of Colorado’s fiscal crisis is being paid by the state’s towns and counties – and by residents who support local government with their property and sales taxes.
Local government needs a strong partnership with the state. Towns and cities and their residents depend on state grants that support everything from libraries to affordable housing, and they can ill afford additional fees imposed by the state or the cost of meeting state requirements without financial help.
By passing Referendums C and D, Colorado voters have the opportunity to help restore the strong partnership between the state and its local governments that has been weakened by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and the recession.
While the referendums directly address state government finances, passage of the measures will do much to benefit local government services and revenues.
Cuts in state spending over the last few years, forced by declining state revenues during the recession, have caused the state government to shift some of its revenue problems to local governments, affecting the local taxpayer.
Here are four examples:
Declining general-fund revenues have forced the state to impose new or increased fees on local governments for various state-required activities and programs. For example, the water quality permit program.
The legislature has had to transfer (by either borrowing or permanently redirecting) revenues from special funds to general spending. That has meant cuts in such programs as the energy impact funds set aside for local governments and highway tax revenues shared with local governments.
The state has reduced general fund appropriations for grants that support not only libraries, but local youth programs, water and sewer services and affordable housing.
Mandates on local government have remained in place even where state help has been reduced. For example, at the county level the state reimbursement rate for housing state prisoners has been cut, contributing to jail overcrowding and additional expenses at the local level. County health departments have seen their support in the state budget reduced dramatically, with no reduction in the services these local agencies are required to provide.
If TABOR revenue limits are not modified for the next five years by the time-out provisions of Referendum C, prospects for the future of many state programs are indeed bleak. Actions taken in the past to balance the state budget will pale in comparison to those needed in the future. If the state’s fiscal bind is not relieved by voter approval of a TABOR time-out, local officials and citizens also should expect deeper cuts in hometown government, too.
Referendum D, the bonding measure, will accelerate funding for programs supported by Referendum C. This includes building more than 50 very critical highway projects of prime importance to cities and towns throughout Colorado, and funding the state’s obligations for certain municipal police and fire pension plans. If D isn’t passed, those highway projects won’t be built, and some police and fire pension programs across the state will remain underfunded.
The state is merely asking voters to do the same thing they have done many times at the local level. Many cities have successfully addressed TABOR revenue limits and restrictions on borrowing through voter-approved measures similar to Referendum C.
In fact, from 1993 to 2004, about 88 percent of revenue-limit measures and 67 percent of the bonding measures have been approved by municipal voters.
Just as voters have allowed “time-outs” for local governments and supported capital investments for cities and towns, voters are now being offered the same opportunity for the whole state through Referendums C and D.
Coloradans face a tremendous challenge and opportunity in preserving and restoring public services by allowing the state to take a time-out from the TABOR revenue limit for five years and by easing the current ratchet feature. This is why hundreds of municipal leaders throughout Colorado support C and D.
Voters have helped their cities many times over since TABOR was passed in 1992. Now it is time to help Colorado as a whole.
Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, can be contacted at smamet@cml.org
