Water district accused of violating Tabor regs with mill levy increase
District president Joe Frank says they need the extra revenue to provide same level of service
In December of 2019 the county commissioners in Morgan, Logan, Sedgwick and Washington counties cer tified the Lower South
Platte Water Conser vancy District at 1.000 mills, double the amount allocated them on a yearly basis since early in the district’s formation.
Since then a group of property owners have been seeking recourse for the decision, claiming that the increase in mill levy was a violation of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which necessitates voter approval of both tax increases and the retention of excess funds if revenues grow faster than the rate of inflation and population growth. On May 19 William Banta, an attorney and legal council for the TABOR committee, sent a letter to the district.
“It has come to our attention that, in spite of TABOR, the Board of Directors of the Lower South Platte Water Conser vancy District increased the District’s mill levy for 2020 without having voter approval,” the letter said. “Although we understood that the district received permission from the voters in 1996 to keep and use excess revenues there was no approval to increase a mill levy.”
The 1996 ballot measure is central to the district’s legal argument. The voters approved the ballot measure giving the district the right to retain and spend an additional $13,025 and access “the full proceeds and revenues received from ever y source whatever, without limitation, in 1996 and all subsequent years.”
“That waived any Tabor limitation at that with respect to that mill levy,”
Julianne Wooldridge, an attorney representing the LSPWCD said. “The district is limited in how high it can raise its mill levy by the Water Conser vancy Act.”
Woolridge points to a section of the Water Conser vancy Act that specifies water conser vancy districts with a valuation of more than $50 million may charge up to one-half mill prior to water being deliv
ered to the works and up to one full mill after water has been delivered. The citizen group protesting the mill levy have countered this using the language from the same ballot measure, which states that excess funds and all funding sources can be utilized “provided, however that no local tax rate or property mill levy shall be increased at any time, nor shall any new tax be imposed, without the prior approval of the voters in the Lower South Platte Water Conser vancy District.”
“It assured us that we were not increasing the mill levy,” Chuck Miller, who has spoken at county commissioner meetings asking the increased mill levy be reevaluated, said. “That’s how I read the ballot initiative.”
The half mill levy had sustained the LSPWCD for years, but President Joe Frank said they had a budgetar y need to raise the mill levy to provide the same level of ser vice.
“It’s going towards, number one just being able to continue the ser vices, we had a budgetar y need to continue the ser vices at their level we were doing,” Joe Frank, President of the LSPWCD said. “It felt it was time to look at moving up to one, similar to the other Conser vancy districts that are in the area.”
Frank is sure they have acted appropriately and legally when levying the tax.
“We’ve had tons of legal analysis on this,” Frank said. “We spent several meetings looking at this and whether we had the legal justification to do it. We wouldn’t have gone for ward if we didn’t think we did.”
County commissioners will have to determine the legality of the tax when cer tifying the mill levy this month. It’s unclear where the commissioners of the four counties stand, and even less so how they will vote. Logan County Commissioners said they disagreed with the district’s approach at their regular meeting on Dec.15, but stated they will only be determining whether the tax is allowable under the statute, and said the matter should be decided by the cour ts.