We don’t just need the rate of increase to ease, or even to stop; we need a full reversal, a reduction in single-family home and multi-family home property taxes.

For more than a decade, property taxes have increased unabated, driven by tax increases, new districts and mostly by the rising value of homes. Now homeowners are feeling the pinch – property tax increases that have outstripped even America’s brutal inflation rate this past decade.

Property taxes in Colorado primarily fund schools, counties, cities, water, fire protection, and debt from developer spending.

How much a property owner pays is based on a complex formula that considers three things: the local tax rates (known as mill levies), the state-wide assessment rate and the assessed value of the property.

While mill levies have increased and the state has tinkered up and down with the rate, it is property assessed-value increases that .

For an average-priced home purchased for $500,000 in the City and County of Denver, property taxes in some areas of the city have increased from $1,800 in 2020 to $4,400 in 2026. Taxpayers did approve a mill levy override for Denver Public Schools in 2020, but since then, they have not approved a single measure that would increase mill levies – the increase has been driven entirely by the unrealized gains of property values. Denver has one of the lowest mill levy tax rates in the Front Range.

Property tax relief could come to Coloradans in several forms in the coming years.

Starting in 2027, taxpayers will receive some relief with the imposition of a tax break already approved by state lawmakers. Homeowners will see a graduated 10% decrease in their assessed value up to $700,000 in value. These tax cuts approved by the Colorado legislature will help tremendously.

Also, Colorado seniors can finally keep their homestead tax exemption if they move homes, something that prevented many older Coloradans from downsizing and punished retirees who had to move because of a disability.

Additionally, Colorado lawmakers imposed a cap on property tax revenue increases for governments – 6% for school districts in a single year, and 5.25% for local governments and special districts.

Until property values finally begin to decline in Colorado to reasonable and affordable levels, local jurisdictions must serve their taxpayers by doing more. Nothing prohibits a city, county, school district or metro district from reducing the mill levy even beyond the 6% cap. These governments must recognize that their revenue has grown unsustainably over the past decade and take measures to provide relief.

Localized property tax reductions are also the only way forward because not every municipality or metro district has seen the crushing weight of property inflation. Governments can look at their revenue gains over the past decade, look hard at their expenditures and reserves and consider offering temporary mill levy reductions until home values decrease.

A 6% growth in revenue for a city, county or school district is not troubling in any one single year, but 6% growth on top of the already mounting valuations will have dire results for many Coloradans.

We all must reach out to our local elected officials or the developers of our subdivisions and tell them how property taxes are impacting our budgets. Developers can refinance or recast debt, new projects can be delayed, and school districts can hold off on asking for renewals of bond debt, freeing up mill levies in this dire economic time.

Colorado voters willingly gave up protections from property tax inflation in 2020 when we agreed that the Gallagher Amendment was hurting our local businesses. Now, our local elected officials and developers must return the favor and protect homeowners from this financial crush.

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The disabled veteran, who tracks his expenses like a hawk, also faced a $200 jump in his property insurance premiums. Some people may not bat an eye, but on his fixed income, the added costs have become a major source of stress.

“I’m 94 years old and only have so much saved. The faster it’s spent, the sooner I end up on the street or worse, in a nursing home,” he lamented.

Kratz is among the homeowners in the state who were hit with an unexpected and substantial rise in their property taxes, even though their actual home values were flat or even down compared to last year. The increases are primarily linked to the elimination of a temporary $55,000 discount in property values that ended last year. Losing that discount was more impactful for lower-value homes and condos.

Others have faced higher mill levies from local governments and school districts, which added to their bills. And some people continue to see their home values rise even as prices fall elsewhere.

“We are getting the phone calls, and we are happy to take them,” said Elbert County Assessor Susan Murphy, who is also the president of the Colorado Assessors’ Association. “People aren’t always happy, but they are pretty understanding once you can go through the calculation with them.”

Assessors are responsible for determining property values, not for setting the actual property taxes people pay. But county assessors’ offices are often the first place people turn when they struggle to understand the math behind their property tax bills, she said.

In Montezuma County, Richard Vogel, who lives just outside of Cortez, is among those who struggle with the math. He was hit with a 41% increase in his tax bill, despite the value of his home and land holding steady. His increase was mostly due to voter-approved mill levy increases for the area school district and fire department, driven in part by reduced support from the state, which is facing reduced federal support and large budget shortfalls.

“I don’t have an objection to a small jump,” said Vogel. But he questions why such large increases are allowed to be passed on in a single year, before asking:  “Is there an end in sight?”

In the last assessment cycle, residential values, averaged across all of Denver County, were flat. In Adams County, they were down. But some gentrifying neighborhoods continue to see home values appreciate as older and smaller homes are demolished and replaced with significantly larger and more expensive structures.

Kelly Duff, who retired early as a music teacher because of a disability and gets by on $1,100 a month, has lived in the Mayfair neighborhood since 1998. Her bungalow, built in 1994, is snug at 722 square feet and has a gravel driveway and no garage. Duff, however, is now searching for options that will allow her to stay in her home.

Her home valuation last year was set at $563,000 by the Denver assessor, up from $485,000 two years earlier. Add the elimination of the $55,000 reduction against residential property values last year, and her property taxes have gone up from $2,200 a year to just over $3,000, she said. Her property insurance premiums have also shot up to $2,800 a year.

Duff blames the three “McMansions” that have risen around her since the pandemic — one on each side and a third across the street. It wasn’t bad enough that they cut off her sunlight; the trio also jacked up her property taxes, she said.

Zillow shows that a home on one side of Duff has gone from a market value of $496,000 to $1.8 million after it was replaced, while on the other side, the value rose from $270,000 to $1.66 million. The one across the street went from a scrape value of $597,000 to nearly $2 million.

The replacement homes on all three lots represented significant expansions, but the original price paid for the scraped homes mostly reflected the value of the land. Zillow values Duff’s home at $416,000, which is down from a peak of $523,800 in early 2022, when the Denver real estate market topped out.

Duff purchased the home for $131,600 in late 1998. Public records show her property taxes were $804 in 2002, not long after Duff purchased the home for $131,600. If Zillow is correct in its valuation, Duff’s property taxes have risen 3.7-fold, while the value of the home has risen 3.5-fold. What isn’t known is what her home would have been worth if her neighboring lots hadn’t been scraped.

Duff now has the upside of more home equity, but can’t claim it easily. If she sold, she doesn’t know what else she could afford in Denver. In a world that feels increasingly like what the character , she plans to turn to a reverse mortgage to stay afloat.

Colorado offers a program for seniors and active military, which allows a portion of taxes to be converted into a low-interest-rate loan payable upon the death of the homeowner or the sale or transfer of the home. Denver also for low-income residents who are either age 65 or older, disabled, or who have a dependent child in the household.

Unlike the changes in total residential values, which assessors calculate every two years and make public, finding aggregated numbers on what property taxes are levied per home is tougher.

“The state does not collect data at the property-specific level, so we are not able to show how many residential property owners are facing a higher property tax payment this year compared to last,” said Keith Erffmeyer, the state’s new Property Tax Administrator, in an email.

Absent a centralized database, discerning trends by geography or property type is hard. Given that the $55,000 discount on home values was a flat rate, owners of lower-cost properties, such as Kratz and Duff, are likely facing a bigger upward adjustment in their 2025 property taxes, which are due on April 30.

Developers have shifted a higher share of infrastructure and other costs into metro districts. Newer communities are also more likely to require new schools. Because more costs are wrapped into the property tax base in newer communities, homeowners there are also likely to face a bigger tax hit.

The Denver Post asked readers if they had seen higher property taxes this year, and nearly 100 responded. A large share of those who reached out were retirees and others on a fixed income who said they were struggling to absorb the increases.

What upset some was that they had counted on flat home values and the legislative fixes made in 2023 and 2024 to shield them from any more big spikes.

One reason that hasn’t been the case is that 2025 represented a “gap” year where old benefits disappeared before new ones could catch up. The flat $55,000 reduction applied against total home values in 2023 and 2024 is being replaced this year by a graduated 10% decrease up to $700,000 in value.

To ease the transition in 2025, the residential assessment rate for local governments was lowered from 6.7% to 6.25%. The school district assessment rate fell from 7.15% in 2024 to 7.05% in 2025. That is what is showing up in the tax bills that went out this year.

The residential assessment rate is the share of the total value of a home that is subject to local mill levies, which represent $1 in tax for every $1,000 in assessed value. Mill levies are the tax rates that local governments, school districts and special districts charge. They are highly localized.

School districts receive half or more of property taxes in most areas. Because the drop in the residential assessment rate for school districts was so small, it wasn’t enough to compensate for the loss of the $55,000 discount, especially among lower-cost properties, which are more likely to be occupied by lower-income residents less able to absorb any big tax increases.

Caps that limit property tax revenue increases in any given year to 5.25% for local governments and 6% for school districts also kick in this year. But the caps don’t apply to home rule cities, voter-approved bonds, or in jurisdictions where voters have approved waivers on limits. And even when they are applied, it doesn’t mean that individual property tax bills can’t rise faster than the caps imposed on local governments.

That said, residential property owners should see significantly smaller property tax increases next year than this year, said Chris deGruy Kennedy, president and CEO of the Bell Policy Center, a progressive policy group based in Denver.

Kennedy was in the thick of the negotiations to address the spike in property taxes that followed an unprecedented surge in home values during the pandemic.

“We couldn’t figure out a way to keep K-12 funding where they needed it to be,” he said. “There was a decision that we needed to sever the school district assessment rate from the local government assessment rate.”

Kennedy, as former pro tem Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, was a key architect behind Proposition HH, which provided a $40,000 property value reduction and attempted to use TABOR surplus funds to backfill local government funding shortfalls.

When voters rejected that, he guided a special session that approved the $55,000 value reduction, which was intended as a temporary fix.

In 2024, as a legislative member of the Commission on Property Tax, he spent weeks working on a more permanent solution. The only way to give homeowners relief while also protecting constitutional requirements for school funding was to create different assessment rates.

By splitting, the state could lower local taxes without draining the school funding protected under Amendment 23, which voters passed in 2020. The amendment obligated the state to keep school funding in line with inflation, even when local voters rejected the higher mill levies needed to make that happen. That obligation was chronically underfunded, which forced the state to divert revenues from other priorities. During the Great Recession, when there simply wasn’t enough money left in the budget, the state ran up a tab called the “negative factor,” which was later named the “budget stabilization factor.” That gap triggered lawsuits and finally eliminated in 2024.

When property values rose sharply, it offered a window to shift more of the local funding burden back onto homeowners, who had just lost a shield known as the Gallagher Amendment. Passed in 1983, that measure required residential property owners to cover 45% of the statewide property tax burden, and commercial property owners the remainder.

But because home price gains consistently outpaced the gains in commercial properties, the residential assessment rate, or the share of total property values subject to mill levies, continued to ratchet down, going from 21% to 7.15% when voters finally approved a repeal in 2020.

Businesses found themselves shouldering a heavier property tax burden, and rural areas, with smaller home price gains and a smaller commercial property tax base, struggled to keep pace. Homeowners were promised a more comprehensive fix of the property tax system and the repeal passed with a comfortable margin.

But reforms didn’t happen in time, and the delays proved costly. A sharp drop in interest rates to combat the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed a buying frenzy and an unprecedented surge in home prices, which in turn caused property taxes to spike once assessments caught up to the market gains.

Colorado ranks 48th lowest for its effective residential property tax rates in the country, due in large part to Gallagher, according to the . Other surveys put it at around the fourth lowest. But Colorado also has the highest average home prices outside of any coastal state. That results in a heavier per capita property tax burden, which ranks 26th or near the national average.

For homeowners on a fixed income or struggling to stay in a home due to low wages, the question isn’t where Colorado ranks for its effective property tax rate but whether they will have enough added income to cover higher monthly escrow payments or to meet their property tax obligation on April 30 without borrowing.

“This is an added stressor with healthcare, student loans, inflation. It is making it difficult to pay for things despite working two jobs,” said Frederick resident Lauren Carson.

“We are by no means in hardship, but all of the salary raises are canceled out by these increased expenses, so our savings are not growing as much as they should,” said Andy Heinz, a Denver resident who was hit with a $520 increase in property taxes this year.

Beyond higher property taxes, Colorado homeowners have seen homeowner insurance premiums double between 2020 and 2025, the biggest percentage increase of any state, . Colorado homeowners rank 14th for the share of their incomes that is required to cover property insurance premiums.

“No one is getting pay increases at the same pace as insurance and taxes are going up,” said Corey Morris, a Castle Rock resident. Morris said his property taxes are up $1,000 compared to last year and his insurance costs are up “substantially” the past two years.

Some taxpayers who responded said they have reduced their insurance coverage to afford higher property taxes, while others said they are deferring needed maintenance. Neither bodes well for the health of the state’s housing stock over the long term.

Kennedy said a growing share of the state’s population, not just the poor, struggles with higher living costs, of which higher housing costs play a big part. Critics have long argued that changes in property values, in either direction, don’t correlate with the cost of services and the financial needs of local governments.

The Bell Policy Center is leading a coalition to put a proposal on that ballot that would levy a higher income tax rate on households earning $500,000 or more a year. Kennedy argues that a graduated income tax would provide a more calibrated revenue tool than property taxes. And it could address equity concerns that pop up in wealthy enclaves like Steamboat Springs, where the rejection of higher local taxes has forced the state to step in and cover shortfalls.

Supporters also argue that a graduated income tax would help cover the funding gap resulting from the reduction in federal support.

But as with any tax change, it is controversial. Even those who said they could absorb the financial hit from higher property taxes expressed concerns about how tax revenues are spent and whether policymakers and government leaders understand the burden that higher taxes create for residents.

Louie Bucher, a resident of Washington Park West, said he wished Colorado had a California-style Proposition 13, which caps changes in the assessed value of a residential property that can be taxed. He can absorb the hit, but he wants more accountability.

“My biggest peeve is seeing what they spend the money on,” said Bucher, who used to live in the Golden State. “If the money is being spent responsibly, then it is a little bit easier to take. But then you see that the money is being wasted.”

Denver’s auditor Tim O’Brien, for example, found that the Caring for Denver Foundation, which receives a dedicated portion of the city’s sales and use tax to work on suicide prevention and assist those struggling with substance use problems, spent $28,000 on meals and $3,000 on expensive alcoholic drinks over three years.

While that program isn’t reliant on property taxes, Bucher said it reflects an ethos in the public sector where “it is a lot easier to spend other people’s money than your own.”

Some respondents, like Jake Cohen of Denver, try to keep the property tax hikes in a positive light by focusing on the good that the extra revenues will achieve. The cost increases that households are experiencing are also hitting governments and schools.

“It’s tough, but it’s important to me to contribute to Denver schools and new transportation projects like making streets safer; they all deliver value to me and are part of making Denver better. And those costs are going up too,” Cohen said.

The residential assessment ratio for schools and local governments is expected to go back up, but the precise rate won’t be known until November. It will be largely offset by the 10% reduction in total value applied. On average, property tax bills should stabilize next year in most areas, assuming home values don’t rise sharply before mid-year.

Kennedy did a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation for a typical home in Jefferson County, where he lives. If property taxes went up $300 this year, the property tax increase next year will likely be closer to around $30, he predicts.

In another change, seniors who move can now carry their homestead exemption with them to a new primary residence. That exemption provided a 50% discount on the first $200,000 of a home’s actual value, provided someone over 65 had lived in the home for 10 years or more. That exemption used to end when a senior moved, but it has been made portable, including for recent moves.

Fear of losing that exemption froze older homeowners who might have wanted to downsize in place, tying up larger homes that could benefit younger families, critics argued.

The deadline to apply for the “” is March 15, but applications are being accepted through July 15, although the right to appeal a rejection of an application goes away for those filing after the initial deadline. The benefits of the broadened exemption will show up in next year’s property tax bill for those who qualify.

If all goes as planned, the deal will calm the state’s multiyear tempest around property tax policy. The turbulence has included the repeal of a decades-old constitutional amendment that governed tax rates, the economic rollercoaster following the COVID pandemic and skyrocketing home values across metro Denver and much of the state.

“Fundamentally, the people of Colorado have had their concerns addressed: long-term relief, a reasonable cap (on tax growth) and over 4,000 entities funded by property taxes, including every school district, (will) have the stability that they need to plan and budget,” Gov. Jared Polis told The Denver Post in an interview Thursday. “ 
 With all the sort of chaos of the last few years, it¶¶Òőap been very hard on our fire districts, schools, library districts.”

, which won final approval from the Senate shortly before he spoke, builds off a tax package signed in May that lowered assessment rates and capped how much property tax revenue collected by local governments and districts could grow. The new measure adds about $254 million in cuts to the $1.3 billion in reductions passed in the spring.

It’s expected to trim between $60 and $80 from the typical homeowner’s property tax bill in the 2025 tax year and about $179 the following year. Those are on top of the average $400 or so in savings this year from the prior package.

More importantly to local governments and legislative leaders, the deal passed Thursday will lead the conservative and business groups backing a pair of ballot measures that would’ve instituted stricter growth limits and deeper cuts — initiatives 50 and 108 — to withdraw them from the state’s November ballot. While the particular changes proposed by Initiative 108 would have saved the average homeowner more than $500 a year eventually, officials feared the financial toll on state and local government budgets.

Polis says he expects to sign the bill into law next week. Ahead of that, here is a look at several dynamics on display this week.

The power of power politics

Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat and the property tax bill’s primary sponsor, opened the final debate Thursday by defending the process that sparked the special session. He sought to rebut recurring charges — including from his own colleagues — that the bill he was sponsoring was the result of a “backroom deal.”

“I think a dispassionate observer would come to the conclusion this was a public process,” he said, ticking off the public meetings at which the details of the plan were laid out. And he noted that legislative committees in recent days took public testimony.

The deal was negotiated outside public view by Hansen, other legislative leadership, the governor’s office and the supporters of the initiatives. While it¶¶Òőap true that its contours were publicly revealed earlier this month to the state’s , those details had already been agreed upon.

Though support for the plan was bipartisan, lawmakers from both parties chafed at being called back to the Capitol essentially to ratify a deal they had no hand in crafting — and were largely unable to change. Some Republicans criticized the deal for not cutting taxes enough, while progressive Democrats said it exacerbated inequalities in the state and didn’t do enough to help lower-income property owners or renters.

Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, spoke at length Wednesday about the need to defend the legislature’s role in governance and said that “no” votes would send a “signal” that “if you want to tell us what to do, you need to understand that not everybody’s down for that.” Most lawmakers in the chamber stood in support as she spoke.

But ultimately, the bill passed. Comfortably. A total of just 22 lawmakers (out of 100), including Bacon, voted against the bill during its journey through the Capitol.

Outside interests had real leverage

Several lawmakers this week derisively referred to Michael Fields, the president of the Advance Colorado Institute and the ballot initiatives’ chief proponent, as “governor.”

Those criticisms only grew when no one from Advance Colorado or its ally, Colorado Concern, a business-oriented advocacy group, testified in support of the bill in committees.

Polis, asked about the moniker, pointed to the almost 200,000 Coloradans who signed petitions placing the initiatives on the ballot, adding: “I think the legislature found a better way to address (property taxes) than risky and divisive ballot initiatives.”

Separately, Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, noted lawmakers’ aversion to feeling like a rubber stamp.

“We reasoned through that,” he said, “because we also have to be leaders, and we also have to stand up and say, ‘Personally, this is not what I would have wanted.’ 
 I feel comfortable in what we did because it was a true compromise.”

In a statement, Fields called the bill’s passage “a huge win for Colorado taxpayers,” who have faced property tax increases of 30% or more.

An end to the property tax wars?

Advance Colorado, as part of the deal, has promised not to run any other ballot initiatives around property taxes for at least six years — a period that stretches beyond Polis’ and many lawmakers’ remaining time in office — if the agreed-upon terms are met.

That deal was made in writing, though it has no statutory condition locking it in place more rigidly.

“We get permanency. We get stability here,” Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican involved in the negotiations, said Thursday. “So hopefully it does end the property tax wars, because we are getting to a permanent fix. In the past, we didn’t get the job done. It doesn’t mean that we failed; we just didn’t get it all the way done.”

Others weren’t so sure.

Rep. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat who voted for the deal and said it was the right thing to do, said its passage would give legislators “a reprieve.” Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who voted against it, said she’d “be shocked” if this latest bill actually brought an end to property tax battles at the legislature.

“We’ll be back here doing the same thing again,” she predicted.

A preview of debates to come

Some Democratic lawmakers introduced policy proposals to limit property tax relief or change how taxes are calculated — ideas that, though swiftly killed this week, may come back in January and open up a new front in the fight.

Fire chiefs from across the state also came to the Capitol to testify against expected cuts to their budgets resulting from the bill. They pulled back their full-scale lobbying only when they won promises from elected officials that they would prioritize finding more stable ways to fund fire districts in upcoming sessions.

“It’s concerning to me that there’s a need with our local governments,” said Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat. “How do we balance that need?”

Given the twists and turns in the state’s property tax debate, it’s easy to be confused about why lawmakers — who gave final approval to a breakthrough deal Thursday morning — have convened again, starting Monday. Here is a quick look at why they’ve been meeting, what they’re considering and the potential impact as they look to avoid two big measures on the November ballot.

â–ș How we got here: Soaring property values, combined with the 2020 repeal of the Gallagher Amendment — which had stabilized residential property taxes — led to recent steep increases in property tax bills in many parts of Colorado. Lawmakers have been passing temporary relief for years, including during a November special session. They landed on a long-term policy last spring — but it didn’t placate outside conservative and business advocacy groups that are running ballot initiatives in November to force steeper cuts.

Gov. Jared Polis called a second special session this month to head off the measures as part of a deal with their backers, hoping to avert what state officials see as a financial shock for state and local governments if the initiatives pass.

â–ș Ballot measures: Initiative 50 would cap property tax revenue growth and Initiative 108 would reduce assessment rates that determine how much of a property’s value is taxed. Estimates are that Initiative 108 would cut statewide property tax collections by more than $2 billion a year, with the state needing to either compensate local governments or let them deal with the lost revenue.

â–ș Compromise bill: The ballot measures’ sponsors have agreed to pull them if lawmakers approve the new . It would cut assessment rates more modestly for both commercial and residential properties, reducing statewide collections by about $254 million. That’s on top of $1.3 billion in cuts passed by lawmakers in the spring. (Update: The Senate took its final vote on HB-1001 Thursday, sending it to Polis for his signature.)

â–ș Homeowner impact: How the scenarios compare is complicated. But under the law passed in the spring, the average savings for the owner of a typical $700,000 home was expected to be roughly $400, depending on local mill levies. The estimated additional savings from the special session bill are less than $100 for most homeowners, with varying projections putting the average in the $60-80 range.

If the ballot measures were to pass, Initiative 108 would have the most direct impact. Initially, it actually would increase taxes because the spring tax relief law would be invalidated. But in the 2025 tax year, 108 would reduce taxes by $539 for the average homeowner compared to current law, according to , a progressive think tank.

The measure now needs a final House vote on Wednesday. Should it clear that, it will then face a marathon of votes in the Senate as lawmakers aim to end the special session before Labor Day.

builds upon years of tweaks to property tax policy in the state following voters’ repeal of the residential tax-stabilizing Gallagher Amendment in 2020. If it becomes law, fiscal analysts say it will cut statewide property tax collections by about $254 million, on top of the $1.3 billion cut approved by lawmakers last spring.

For most property owners, the new reductions would cut less than $100 from their tax bills, though the amount depends on local mill levies and the property’s value, among other changes to tax policy.

The true stakes, however, lie in a pair of ballot initiatives that, if passed by voters in November, would force even deeper cuts to property tax collections. The conservative proponents of initiatives 50 and 108, led by Advance Colorado, have repeatedly declared that they will yank the measures — characterized by opponents as “catastrophic” and “draconian” — if the bill becomes law.

So far, it has gone through relatively minor changes as lawmakers seek to protect the terms of the deal, even as the terms continue to rankle many legislators. Those who are critical feel they’ve been called to rubber-stamp a preordained outcome.

State Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat who said she hasn’t made up her mind on the bill, characterized it as picking between cutting revenues for local services now or being forced to consider much heavier cuts if the ballot initiatives pass.

“This a really hard position for us legislators to be in,” Kipp said. “Do we take a little bit of harm now — or risk a lot of harm later?”

The bill had faced stiff opposition from fire districts, and Democratic lawmakers lined up to voice support for firefighters Tuesday. The property tax-funded fire departments have struggled to keep up with rising costs, and further cuts would hurt service, a slew of chiefs testified Monday.

Garry Briese, executive director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs, said Tuesday afternoon that they were close to reaching a deal with legislative leaders to prioritize sustainable funding for the fire districts in some way in the future. That would be short of the chiefs’ hopes for a carve-out from funding cuts altogether, but it would get them closer to their long-term goals, he said.

“We’re now involved in developing these solutions, instead of reacting to imposed solutions,” Briese said.

The House also passed a proposed ballot measure Tuesday that, if approved later by the state’s voters, would require local voter approval of any future statewide property tax changes passed through ballot measures.

Democrats have supported it as a way to undercut the potential for future property tax wars, but Republicans have sharply opposed the bill, suggesting it would blow up the deal now on the table. The measure would need one Senate Republican to back it to reach the supermajority threshold for a ballot referral, giving it difficult odds to passage.

Tuesday’s passage of the main tax relief measure sets up a final, recorded vote Wednesday that will give a full picture of Democratic and Republican support, which was clouded somewhat by Tuesday’s procedural tallies that included voice and bundled votes.

Bills rarely die if they reach the final floor vote, and even progressive skeptics of the deal said the measure was likely to clear the chamber Wednesday. Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, said he supported Advance Colorado’s ballot initiatives, but he’s decided to back the property tax deal.

Still, several Democratic legislators said they remained undecided, even as they acknowledged the risk of the ballot measures passing. And Rep. Scott Bottoms, a Colorado Springs Republican, said he welcomed anything that would blow up the deal and keep the measures on the ballot.

Asked about the bill’s chances of passing the House, Speaker Julie McCluskie said late Tuesday afternoon that she was confident.

Should that happen, the bill will then move to the Senate. If lawmakers want to finish the special session by Thursday at the earliest, the bill will need to first pass a Senate committee and then an initial vote before the full Senate by the end of Wednesday.

That would set up a final vote — and, potentially, final negotiations with the House — for Thursday.

Legislative leaders and the governor are pushing , a $248 million cut to property taxes statewide that, most importantly to them, could result in initiatives 50 and 108 being yanked from November’s ballot. If passed by voters, those measures, which are backed by conservative and business-oriented groups, would force even deeper cuts to the state’s assessment rate — which directly affects local property tax bills — and put in place a strict cap on how much tax revenue can increase each year.

The bill passed its first hurdle late Monday afternoon, winning approval 8-3 in the House Appropriations Committee, and progressed to a full debate on the House floor.

But that debate won’t happen until Tuesday, drawing out the special session by at least one more day beyond the three-day minimum for a bill to become law. That means lawmakers now will meet at least through Thursday.

As financial projections were refined, the potential impact came into clearer view Monday. Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat, said an average homeowner in an area with typical mill levies would see a reduction in the ballpark of $77 a year — though the impact would vary with local circumstances. Those reductions also may only partially offset tax growth in some areas.

The measure is being sponsored by House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, and House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican.

A series of local governments asked the committee to amend the bill, but none more consistently than local fire districts. Firefighters from several districts bristled at the proposal of deeper cuts to property tax rates as they already struggle to keep up with higher day-to-day costs and the ever-increasing danger of longer fire seasons.

Lawmakers on the committee, however, highlighted the choice they saw between the cuts in the bill and the risk of “draconian” cuts from the initiatives.

Most lawmakers and people testifying agreed the risk was too great.

“We are faced with the choice of responsible governance, and I really believe that we have to pass a bill to make sure that these terrible initiatives are taken down, while providing additional responsible relief that ensures that critical services are protected,” said Rep. Kyle Brown, a Louisville Democrat, before voting to advance the measure.

The firefighters said they preferred to fight the ballot measures during the fall campaign season than face more death by a dozen legislative cuts.

If fire departments can’t keep their doors open, Elizabeth Fire Department Chief T.J. Steck warned in an interview, it will also jeopardize homeowners’ ability to secure insurance, much less afford it.

“I would ask that you vote no (on this bill), simply because we would have a chance to survive,” he said.

The groups backing the initiatives, including Advance Colorado and Colorado Concern, reiterated their pledge to pull the measures in a letter to the legislature Monday morning — if the legislation, as agreed upon, is signed by Gov. Jared Polis.

They struck the deal with legislative leaders and the governor in the weeks leading up to the special session. It includes specific assessment rate figures, caps on revenue increases and language on how local governments would need to ask their voters to override the caps.

The opacity of the deal — what its edges are and a feeling among some lawmakers that they’ve been called back simply to rubber-stamp it — has been a simmering point of tension among the Democratic majority. That tension came to the fore during the committee meeting.

“That is part of the frustration that we have, not only with fire districts but many of our stakeholders,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Glenwood Springs Democrat and one of two Democratic no votes. “We are just supposed to say yes to a deal we have not been part of and have not had an opportunity to give input.”

State Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who voted in favor of the bill, pushed back on characterizations that this proposal would cut revenue. Rocketing property valuations in many parts of the state have led to higher tax revenues for years, he said.

Rep. Scott Bottoms, a Colorado Springs Republican, was the lone GOP no vote on the committee. He argued Coloradans deserved to vote on the initiatives, which he called “the most amazing” property tax proposals he’d seen.

Re: “Is end to property tax wars in sight?” Aug. 18 news story

Now we have a special session called by the governor, which I believe is not needed as the legislature passed a bill during the past session that set a reasonable solution to the problem of property taxes.

There is a long history of this taxation. Before 1982 the assessment rate was a flat 30% for all parties. Needless to say, there were lots of complaints. In 1982 a bill passed reducing the rate for businesses to 27% and for residential to 21%. Since that time residential has decreased dramatically.

Why do we pay property tax? First it is the main funding for schools, and often the only funding for fire departments, parks (which includes those swimming pools), local roads, police, counties, libraries, some cities and water and sewer, and a few other items I have forgotten. Did you know your insurance is higher when your response time for fire service is shorter? Your unrepaired roads cause more damage to your cars. The amount of tax you pay is important. No, we should not be excessive, but what is on the ballot this year will cost you personally in other ways.

The use of a ballot measure to cudgel the government into making more cuts by Michael Fields and a certain portion of the business community is appalling. A promise to remove the ballot issues if the legislature passes more reductions is ridiculous. They are not paying excessive property taxes currently. Look at history. It makes me wonder what has happened to their previous support of education as during the time I served. As to the issue of a 4% assessment rate as promoted by Mr. Fields, this would devastate our education system as well as any service we need as homeowners.

Please vote no at the ballot box on these initiatives and ask the legislature to say no to extortive practices.

Norma Anderson, Lakewood

Editor’s note: Anderson is a former state senator.

Gov. Jared Polis is in full panic mode over the possibility that property taxes could possibly be cut by a vote of the citizens.

He has called for a special session because he and the Democrats only want to cut taxes one-tenth of the amount the referendum calls for.

Stand firm, GOP, and let the voters decide.

Larry Fries, Aurora

Initiatives 50 and 108 are very appealing on the surface. However, the details make it clear that along with some property tax relief, we will get years of legal and legislative decisions and challenges that could cause us to say, “Be careful what you wish for.” The taxing bodies are shouting that the “Sky will fall” if 50 and 108 pass. I doubt it. But, let’s not take a chance. I urge the state legislature to quickly pass workable legislation to ensure that Colorado residents will not be taxed out of their homes and that the services and education that citizens count on will continue to be delivered to us.

Douglas G. Griffin, Golden

Gov. Jared Polis called another special session to try to head off two citizen initiatives to reduce property taxes. Property taxes that business owners, renters and homeowners pay. Since the Gallagher Amendment was repealed in 2020, the democratic majority has failed to reduce property taxes. Proposition HH was the first bad idea and it was defeated by voters and by a huge margin. The steps the Democrats have taken thus far are completely inadequate. And now Gov. Polis and his fellow Democrats are screaming that the world will end if these ballot measures pass. Baloney. Due to Bidenomics and the Colorado Democrats’ own failed policies, taxpayers continue to have to do a lot more with a lot less. Well, our government can do the same. I say forget any deal and let¶¶Òőap pass initiatives 50 and 108.

Jeff Jasper, Westminster

Op-ed pieces and front-page stories about the horrors of Initiatives 50 and 108. And, given The Post’s editorial board’s frequent support for more taxpayer revenue for governments, I am sure more “the sky is falling” stories are to come. The so-called fix to property taxes in the last session of the General Assembly was a joke. It locked in the, on average, approximately 40% increase in assessed valuation across the state. So besides the hit we already took this year, future property tax bills will just keep compounding on that 40% increase.

It is beyond me why governments think they are entitled to such a significant two-year increase in property tax revenues. What a windfall! And, at least in Centennial, no taxing district reduced its mill levy from last year.

The services provided by governments do not increase because of increases in assessed valuation. More teachers and police officers do not need to be hired because property values go up. Nor do roads need more maintenance. Governments are claiming Initiatives 50 and 108 will cripple their ability to provide essential services. Yet somehow, they were able to provide those services before the huge windfall in property tax revenues this past year. And at the state level, most of the recently enacted revenue measures were just a redistribution of income to the favored marginalized group de jour, and had little to do with essential services.

I  hope the proponents of the Initiatives keep them on the ballot in November.

Kurt Kaufmann, Centennial

No choice? Voting for Harris to oppose MAGA movement

Re: “To save conservatism from itself, I am voting for Harris,” Aug. 18 commentary, and “Conservative support for Harris/Walz,” Aug. 17 letter to the editor

Sunday’s Perspective featured an editorial from a pro-life attorney lamenting the evils of the Trump-led Republican party, and concluding with his stated intent to vote the Harris/Walz ticket. Perspective also contained a letter from a GOP “conservative,” similarly concerned by the “hijacking” of the Republican party by narcissists, clearly referring to former President Donald Trump. That letter writer also indicated that he would vote for Harris/Walz and encouraged “fellow elephants” to follow his lead.

While I can understand their motivations to withhold their vote from Trump, neither presents a rational case for voting for Vice President Kamala Harris instead. There are other alternatives to express their dissatisfaction with Trump than to cast a vote for a ticket that profoundly differs from their stated values. Particularly in Colorado, where it’s a no-brainer that our presidential electoral votes will go to the Democrats, undervoting (leaving the top line of the ballot blank) delivers a more appropriate message than voting for the opposite party.

Tom Kocialski, Centennial

I recently wrote a letter listing some tangible comparisons between MAGA and traditional fascism. David French’s column reminded me that the list could have been much longer. (I’ll never forget the 2020 news reports of armed people guarding a ballot drop-off box in Littleton.)

And yes, David, true conservatives won’t vote for Donald Trump. My dad was a WWII vet and a conservative. If he were here today, he’d point to Trump and say something to the effect of, “Hey buddy, you’re neither a conservative nor a patriot.”

We shouldn’t expect conservatives to vote for Kamala Harris. If I were a conservative, I’d not vote for president.

Scott Newell, Denver

Last week, The Denver Post published a commentary from David French, a writer for the New York Times. French announced that he was joining some other Republicans in voting for the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

French writes, “Lying is wrong. I’m not naive; I know that politicians have had poor reputations for honesty since ancient Athens. But I have never seen a human being lie with the intensity and sheer volume of Donald Trump.”

I can’t argue that.

Further, French pens, “Political violence and threats of violence have no place in the American democratic process. Yet threats and intimidation follow the MAGA movement like night follows day.”

Again, I have no bone to pick with that point.

When I do have a problem is when he writes, “At each step, (the MAGA movement) has pushed Republicans further and further away from Reaganite conservatism.”

Not really. Current Republicans are trying to continue many Reagan-era libertarian/conservative values: big government is the problem, trickle-down Reaganomics works, privatization of schools is better. Hmm.

And then there’s the matter of presidential crime, about which French wrote zilch. The Iran-Contra shenanigans were clearly illegal for which Col. Oliver North largely took the blame. How did French miss the 34 felony counts for which former President Donald Trump was convicted in the city where he works?

David C. Mathews, Highlands Ranch

Mayor, here’s how to spend on housing and win

Re: “Denverites will vote on largest dedicated sales tax in city’s history,” Aug. 20 news story

I worked on affordable housing issues in Boulder, both in my 10 years as a city council member here and afterward. My strong suggestion is to spend most of the money on permanent investments in affordable housing, and not just on helping people pay for housing, where once the money is spent, it is gone.

For example, one way to do that is to give people down payment assistance to buy market-rate units they could not otherwise afford in exchange for permanently limiting future price increases on that housing. Or pay landlords to make certain units permanently affordable to people at some reasonable percentage of Area Median Income.

In addition, Denver would do well to mandate that a percentage of all units in new housing developments be permanently affordable. Boulder’s current requirement is 25%. That is about half of what is needed to maintain the population’s economic distribution, but way better than nothing.

For business development, implement a jobs-housing linkage fee, where commercial development pays for affordable housing for its workers who could otherwise not afford to live in the city. Boulder’s is currently $30 per square foot for office space, which is just a fraction of what¶¶Òőap needed, but, again, better than nothing.

Steve Pomerance, Boulder

The changes to the Sunday funnies

Re: “Changes today to our comics pages,” Aug. 18 note to readers

As an admirer of satire, I’m pleased to see Doonesbury back in The Denver Post — evidently no longer considered too controversial. I’m sorry to see the deletion of Macanudo, which takes the prize for originality, but I suppose it was too eccentric. Good call, you all!

James Aubrey, Denver

I am happy to see the elimination of Marmaduke and could easily say adios to Fred Basset. And I will admit to initially disliking Macanudo when it replaced Adam@Home. Over time, I have learned to really appreciate Macanudo, and I am sorry it has been removed. The artwork is phenomenal and various plot lines are interesting. I have my favorites (the girl and her cat, the witches) and not-so-favorites (Olga), but I had come to anticipate and enjoy it each day. Liniers, the author, demonstrates intelligence, different perspectives, and creativity. It would be great if The Denver Post reconsidered its removal.

Mariann Storck, Wheat Ridge

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Supporters of the session hope that a three-day dash will lead to two seismic property tax measures being yanked from November’s ballots and an end to — or at least a reprieve from — the political battles over the policy that have raged since voters axed the Gallagher Amendment in 2020.

Others — including representatives of impacted special districts and several lawmakers in the Democratic majority — expressed skepticism and frustration about another backroom property tax deal they’re now tasked with supporting, involving unelected interests and deeper cuts to local governments and services on top of those already bearing down.

“They are expecting us to be rubber stamps. At least that¶¶Òőap the sense that we’re getting,” Rep. Steven Woodrow, a Denver Democrat, said after a House Democratic caucus meeting last week. “Rather than having been engaged in these discussions, we get brief, doom-and-gloom forecasts from the fiscal folks, followed by presentations on bill terms that are nearly indecipherable” without more extensive background knowledge.

Gov. Jared Polis announced the special session on Aug. 15, calling for lawmakers to pass a “framework” his office had helped negotiate that would further reduce property taxes beyond what the legislature adopted in May. The new deal cuts about $100 from the average property tax bill and puts in a slightly tighter cap on how much property tax revenue can grow compared to the law passed this spring, among other provisions.

Michael Fields, the president of conservative advocacy organization Advance Colorado and backer of the two ballot initiatives, and , that would institute steeper tax cuts, has promised to pull his two measures — but only if a new bill adhering to the framework passes.

It’s the second special session seeking to tamp down property taxes after years of temporary measures following the Gallagher repeal in 2020. That amendment set residential and non-residential property tax revenues in a fixed ratio — saving homeowners billions in the decades of its existence but hampering local budgets. Soon after its repeal, home values in Colorado shot up even faster than they had in the prior decade.

Though Colorado homeowners still pay one of the lowest property tax rates in the country, Polis and state lawmakers have been grappling with property tax increases for the past 18 months, after some Front Range communities saw average increases of 33% or more. A long-term fix in the form of Proposition HH was shot down by voters in November, leading to the last special session, during which lawmakers made another short-term change to property tax policy.

Lawmakers expect to grapple with roughly 20 bills during this week’s special session, though several may be quickly dispatched as politically or logistically unpalatable. Polis told The Denver Post last week that he expects some legislation to essentially be conversation-starters that will carry over into next year.

The marquee bill, sponsored by Democratic and Republican leadership in the House, seeks to build off the similarly bipartisan Senate Bill 233 from the last legislative session. That bill cut an estimated $1.3 billion from future property tax collections, while the new proposal will cut another $270 million.

Proponents of initiatives 50 and 108 argue they’re necessary to force the government to act on runaway property taxes due to rising, but usually unrealized, property values. Revenues would still rise, albeit not at levels expected under current conditions and, critics argue, not at rates sustainable for local services.

Legislative leadership and the governor have been explicit that they see the two measures as devastating to local services and the state budget if they pass. Mark Ferrandino, the governor’s budget director, predicted state funding for schools again dipping below constitutionally required limits, “significant cuts” to Medicaid providers and higher education, and losses to local funding for things like transportation if they pass.

But that doesn’t mean everyone affected, including those who agree those measures would be devastating, is going along with the governor’s proposal happily. Indeed, several lawmakers have bristled at the idea that there’s broad agreement at all.

In all, 11 bills set to be considered starting Monday were already . Several come from progressive Democrats seeking to target relief or limit future ballot measures. Others seek to expand or undertake more structural changes.

“We’re already bald. No more haircuts.”

Kristy Olme, a fire chief in Fairplay, remembers feeling like she and other firefighters needed to stand down at the end of the last legislation session, even as their districts faced a $430 million cut over five years as part of that session’s property tax deal.

Olme, president of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs, believed that the spring agreement would avert the deeper cuts of initiatives 50 and 108, and that fire districts would get help down the road. Other lawmakers have likewise said they were under the impression that the deal would stop the ballot initiatives (still other legislators, though, have maintained that they knew there was no such deal finalized with Fields last spring).

Instead, the fire districts are facing a new proposal that would add more than $100 million more to the cuts in Senate Bill 233, Olme said. And worse, the fire chiefs were left out of the talks altogether, even as their firefighters were being thanked for putting their lives on the line to fight the recent spate of wildfires, she said.

“We’re being told it’s just another haircut, just another haircut, and the key word there is ‘another,’ ” Olme said. “We’ve been trying to tell them that we’re already bald. No more haircuts.”

Many fire districts have not seen a true increase in funding since the Great Recession 15 years ago, she said, even as calls for service skyrocketed and fire season has stretched into a year-round concern.

Additional cuts to revenue would mean districts increasingly can’t keep up with costs, she said. Stations would go part-time, or shutter altogether, and districts would struggle with keeping appropriate staffing levels — in effect, increasing the risk to people who are trusted literally to run toward danger.

Ann Terry, CEO of the Special Districts Association, highlighted similar cuts facing other special districts under the new proposal: rural hospital districts hanging by a thread, libraries and recreation districts cutting services for children and seniors, and more. Not every district has seen the increased property values that have enflamed the tax wars, either, she said, but they could still feel the bite of additional cuts.

The funding for the districts is largely set through locally approved mill levies. Future voters can approve future increases, but those can be costly campaigns that take years to gain steam, she said. Meanwhile, local services would be left in the lurch because of state-level decisions.

“The revenue was already approved by our voters for city and county mill levies,” Terry said at a meeting of the property tax commission Friday. “So now those pots are being shrunk by a higher power, and we’re being told to go back and ask again? That just seems like lunacy to me.”

Frustrated legislators

Lawmakers are also trying to find a way to stop future ballot initiatives from driving policy in such an explicit way. How that happens may jeopardize the whole deal to pull initiatives 50 and 108, though.

Rep. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat, and Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat, are sponsoring a referred measure that, if passed by voters, would require that future property tax changes be made by local voters, rather than on a statewide basis (as is the case with initiatives 50 and 108). Supporters hoped it would stop future gambits like this one from gaining steam.

But Weissman and Hansen’s proposal has already drawn criticism from Republicans. House Republican Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, who is one of the sponsors of the primary property tax bill, said the legislature’s focus should be on clearing the negotiated framework and ending the special session. More robust conversations, she said, can continue once lawmakers are fully back next year.

She also said Weissman’s planned ballot measure would scuttle the property tax deal.

“Taking that voice or threatening that voice in any way,” Pugliese said, “… is just wrong, fundamentally wrong, and I would never support it.”

On Thursday’s House Democrats call, some lawmakers questioned who had negotiated the deal that they were now being asked to support and vented about having to choose between ballot measures they’ve described as catastrophic and striking deals with groups that they don’t trust.

Lawmakers were frustrated by a sense that their ability to legislate seemed limited, pointing to reporting that Weissman’s bill had already been tagged as a “deal-killer.” Rep. Jennifer Bacon said legislators needed to “put ourselves into a place to remind people whose job it is to make law, which is this branch of government.”

“Who are these stakeholders (involved in negotiations)?” Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat, asked. “I felt the answer was not entirely clear, and I guess I would appreciate a little more clarity and transparency because it does feel like some folks are part of a conversation, some folks are not. The way it’s perceived in the press, stating that a majority of us are on board with something is, I think, odd and inaccurate.”

The Democratic majority in the Senate likewise has members raising concerns, but that caucus wasn’t set to meet until later Sunday evening.

House Speaker Julie McCluskie, one of the sponsors of the legislation at the heart of the compromise and a part of the negotiations that created it, said she had sought to avoid a special session. Still, even as many in her caucus chafed at the deal they had been handed and weighed bringing their own bills, she tried to remind them of the stakes.

“I am committed to making sure that we engage with the proponents of 50 and 108 on ideas that come forward on this bill, or other bills that come forward, because I want to see the right policy passed for Colorado, and I think that has to be our objective, too,” she said. “I want to lift up that in the conversations that we’ve had so far — I don’t want anyone to lose sight of … what the concerns are if 50 and 108 pass. I think that has to be something that we are holding as we consider any other alternatives.”

To get there, it will only have taken two special sessions, annual short-term bills at the Capitol, multiple threats of ballot measures and a failed attempt to override the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

The latest bid for peace materialized Thursday, when Gov. Jared Polis announced he would call the legislature back for another special session — the second since last November — at the end of the month. If state lawmakers pass additional property tax cuts in the multiday session that starts Aug. 26, a conservative group has agreed to withdraw two ballot initiatives filed for the November election that would go much farther.

“We want to find ways to remove the uncertainty around (property taxes) for the medium term,” Polis said, noting fears that deeper cuts like those proposed in the ballot measures would gut school budgets. “In many ways, this is the last step of replacing the Gallagher Amendment.”

The governor’s move left state lawmakers and advocates determined to finally bury the hatchet after years of battles in the fallout of voters’ repeal of the Gallagher Amendment in 2020. That law for decades had held residential and non-residential taxes in a fixed ratio, providing stability for homeowners while increasing the burden on small businesses and throttling some local governments’ budgets. Its repeal introduced more volatility on the residential side.

Some lawmakers, though, have vented frustration about once again being called to debate an issue that they thought had been settled three months ago.

The new proposal, publicly unveiled at a legislative commission Monday as pressure for a special session increased, would build on an earlier property tax relief deal passed during the regular legislative session in May. That agreement cut property tax rates and established a cap on how much property tax revenue could grow year-over-year — in effect, cutting tax collections by an estimated $1.3 billion per year statewide.

This latest settlement would tighten those caps and rates even more and add an estimated $270 million to that cut.

In exchange, Advance Colorado has agreed to withdraw its two ballot initiatives, which would institute far steeper property tax reductions and growth constraints. If either were to pass in November, those measures would cut hundreds of millions from property tax collections and potentially lead to “catastrophic” reductions to the state budget in the coming years, officials said.

Though polling shared with Democratic legislators suggested faced a rocky road to success in the Nov. 5 election, the risk of them passing — and the budget cuts they’d require — was sufficiently serious to spark a deal, Polis and legislators said.

That wasn’t a sentiment universally shared by Democratic lawmakers, some of whom felt 50 and 108 were headed for failure in November. To them, striking a deal with the initiatives’ backers sets a concerning precedent: Spend the money to get a budget-busting initiative on the ballot, and you can force the legislature to the negotiating table.

The ballot measures “are absolutely so catastrophic, which is why everybody needed to put boots on the ground” to fight them at the ballot box — “not 
 go in and cut further revenue for our communities,” said Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat.

But for property owners, policymakers and local governments, the tentative agreement will — hopefully — bring stability into a system that has tottered as lawmakers grappled with skyrocketing property values, people involved in the negotiations say.

While the initiatives would have saved property owners hundreds of dollars per year, the proposed legislative deal would reduce tax bills — or at least blunt their growth — by a more modest $100 or so per year for the owner of a $500,000 home in an area with an average mill levy.

To pass it, the concerns now lie in finalizing the details and maintaining trust between factions more used to power politics.

Goals are aligned, but is that enough?

Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat and a chief sponsor of property tax bills since the repeal of Gallagher, put the goal of the special session in no uncertain terms: The “end of the property tax wars.”

“That’s what is needed for there to be a successful special session,” Hansen said. “To get an agreement that is permanent in nature, and not renegotatied via ballot initiative 12 months from now. That would be, to my mind, a failure to this process.”

It¶¶Òőap an aim largely echoed by Michael Fields, president of the Advance Colorado Institute and chief proponent of the ballot measures.

The agreement, as outlined, would serve as a suitable long-term replacement to Gallagher’s repeal and let his organization shift its focus to other priorities, he said. He’s pledged publicly, and repeatedly, that he would drop Initiatives 50 and 108 from this year’s ballot and not bring any more in the future — that is, if the framework laid out last week by Polis’ budget director becomes law.

“I don’t think we anticipate any problems passing this bill,” Fields said. “We both have a goal. They want the measures off the ballot, we want property tax reduction. The way to do this is through this agreement.”

Fields noted that legislative leadership and the governor have all signed on. But the framework hasn’t been formally released as a bill draft, much less made its way through the 100-member legislature.

Property tax is fundamentally a local tax, going to schools, firefighters, libraries, county services and more. The tax rate, known as mill levy, can change from neighborhood to neighborhood as different communities vote for different levels of service.

The state , or the percentage of a property that¶¶Òőap used for tax purposes.

The upcoming bill’s details aren’t finished, Hansen said, and he expects to hear a lot of input from school districts and other property tax-reliant agencies, such as fire departments, before it¶¶Òőap finalized.

Hansen has also been adamant about inserting language, either in the main bill or a companion measure, to stop the ballot box from being used as “leverage” in future property tax debates.

Other legislators have the same goal. Rep. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat, said he planned to bring a constitutional amendment for the special session that, if advanced out of the Capitol and approved by voters in November, would put control of property taxes at the local, rather than state, level.

“We’re a diverse state in terms of political opinions, in terms of the nature of our economy, in terms of our property tax base,” Weissman said. “All of that is why these decisions should be made locally.”

Weissman’s proposal would need the support of two-thirds of the General Assembly. Even assuming all Democrats are on board, that still would require at least one Republican’s support in the Senate, where Democrats are just shy of a supermajority.

Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat, backs Weissman’s proposal. She criticized the “out-of-touch, conservative centimillionaires” supporting Advance Colorado’s ballot measures.

“Right now, my main focus is preventing harm and stopping the threat of the (ballot) train wreck,” Gonzales said, as well as figuring out “how to ensure that we don’t end up here again six months from now.”

“Trust is everything”

Since the Gallagher Amendment’s repeal, lawmakers have struggled to find a long-term replacement that provides more stability for homeowners, even as Colorado’s property taxes .

They’ve passed a series of short-term bills while they have watched property values explode in recent years — in metro Denver alone, valuations jumped by more 33% in just a two-year period.

The assessed values tie directly to taxes owed, and the increases resulted in shock for many property owners when tax notices started to arrive earlier this year.

Lawmakers felt more pressure to act, particularly as Initiatives 50 and 108 hung over them as an alternative pitch to voters. The two measures would create a hard cap on the assessment rate used to determine how much taxes are owed, and then lower it in coming years.

Many in the statehouse thought they had reached a long-term solution when Senate Bill 233 was unveiled in May, during the waning days of the legislative session. But negotiations between legislative leaders and the backers of the ballot initiatives broke down at the last minute.

State Rep. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican, sponsored that bill. She called it a “great springboard” on Friday, but she didn’t think it went far enough.

“The reality is, our citizens have seen dramatic, dramatic increases to property taxes,” Frizell said. “Where we ended up was a reduction to an increase — and that’s not what our citizens are looking for. Does this (new proposal) go far enough? I don’t know. This is a balance. We have to balance the needs of our citizens and the ability for local governments to provide services that truly do keep us as a civilized society.”

But many legislative Democrats felt the rug was yanked out from under them when that measure didn’t result in the initiatives getting pulled.

“Were we just lied to? Have we just lost faith in people, like the governor’s office, that we get information from?” said Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat. “I find that, frankly, to be the most disturbing aspect of this: that people are telling us there was never a deal. … Trust is everything when you’re in this political business, right?”

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican and sponsor of SB-233, has maintained that a deal was never officially in place — only that progress was being made in the spring. The new proposal represents “233-plus,” she said, though she also shared her own frustrations about trust.

“I feel like I’m working with people that, if I told them the sun was shining, they’d tell me, ‘No it wasn’t,’ ” Kirkmeyer said, later adding about the negotiations: “There was never a deal.”

House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, said she has shared the “raw and real” anger of some Democratic lawmakers who resent having to further negotiate with wealthy business groups — and the governor’s office — over additional tax cuts.

But McCluskie highlighted the stakes, including the prospect of school budget reductions so soon after the legislature this year celebrated the milestone of the state fully funding schools.

“We do have a responsibility to provide good governance — to make sure that we protect the state services, the programs and investments that we have made and that we want to make in the future,” she said.

Fields, like Frizell, rejected some Democrats’ framing that the deal for a special session was akin to negotiating with hostage-takers. Besides, Fields noted, the ballot measures haven’t appeared out of nowhere. They each had the signatures of about 200,000 Coloradans behind them, showing a strong desire for deeper cuts.

Beyond lawmakers, the larger dynamics have left organizations representing local taxing districts feeling like political footballs.

“We are incredibly frustrated that we continue to be in the position of negotiating against ourselves for basic viability,” Flenniken said. But, she added, “our members are generally supportive of a compromise and believe if we work together in partnership, we can achieve a balanced and pragmatic approach to addressing the complex issues at hand.”

Updated 12:45 p.m. Aug. 19, 2024: A previous version of this story incorrectly described how the state would need to pay for lost property tax revenue. The state budget would need to make up for lost school funding but would have more discretion for other local funding lost because of rate cuts.

One reduces income and sales taxes. cuts the state’s income rate by up to 0.15% in years when state revenue handily exceeds the cap set by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, with a similar mechanism for the state’s sales tax rate. That equals an estimated this year — with the income tax rate reduced by the full amount, to 4.25% — plus an estimated $222 million reduction in sales taxes through a slight decrease in that rate, shaving off 0.13 points to make it 2.77%.

The second law, passed as , comparatively dwarfs the first. It makes adjustments that cut property taxes across the state and reduce what would be the total owed by taxpayers by an estimated $1.3 billion, according to bill sponsors.

Overall, state officials have estimated that law will save the typical owner of a $700,000 home roughly $400 a year compared to current law, though the exact amount depends on local mill levies.

But the tax cuts come with significant caveats.

The income and sales tax cuts draw on the same money — TABOR surpluses — that normally would be returned to taxpayers through refunds. And while the property tax cuts will reduce what property owners would otherwise owe, there’s no guarantee their bills won’t still rise as property values increase.

The property tax cuts also don’t represent an end to the tax wars that have dominated the ballot box and legislative sessions in recent years, as outside groups prepare competing, deeper reductions to put to voters this November.

Still, the governor struck a celebratory tone.

“This is exciting,” said Polis, who has long advocated for reducing the income tax and pushed lawmakers to pass it among broader tax changes that included child tax credits. “With these historic savings, Coloradans and businesses will be able to hold onto more of their hard-earned money.”

“We needed a serious, statewide response”

Polis, lawmakers and advocates took thinly veiled shots at ballot initiatives 50 and 108 — two proposals backed by conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado and the business group Colorado Concern that would put tight leashes on property tax rates and collections.

The 2020 repeal of the Gallagher Amendment, which had kept residential property tax rates low at the expense of rising commercial rates, “left a void” in state tax policy right as the state went through a historic surge in home values, Polis said.

“There were some bad ideas out there” to replace it, Polis said. “There still are.”

Bill sponsors Sens. Chris Hansen and Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Denver Democrat and Brighton Republican, respectively, both noted the property tax measure specifically protects school funding. Just months ago, policymakers celebrated meeting constitutional school funding requirements for the first time in a decade.

The property tax law resulted from years of negotiations, buffered by temporary measures to blunt spikes in tax bills, to land on an “elusive” solution that didn’t hobble state and local budgets, particularly schools, Hansen said.

The law will decrease commercial property assessment rates from about 28% to 25% over the next several years.

It also takes 10% off residential property valuations, up to $70,000, while lowering the proportion of the property value used to determine taxes owed, known as the assessment rate. Schools, however, will still use a higher assessment rate to protect their funding.

The law also caps annual property tax increases for most local governments at 5.5%, though local voters can choose to override that cap.

“We needed a serious, statewide response that was a responsible alternative to the incredibly reckless ballot measures that were being proposed,” said Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, a Lakewood Democrat.

Critic: Property tax cuts are not “real relief”

The tax relief wasn’t enough to satisfy skeptics, though.

On Monday, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce president and CEO J.J. Ament warned that the proposal “misses the mark” in actual tax relief.

And last week, the Common Sense Institute, a pro-business think tank based in Greenwood Village, released that warned homeowners would still end up paying higher tax rates compared to the temporary measures pushed through the legislature in recent years — and as property values increase.

Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado, said his group has started to collect signatures for . That measure, if passed by voters in November, would dramatically lower the assessment rate and cost local governments an estimated $3 billion in lost property tax revenue, most of which would need to be replaced by tapping the state budget.

Its other measure, — which has already qualified for the ballot — would cap increases in property tax collections at 4% year over year.

The new law signed by Polis “doesn’t provide homeowners real relief,” Fields said, so his group plans to give them an alternative. He said lawmakers and Polis failed to stabilize property taxes following Gallagher’s repeal.

But the ballot measures may not be a slam dunk.

Just ahead of the governor’s bill signing ceremony, opponents of the initiatives circulated a polling memo reporting that in a recent survey, neither cracked 40% support from voters based on the wording that would appear on the ballot. The online poll of 600 likely voters was conducted by Aspect Strategic between April 30 and May 2 on behalf of the Colorado Education Association; the results were weighted to reflect likely turnout in November and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Notably, , “voters are incredibly confused by these measures, a dynamic that has historically hindered ballot measure proponents.”

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