A Daily Post reader contacted me earlier this week, wondering if I would be endorsing any of the candidates or issues appearing on the 2023 Election Ballot.
We can’t call it the “November Ballot” like we used to, because it arrives in October, with a November 7 deadline. So I will just refer to it as the 2023 Election Ballot.
The Colorado General Assembly was trying to be very clever in designing Prop HH. Because it provides for a slight drop in the residential property tax rate, proponents are selling the measure as “property tax relief”.
All sides of the issue concede that property taxes will increase in 2024; but HH would lessen the increase, slightly. But the General Assembly has the legal authority to reduce the property tax rate without a vote of the electorate, so HH is not really about property tax relief.
Opponents of HH are referring to it as “an end-run around TABOR” because it threatens to totally eliminate TABOR refunds — the required Taxpayer Bill of Rights refunds to taxpayers when state government revenues grow faster than population and inflation.
Prop HH would also change the formula for how TABOR refunds are calculated. And if approved, it would require the state government to ‘backfill’ lost revenues to local governments caused by the property tax reduction, although the backfilling would cease if property values continue to increase.
The new formulas, if approved, would last through “at least 2032”. The Legislature can then choose to extend the TABOR and property tax changes, past 2032, without going back to the voters.
Because it appears to violate the Colorado Constitution, HH has already been challenged in court. The Colorado Constitution declares that a ballot measure placed before the electorate can concern only a “single subject”. From Article V, Section 1:
If a measure contains more than one subject, such that a ballot title cannot be fixed that clearly expresses a single subject, no title shall be set and the measure shall not be submitted to the people for adoption or rejection at the polls
From the Colorado 2023 Election Blue Book, published by the state government:
A “yes” vote on Proposition HH lowers property taxes owed, allows the state to keep additional money that would otherwise be refunded to taxpayers, temporarily changes how taxpayer TABOR refunds are distributed, and creates a new property tax limit for most local governments.
Download the Colorado election Blue Book in English.
Download the Colorado election Blue Book in Spanish.
Obviously, Prop HH concerns multiple subjects.
1. A reduction in TABOR refunds
2. A change in the TABOR refund calculation
3. A slight drop in property tax rates
4. Potential removal of taxpayer participation in deciding future TABOR refunds
5. New requirements for the spending of state revenues
6. Redirecting revenues that would normally fund local government, to the state government.
Prop HH was challenged in the Colorado Supreme Court, alleging that it was not, in fact, a single subject issue. The Court declined to rule on the question, because, traditionally, the Court will not consider a challenge to an election issue that has not yet been voted on. I suspect Prop HH will be challenged in court, again, if the voters are naïve enough to pass it.
The General Assembly is, in my opinion, playing a ‘shell game’ with the voters, by combining a number of important issues into a confusing and unclear mess.
The Legislature could have lowered our property taxes, by themselves, without any changes to the TABOR refunds. Prop HH is, in my humble opinion, a back-handed money grab by the state government at the expense of local governments.
I voted ‘No’. I encourage our Daily Post readers to do the same.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.