Republican lawmakers, in the latest salvo of their battle against Gov. Bill Ritter’s controversial mill-levy freeze, plan to introduce a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the action.
“This is our effort to say, ‘This is unconstitutional. Let’s restore the voter’s voice,’ ” said Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, one of the proposed amendment’s sponsors.
The freeze holds mill levies — the rate at which property taxes are assessed — in place as property values rise. Under a Colorado law, mill levies would normally decrease when property values rise rapidly.
Republicans say the freeze, which the legislature passed last year, amounts to an illegal tax increase because it did not go before voters. Their proposed amendment says any law that prevents mill levies from dropping when they normally would have — and thus results in more property tax being collected — amounts to a tax increase, which voters must approve under the state constitution.
But Evan Dreyer, Ritter’s spokesman, said the freeze is constitutional because voters in 175 of the 178 school districts already voted to shed certain tax limits. The freeze applies only to those districts, Dreyer said. And because the freeze also capped the maximum mill-levy rate, residents in 34 school districts will pay less in property tax than they would have.
Gardner said projections show residents in those districts will eventually pay more than they would have had the freeze not gone into effect.
The proposed amendment must receive two-thirds support in the legislature in order to be put on the ballot.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com.
