Category Archives: TABOR news story

Apr 20

Hickenlooper has plan to cut down on Colorado’s pending TABOR refund

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Gov. John Hickenlooper pitched a fix Thursday to what some call Colorado’s “fiscal thicket,” a complex network of Constitutional Amendments – most notably the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights – and state laws that dictate how state government spends taxpayer dollars.

The plan – spelled out in a four-page letter to Democrat and Republican leaders in the General Assembly – hinges on the state keeping an estimated $316.6 million in fiscal year 2016-17 instead of paying it back to taxpayers through a TABOR refund.

That money would instead go to (and yes, this adds up to more than $316.6 million): $215 million for transportation projects, $50 million for common education; $20 million to repay local governments for the impact of oil and gas operations; and $75 million to pay back money borrowed from the Medicaid expansion and increased hospital provider fees.

Under the plan, lower income taxpayers could have their cake and eat it, too. They would receive a share of $85 million in a new state Earned Income Tax Credit.

Henry Sobanet, director of the Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting, said there is enough time remaining this session to address an important question for future budgets.

“Are we sure that the structure we have is providing the resources that all the aspects of the state’s priorities need?” Sobanet asked. “This idea, these conversations have been kind of back and forth for many months, and so we felt it was a good time to try and see if there was some common ground around a vision for transportation, a vision for rebates, a vision for some extra resources for K-12 education.”

Under the plan, voters wouldn’t be asked for permission for the state to keep the increased revenue, a key tenet of TABOR. Continue reading →

Apr 18

Steadman: Bill will provide marijuana, TABOR fix

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By Catherine Strode
The Colorado Statesman

State Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, readily admits that he is not a fan of Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), a constitutional amendment restricting the spending of state tax revenues. In these last few weeks of the session’s duration, he will be introducing a bill in the Senate to allow the state to retain the revenues from marijuana tax income.

In an interview with Catherine Strode, Sen. Steadman says his bill will ask Coloradans to forego their TABOR tax refunds in order to put the Marijuana Tax income to good use across the state.

Sen. Pat Steadman

CS: Why are you bringing this bill?

PS: Voters legalized marijuana and said they wanted it taxed and regulated. Voters passed the Prop AA Marijuana Taxes but TABOR is making them vote twice. Otherwise, the entire first year collection will be lost to a TABOR refund. My bill gives voters the opportunity to reaffirm their desire to have marijuana taxed and to have those revenues put to good use.

CS: Is TABOR going away?

PS: As much as I would love to see TABOR go away, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. We’re still learning lessons. Look at the marijuana tax/TABOR problem this year, a brand new TABOR problem we never saw before. When will TABOR quit turning around and biting us on the behind? Hopefully, soon. But don’t be surprised when it happens again. If you look at the first 22 years of life under TABOR, most of the things the legislature has done to adjust to the TABOR Amendment, have been kicking the can down the road. Referendum C kicked the can down the road for five years. Some of the things that were done early on, in terms of creating enterprises for unemployment, or enterprises for higher education tuition, were ways to kick the can down the road. You might describe them as slowly chipping away at TABOR’s restrictions but most of those restrictions are still with us. Most of what you see us doing in the budget, or, this talk about the Hospital Provider Fee becoming an enterprise, are all ways for the legislature to kick the can down the road so we can live under TABOR a little bit longer. I think that’s going to be our ‘MO’ going forward. Small accommodations, chipping away in very surgical, discreet, little ways, doing what we can to live under the restrictions of TABOR. I don’t see anyone with the political fortitude leading the charge to take something to the voters to fix it.

CS: How is Medicaid expansion affecting the budget?

Continue reading →

Apr 18

Gov. Hickenlooper asks lawmakers to overhaul state spending, TABOR refunds

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Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. (Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file)

The Spot Blog

Politics & Policy - The Spot BlogGov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday asked a divided legislature for a major overhaul in how the state spends money, outlining a plan that would shift taxpayer refunds in the next two years toward middle-income earners but eliminate the largest tax breaks expected in 2018.

In the most significant move so far in his second term, the Democrat is seeking to ease what he calls Colorado’s “fiscal thicket,” a mess of spending and taxing laws that often conflict and limit spending on priority areas, such as education and transportation.

“Colorado has great needs and extraordinary budgetary constraints,” Hickenlooper wrote to lawmakers in a four-page letter. This proposal “provides some measure of simplification of the rules we have and strikes a balance between limiting our revenue and addressing the needs of a growing state.”

To read the rest of this article, click the following link:

 

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27931783/governor-asks-lawmakers-overhaul-state-spending-tabor-refunds?source=infinite

 

Apr 07

The Glitch in Colorado’s Weed Experiment

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The Opinion Pages | EDITORIAL

The Glitch in Colorado’s Weed Experiment

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD  APRIL 6, 2015

boulder marijuana shop

A marijuana dispensary in Boulder, Colo. Credit Matthew Staver for The New York Times

After Colorado voters legalized marijuana, they also approved heavily taxing it and using the money for school construction, law enforcement, drug education and other useful things. The arrangement made perfect sense.

But now the 15-month-old experiment has entered a phase that makes no sense at all. It’s the prospect that all this new marijuana revenue — an estimated $58 million in the current fiscal year — may have to be returned to the voters, because of a provision in the state’s Constitution that rigidly constrains taxes and spending. The provision is the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or Tabor, a complex set of rules that requires, among other things, voter approval of all new taxes and automatic refunds if tax revenues or spending exceed estimates given when tax questions are put to the voters.

As an April 1 report in The Times explained, Colorado’s tax revenues have recently surged, thanks in part to the booming construction, oil and gas industries, in addition to some $58 million from the marijuana taxes. But not only revenues but overall state spending this year are expected to end up higher than the state estimated back when the marijuana tax was on the ballot. Under Tabor — which some in Colorado have likened to a fiscal straitjacket or a statutory version of the crazed space computer HAL 9000 — the state is therefore required to refund the marijuana money. Continue reading →

Apr 07

West Slope lawmakers talk TABOR, water at Club 20

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West Slope lawmakers talk TABOR, water at Club 20

Thurlow chimes in on effort to recall him: ‘That’s their right’

4/3/2015

By Ron Bain

THE COLORADO STATESMAN

GRAND JUNCTION — A panel of seven Western Slope legislators — six Republicans and one Democrat — discussed diverse issues they’re working on in the state legislature at the Club 20 annual meeting on March 28, focusing on water, energy, the economy, TABOR and federal lands.

Sen. Randy Baumgardner, R-Hot Sulphur Springs, said he and Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, had introduced a bill, SB 15-232, that would create a Federal Land Management Commission to study the transfer of federally managed public lands to Colorado. But that doesn’t mean the lands would be sold to the highest bidder, he added.

“I know there’s a lot of people running around with their hair on fire, afraid that we’re going to sell the lands, but that’s not what the bill is all about,” Baumgardner said.

Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose, who also attended the panel discussion, is the House sponsor for the land transfer study bill.

During a discussion of conflicting constitutional amendments, Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, confessed that the state legislature has been making end runs around the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

“We did not follow the Constitution,” Roberts said. “We made up something called the ‘negative factor’. There are budgetary tricks.”

Amendment 23, which mandates yearly increases in K-12 education funding, is in conflict with TABOR, which restricts the growth of government revenues, a dilemma that several of the legislators complained about. Club 20 member Chris Treese asked the panel to discuss that conflict.

Sen. Kerry Donovan, D-Aspen, said she was extremely frustrated by TABOR. Continue reading →

Apr 01

Colorado Lawmakers Scramble to Keep Millions in Marijuana Taxes

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Robert Grandt worked in the grow room at 3D Cannabis Center in Denver last month. Hefty taxes on recreational marijuana have generated millions in state revenue. RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post, via Getty Images

A year after Colorado became the first state to allow recreational marijuana sales, millions of tax dollars are rolling in, dedicated to funding school construction, marijuana education campaigns and armies of marijuana inspectors and regulators. But a legal snarl may force the state to hand that money back to marijuana consumers, growers and the public — and lawmakers do not want to.

The problem is a strict anti-spending provision in the state Constitution that touches every corner of public life, like school funding, state health care, local libraries and road repairs. Technical tripwires in that voter-approved provision, known as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, may require Colorado to refund nearly $60 million in marijuana taxes.

Continue reading →

Mar 31

District’s reasonable request (to avoid TABOR)

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Chieftain editorial

Published: March 30, 2015;

THE FOUNTAIN Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District has a request.

The district last week asked Pueblo County commissioners and Colorado Springs Utilities to amend the 1041 permit that both entities signed giving the utilities permission to build the Southern Delivery System. The district wants the commissioners and utilities to change the wording of the permit so that some $50 million in funds would be paid into an enterprise fund rather than directly to the Fountain Creek district.

When Colorado Springs Utilities and Pueblo County reached the terms of the permit for SDS, they agreed that Colorado Springs Utilities and its El Paso County-based partners would spend $50 million for flood mitigation work on Fountain Creek. The permit also requires the money to be used to significantly benefit Pueblo County, which to us means protecting it from raging floodwaters and damage from upstream.

The funds will be paid to the Fountain Creek district, but the district was at risk of losing some dollars if they were to be paid into the general fund. That is because it would have run awry of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR.

TABOR is the voter-approved constitutional amendment that sets caps on how much a government’s spending may grow, year over year. And Larry Small, the executive director of the Fountain Creek district, projected that the $50 million would exceed the limit.

So the district is sagely endeavoring to circumnavigate the caps by setting up an enterprise fund. This is a common and thoughtful solution to the district’s financial dilemma, and it is into this fund that the district is asking Pueblo County and the utilities to agree to direct the $50 million in funding. Continue reading →

Mar 28

TABOR refund likely to go to voters

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By Marianne Goodland

The Colorado Statesman

Budget writers this week finished their work on the annual state budget and turned their attention to what to do about a $58 million projected TABOR refund.

Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, took the lead on coming up with a proposal for the Joint Budget Committee on Wednesday.

The $58 million refund was triggered by tax revenue received by the state through excise and sales taxes on marijuana, and which pushed the state over its allowable TABOR revenue cap.

The $58 million is made up of two different funds: $27.7 million from marijuana taxes, and $30.3 million the JBC had to take from general funds to cover expenditures already made on certain marijuana programs like prevention and education. Steadman explained Wednesday that the $30.3 million was spent before the state (and JBC) knew they would have a TABOR refund situation. So they had to replace that money with general fund dollars.

Steadman’s proposal won’t go into final drafts until after the General Assembly finishes work on the Long Appropriations Bill.

The major part of the proposal is a referred measure to the voters for this November, asking if the state can keep the money. Steadman proposed that $40 million of the total go to BEST, the school construction fund that was to be covered with marijuana revenues.

Steadman explained that to date, only about $25 million has gone to that fund, although in both Amendment 64 and Proposition AA (passed by voters in 2013) the state pledged at least $40 million to public school capital construction. Tax revenues from marijuana haven’t lived up to what was billed; Prop AA asked voters to allow up to a cap of $70 million per year. However, the most recent revenue forecast from Legislative Council economists explained that the amount of the refund would be capped at the total amount of taxes collected.

Continue reading →