Category Archives: TABOR Refunds

Dec 31

Should city ask voters’ permission to keep refund? Murray says “no.”

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POSTED BY ON THU, DEC 29, 2016 AT 1:00 PM

Councilor Bill Murray is raising a lot of questions. - FILE PHOTO

  • FILE PHOTO
  • Councilor Bill Murray is raising a lot of questions.

Next month, Mayor John Suthers plans to ask City Council to place a measure on the April 4 city election ballot seeking voter approval to let the city keep excess revenue.

Suthers says he wants the roughly $7 million collected in 2016 above caps imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to be spent on flood control. The measure would also ask voter approval to allow the city to keep excess revenue collected in 2017 for the same purpose. That estimated dollar figure hasn’t been disclosed publicly.

Seems like a no-brainer, given the city’s enormous backlog of stormwater projects, but at least one city councilor isn’t capitulating automatically.

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Dec 14

Suthers gets no push back on TABOR measure

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Suthers gets no push back on TABOR measure

POSTED BY ON TUE, DEC 13, 2016 AT 1:51 PM

Camp Creek erosion is one reason the city needs money for drainage projects. - COURTESY CITY OF COLORADO SPRINGS

  • COURTESY CITY OF COLORADO SPRINGS
  • Camp Creek erosion is one reason the city needs money for drainage projects.

It’s looking like a “go” for an April 4 city election ballot measure seeking voter approval to lift the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights revenue cap for 2016 and 2017 to fund stormwater projects.

Mayor John Suthers asked City Council today to place the measure on the ballot, noting the 2016 figure could be $7 million or more. If refunded, which typically is achieved through utility bills, the refund would total about $36 per household, Suthers said.

As previously reported by the Independent, Suthers wants to use the excess revenue to beef up the city’s work on drainage control, given a Nov. 9 lawsuit against the city filed by the federal government, which noted longstanding violations of the Clean Water Act.

City Council will vote in late January on referring such a measure to voters, at which time Suthers promised to provide a more precise revenue figure. He received no push back at today’s meeting.

In other business, Councilor Bill Murray asked colleagues to place a measure on the ballot that would open the door for the city to partner with companies to provide broadband internet service. That measure is to be voted on later today.

http://www.csindy.com/IndyBlog/archives/2016/12/13/suthers-gets-no-push-back-on-tabor-measure
Dec 08

Ballot measure would ask to keep TABOR excess for stormwater

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Ballot measure would ask to keep TABOR excess for stormwater

Mayor wants more

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Camp Creek's erosion is one example of drainage needs. - COURTESY CITY OF COLORADO SPRINGS

  • COURTESY CITY OF COLORADO SPRINGS
  • Camp Creek’s erosion is one example of drainage needs.

Mayor John Suthers says he’ll ask City Council to refer a question to the April 4 city election ballot seeking to retain excess revenue collected in 2016 and 2017 that’s subject to limits imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

But that sum totaling several million dollars, which would be funneled to stormwater needs, is only a short-term fix for the city’s burgeoning drainage needs, Suthers says via email.

“Colorado Springs needs a dedicated revenue stream to fund its stormwater program,” he says. “To proceed without one over a significant period of time would put too much pressure on the general fund to the detriment of public safety and other priorities.”

Discussion among Council members is swirling around the idea of simply imposing a fee or taking a measure to voters. But a stormwater-fee measure won’t be on the April ballot, according to Council President Merv Bennett, and not on the November ballot either.

And there seems to be little appetite for a fee from several other council members consulted for this story.

 

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Oct 23

Detailing Pueblo West’s Initiative 5A

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KOAA.com | Continuous News | Colorado Springs and Pueblo

Pueblo West will be voting on an initiative that would help fund a new community pool, but it would be using excess money that is supposed to be returned to the taxpayer.

Pueblo West tried voting on de-brucing, but that didn’t work, so the ballot is calling for a TABOR timeout for the next ten years to pay for an aquatic center. Basically that means a ‘yes’ vote allows Pueblo West to obtain all tax revenue, a ‘no’ vote would keep Colorado TABOR laws in place which puts a cap on tax revenue a municipality can obtain, and that municipality has to refund the money to the taxpayers.

Pueblo West’s initiative 5A would bring partial funding for a new pool. Grant Shay says because of the current pool being overcrowded, his kids were turned away. Continue reading →

Oct 16

Town may need to refund $400K

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By David Persons Trail-Gazette

POSTED:   10/14/2016 09:42:15 AM MDT

The Estes Park Town Board was notified by Town Attorney Greg White on Tuesday night in an executive session that the town might be in violation of parts of the TABOR amendment.

The Taxpayers Bill of Rights, or TABOR, was an amendment to the state constitution passed statewide by voters in 1992. Its intent was to limit annual growth in state and local tax revenues and have all tax increases voted on by residents.

However, one of the little known provisions of TABOR is the requirement that taxing entities must provide information in advance of the vote about how much tax is estimated to be generated in the first year.

 

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Jul 20

Colorado Priorities shelves ballot initiative to curb Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights

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By | jbunch@denverpost.com
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:

Organizers have shelved a ballot initiative to loosen the grip of Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill or Rights on the state’s ability to fundschools, transportation, mental health and senior services.

The executive committee of the Colorado Priorities campaign suspended the effort Monday night. The measure would have needed the signatures of at last 98,492 registered voters by Aug. 8 to get on the November ballot.

TABOR sets a revenue cap based on population and inflation. Everything over that must be refunded to taxpayers under the constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1992. Initiative 117would have allowed the state to keep that revenue.

 

Click (HERE) to read the rest of the story:

Jul 20

Ballot campaign to suspend Colorado’s TABOR revenue caps ends

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ED SEALOVER | DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL

Dan Ritchie, one of the leaders of the Building a Better Colorado initiative

DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL – Concerned about ballot fatigue and suffering from a lack of fundraising, organizers of the Colorado Priorities campaign to pass a statewide de-Brucing ballot initiative blunting the impact of the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights ended their efforts for the 2016 election on Tuesday.

The proposal would have allowed the state government to keep any revenue it collected above the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights limit over the next 10 years and put it to prescribed uses — at least 35 percent toward education, at least 35 percent toward transportation and anything else toward mental-health and senior services.

Doing so would have eliminated the possibility of TABOR refunds that otherwise would go to statewide taxpayers when revenues exceed the caps.

However, organizers said they became increasingly worried about getting their message out during an election that could feature as many as 10 other ballot initiatives, as well as presidential and U.S. Senate races in this state.

Read more at the Denver Business Journal: http://bit.ly/29WUagr

Jul 20

TABOR timeout ballot measure won’t go to voters this year

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TABOR timeout ballot measure won’t go to voters this year

A group trying to convince voters to hit the pause button on the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which limits government spending, has officially called it quits.

The effort would have been what Coloradans call a “de-Brucing,” named as such because the architect of TABOR is an anti-tax folk hero named Douglas Bruce. (Fun fact: He’s sitting in prison right now on charges that stem from a previous bust for tax evasion.)

Backed by a group called Colorado Priorities, the ballot measure would have asked voters in November if they wanted to grant the state government permission, for 10 years, to retain tax money that flowed over TABOR-mandated revenue caps. TABOR currently requires any revenue generated over projected limits to go back to individual taxpayers in the form of refunds.

If voters approved the measure, that money would instead have gone specifically toward transportation, education, mental health and senior services.

Colorado Priorities would have had to gather nearly 100,000 valid signatures in Colorado to get their proposal on the ballot. Petitioners were asking voters for their John Hancocks as recently as last week. The ballot measure grew out of an initiative called Building a Better Colorado, a bipartisan group of state leaders who held meetings around Colorado to determine what measures to try and put to voters this year. Continue reading →