Category Archives: TABOR news story

Nov 11

Under the Dome: Tough budget work about to begin

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bob rankin

Rep. Bob Rankin

After a week of great fall weather, it was snowing hard at my house the last two mornings. Summer was way too short. Joyce and I go back to Denver this week and start activity that will be nonstop through next May. But we’re not complaining. It’s an honor to represent Northwest Colorado in the Legislature, and we look forward to what’s coming.

The six-person Joint Budget Committee (JBC), of which I’m a member, starts hearings Thursday. We’ll be grinding through the performance measures, organization and budgets of 22 state government departments. Our wonderful nonpartisan staff members spend all year analyzing every aspect of all the departments in detail and then, in their first presentation, shovels it to us in a few hours. They seem to have a sincere belief that we can absorb so much information and data. The committee asks a lot of questions, and the department comes back another day and answers our questions. We put together a balanced budget by March and present it to both houses of the Legislature.

The JBC starts with a budget recommendation from the governor that is synthesized from department inputs and revenue forecasts. This year looks to be problematic, and I expect a tumultuous process to get to our March budget. To start with, the forecasts (they will change twice before March) indicate a $160 million shortfall for the current fiscal year that ends in July. The recommendation is that we take this sum from our 6.5 percent reserve and replace the reserve next year. Continue reading →

Oct 12

OPINION: VOTE “YES” ON 2D

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Opinion: Vote “YES” on 2D

Posted By on Sun, Oct 11, 2015 at 9:52 AM

SHUTTERSTOCK

  • Shutterstock

Colorado Springs city government finds itself with approximately $2.1 million in excess revenue 2014. Colorado’s Tax Payers Bill of Rights (TABOR) dictates that the city must either return the money to taxpayers or ask, via a vote, to keep the money for city projects. The city has elected to put forth ballot language, measure 2D, to ask taxpayers to let them keep the money to fix local trails this November election.

Council has worked with the Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department to identify eight trails in the city that are in dire need of repair or improvements — repairs and improvements that will be paid for if voters approve the measure. The trails noted on the ballot include Homestead trail, Palmer Mesa Trail, Pikes Peak Greenway, Rock Island Trail, Sand Creek Trail, Shooks Run Trail, Sinton Trail and Skyline Trail — the measure does not allow for any new trails.
Continue reading →

Oct 12

The attacks on TABOR continue

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October 11, 2015

By Amy K. Frantz , Toledo Chronicle, Tama News-Herald

Do Legislators have a Constitutional right to impose taxes on citizens and to deny citizens any veto power over those actions? A group of politicians in Colorado seems to think so, and are continuing their quest to overturn the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, from the Colorado State Constitution.

In Colorado, citizens are permitted to place measures on the ballot by initiative petition, and in 1992 the TABOR Constitutional Amendment was adopted by Colorado voters. TABOR requires majority voter approval to increase tax rates, to take on new debt, or to increase spending more than the rate of inflation plus state population growth.

In the original provisions of TABOR, any revenue collected in excess of the spending limit, plus an emergency relief fund of 3 percent of fiscal year spending, had to be returned to the taxpayers in the form of rebates. However, in 2005 Colorado voters approved a measure to forego the rebates for five years, following a scare campaign conducted by the state’s big spenders.

Continue reading →

Oct 11

YES: It’s what voters wanted

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Employee Nikki Desiderio explains different marijuana products to customers at the Helping Hand recreational marijuana store in Boulder. (Jeremy Papasso,Employee Nikki Desiderio explains different marijuana products to customers at the Helping Hand recreational marijuana store in Boulder. (Jeremy Papasso, Daily Camera)

Opinion

YES: It’s what voters wanted

Proposition BB, the only statewide issue in Colorado’s elections this November, asks voters to “allow the state to retain and spend $66.1 million, which has already been collected, rather than refund it to taxpayers.”

Supporters of limited and cost-effective government understand the importance of reminding politicians and bureaucrats whose money they’re spending. Refunds of tax revenue are perhaps the single most-effective way of doing so. However, Proposition BB relates specifically to the refund of excise and sales taxes on marijuana, taxes approved by Colorado voters in 2013 through Proposition AA as required by the 2012 passage of Amendment 64, which legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado.

If BB were to fail, the functional impact would be for the state not to have collected any of the voter-approved 15 percent state excise tax or 10 percent state sales tax on retail (non-medical) marijuana sales.

Two key points, as explained by the Legislative Council staff:

To continue reading this story, click this link: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_28945795/yes-its-what-voters-wanted

 

Oct 06

TABOR plans for years of taxpayer refunds

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TABOR plans for years of taxpayer refunds

By Staff
Saturday, October 3, 2015

Under the 1992 voter-approved constitutional amendment known as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, state and local governments are limited on how much they can grow their budgets.

Under the amendment, those year-over-year budget growths are based on a complicated formula subject to population growth and inflation.

Tax revenues that exceed that cap must be refunded to taxpayers, and that’s done depending on just how much revenue has exceeded the limit.

State economists say revenues from last year’s fiscal year, which ended June 30, resulted in a surplus of about $153.6 million. That means taxpayers will see a refund when they file their income tax returns next year, which is expected to average between $15 and $20 for individual filers.

Projections for the next two fiscal years are expected to be even higher: $252.5 million for the current fiscal year, which would be refunded with 2017 tax returns, and $352 million for the year after that.

If the hospital provider fee idea is approved during the next legislative session, which begins in January, it would eliminate the 2017 and 2018 refunds, but not the one planned for next year.

The fee, which is used to fund expanded Medicaid coverage, is collected from hospitals. But because it is counted as revenue for the state, it puts the state in a situation where the TABOR revenue cap is exceeded, triggering a mandatory refund. And that has the effect of cutting into funding for other state services, such as transportation and education.

Source: Colorado Legislative Council

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/tabor-plans-for-years-of-taxpayer-refunds

Oct 06

Lawmakers struggle with the politics of state’s budget

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Lawmakers struggle with the politics of state’s budget

100415_State_finances

By Charles Ashby
Saturday, October 3, 2015

Health care advocates like it. So do crusaders of more funding for transportation and education.

Some Colorado lawmakers believe they can fix the state’s most immediate budget issues to meet those needs by making what, on the surface, appears to be an innocuous change in how the state accounts for a fee on hospitals to fund health programs for the poor.

What they want is to take that charge — called the hospital provider fee — out from under the revenue caps mandated by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and call that program a standalone government enterprise, something allowed for under the 1992 voter-approved constitutional amendment that limits how much money the state can collect.

Doing so isn’t as easy as all that, however, because it would negate any TABOR refunds for years to come, turning the issue into more of a political question than one of policy.

REFUND, OR NO REFUND?

Some Republicans inside the statehouse say they have committed to taxpayers that they will refund money when state revenues exceed TABOR limits, something that will happen starting next year. Continue reading →

Oct 06

Evolution of the state’s current tax constraints

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It’s been called “The Fiscal Thicket” and “The Gordian Knot” over the past couple of decades, but however one terms it, there are conflicts in the state’s tax policies for good or ill.

While some don’t mind those conflicts, saying it keeps state and local budgets in check, others say it makes it nearly impossible to budget into the future, leaving some of the most basic needs going underfunded.

Here’s a timeline on how the state got here:

? 1982: It started when Colorado voters approved the Gallagher Amendment. That constitutional amendment split the state’s property tax burden, requiring commercial property to take the bulk of it, 55 percent, to residential at 45 percent. As a result, taxes for commercial property are assessed at 29 percent of its assessed value, while residential has dropped to 8 percent.

? 1992: A decade later, voters approved the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which, among other things, placed a cap on how much money state and local government budgets could grow year after year, limiting it to population increases and inflation. It also required that any new tax be approved by voters. As a result, few tax increase proposals have been placed on the ballot.

? 2000: As a result of those two amendments, voters then approved Amendment 23, which called for automatic increases in K-12 spending regardless of what the economy was doing. As a direct result, about 40 percent of the state’s total budget now goes to fund education.

? 2005: To deal with an issue in TABOR that required state and local budgets to ratchet down during bad economic times, voters approved a five-year timeout of TABOR’s revenue caps, meaning any additional revenue that governments collected during that time could be reapplied to state and local services.

? 2009: Because taxes for gasoline haven’t gone up since TABOR was approved, and there was an increase in caseload due to the passage of the federal Affordable Care Act, the Colorado Legislature approved two new fees. One is known as the Road & Bridge Enterprise Fund, an additional fee that all Coloradans pay when registering their vehicles each year. The fund generates about $200 million a year for transportation projects. The second was the hospital provider fee, a charge hospitals pay to cover the cost of the additional uninsured Coloradans under the Affordable Care Act. This is the same year the Legislature created a “negative factor” on school funding, reducing how much money the state was paying for K-12 education.

Source: Colorado Legislative Council

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/evolution-of-the-states-current-tax-constraints

Oct 03

Political diatribe

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We saw this on Facebook:

Warning: Political diatribe to follow….

Love it when our state government tries to raise our taxes via a ballot initiative in a non election year. (insert sarcasm font)

This November 3, 2015, Colorado has an election in which the only issue is Prop BB, which states “allow the state to retain and spend 66.1 million, which has already been collected, rather than refund it to taxpayers”. as, note, is required by Colorado state law.

Hell no. I don’t care if my refund is only $16. It is my $16 to decide what to do with, not some wasteful government bureaucracy’s. They have enough money. If they did actually not, they would not be afraid to put this prop thru during an actual election year when people are paying attention.

If you live in Colorado, this November please vote on this. Either for or against is up to you of course, but do not let this issue be decided by an unrepresentative minority.

Thanks.

end political diatribe:

Oct 02

Proposition BB asks voters if state can keep marijuana tax revenue

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TABOR rule requires state to refund all of 2014-15 pot money

In November 2012, 55 percent of Colorado voters said they wanted to legalize and tax recreational marijuana when they approved Amendment 64. One year later, 65 percent of Colorado voters approved Proposition AA, a tax plan for recreational marijuana that set up a 15 percent excise tax and a 10 percent sales tax on the newly legal product and directed where those funds would go.

This November, Colorado voters will again be asked about taxing recreational marijuana.

 Proposition BB is the only statewide ballot measure to be voted on Nov. 3, and the language voters will see is as follows:

“May the state retain and spend state revenues that otherwise would be refunded for exceeding an estimate included in the ballot information booklet for Proposition AA and use these revenues to provide forty million dollars for public school building construction and for other needs, such as law enforcement, youth programs, and marijuana education and prevention programs, instead of refunding these revenues to retail marijuana cultivation facilities, retail marijuana purchasers, and other taxpayers?”

Under Colorado’s Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR), the state must refund new tax revenues if they exceed revenue estimates published at the time of the vote on the new tax, in this case Proposition AA in 2013.

At the time, state economists published an estimate that the new marijuana taxes would generate $67 million in revenue. For the first fiscal year of the new tax, from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015, the taxes generated approximately $66.1 million, below the original estimate and in compliance with TABOR.  Continue reading →

Oct 02

Hickenlooper warns K-12 shortfall may grow

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Colorado’s $855 million school funding gap may well grow in 2016-17, Gov. John Hickenlooper said Thursday in remarks to a group that advocates for improved school support.
“We might not be able to decrease the negative factor, and there might be an increase,” the governor said, referring to the 2016-17 budget plan he has to submit to the legislature by Nov. 1.
Hickenlooper spoke to the annual fundraising luncheon for Great Education Colorado, an advocacy group that long has been critical of the negative factor, the formula the legislature uses to control school spending and balance the state budget.
The Colorado Supreme Court just last week rejected the case of Dwyer v. State, a constitutional challenge to the negative factor. That decision disheartened many education advocates.
Hickenlooper’s remarks were not surprising, given the court ruling and a variety of complicated budget challenges facing the state. But it was the first time the governor publicly gave that warning to a large education audience.
The governor’s comment was made in the context of brief, campaign-style remarks during which he pushed for a change that would ease pressure on the state’s revenue ceiling and dismissed Republican criticism of two administration transportation initiatives.
Negative factor history
• Fiscal year 15-16: $855.1M
• FY14-15: $880M
• FY13-14: $1.004B
• FY12-13: $1.001B
• FY11-12: $774M
• FY10-11: $381M
• FY09-10: $130M Continue reading →