Tax editorial passed the buck to Legislature
The Daily Camera published an editorial bemoaning high property tax burdens, without acknowledging that the Camera endorsed two property tax increases in 2022! Yes, “the voters” technically passed the ballot measures, but not without encouragement from the city’s paper of record.
The editorial passed the buck (pun intended) by lecturing “the Legislature” to take action, but let’s be honest about what that means.
First, the state doesn’t directly collect property taxes, but it can set assessment rates. Problem is, rate cuts might require the state to backfill lost revenues to local governments or districts, including school districts. For last year’s state bill SB 22-238, backfill costs were estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Backfills might come from Colorado’s General Fund, potentially diverting money from other state programs or impacting TABOR refunds. The state also already has a heavy responsibility to help fund K-12 districts with smaller local tax bases than Boulder’s.
Meanwhile, SB 22-238 was only temporary tax relief, while SB 23-108 mentioned in the Camera combines temporary and discretionary. The Camera also touted the senior property tax exemption, but it can be suspended in down economic years.
And we will have another recession, someday. We shouldn’t expect temporary cuts to be legislatively adopted during recessions. There was a statewide property tax ballot measure drafted in 2022, but legislators ran SB 22-238 partially to head off the initiative’s probable hits to education revenue. Don’t be surprised to see another attempt. The draft initiative was business-community supported, and remember, commercial assessment rates are about four times higher than residential.
Opinion writing can produce theoretical win-wins, but omitting key factors can enable specious assertions. Basically, writers shouldn’t endorse tax increases and then expect lower rates without consequences. I await more honestly comprehensive endorsement editorials in 2023.
— Richard Valenty, Boulder