The Colorado Senate is expected to take up Gov. Bill Ritter’s property tax “freeze” today. We urge the lawmakers to stop playing partisan games and follow the guidance of voters in 175 of the state’s 178 school districts by passing the plan.
In recent days, Republican strategists, led by Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, have tried to paint the property tax freeze as a tax increase. But it is nothing of the kind – as Republicans themselves recognized in 2004 when they passed the very same plan in what was then a Republican-controlled Senate. Even then-Senate President John Andrews, whose aversion to tax increases is legendary, voted for the freeze.
The 2004 freeze plan was developed after Sen. Norma Anderson, R-Lakewood, and Rep. Keith King, R-Colorado Springs – then the majority leaders of their respective chambers – asked the Office of Legislative Legal Services if such a freeze would be legal. In a carefully reasoned legal opinion, the office ruled that it would be possible to freeze property taxes in the 175 school districts that have authorized such a freeze.
In a transparently partisan ploy to embarrass Ritter, a Democrat, McElhany is now ignoring previous GOP backing for the freeze while making the bizarre argument that failure to cut taxes every year is a tax increase and thus prohibited by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. But actually, such freezes are authorized by TABOR itself if voters approve. And in 175 elections, they already have.
Here, for example, is the language from the 1999 vote in Mesa County’s Plateau District:
“Without imposing any new taxes or increasing tax rates, shall Mesa County Valley School District No. 51 be authorized to receive, retain and spend non-federal grants and all other revenues collected from any source during the 1998-1999 fiscal year and each subsequent fiscal year thereafter as voter-approved revenue and spending changes and as exceptions to the limitations otherwise applicable under Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution (TABOR) or any other law?”
Voters approved that Mesa County measure, along with similar ballot language in 174 other districts. Now, McElhany and his allies want to deprive school districts of the revenue their local taxpayers explicitly authorized them to retain. What part of “Without imposing any new taxes or increasing tax rates” doesn’t McElhany understand?
It’s time for the partisan games to end and for the politicians to give the voters what they have repeatedly asked for – enough money to support our schools and provide Colorado kids a decent education.
