The recently announced property valuations in Archuleta County — currently being challenged by perhaps 2,000 individual property owners through the valuation protest process — will result in increased property taxes next year, for certain homeowners, renters, and business owners.
Where that increased tax will end up is, of course, of interest to those of us who will be paying the increases.
The beneficiary of the largest share of Archuleta County property taxes is the Archuleta School District (ASD). So the pending property tax increases will result in better education for our local children.
Ha! Just kidding.
Although Archuleta County taxpayers pay the largest portions of their property taxes to the ASD, and to the Archuleta County government, neither of those districts will benefit significantly from a significant local property tax increase.
We’ve already talked about the fact that the 1992 amendment to the Colorado Constitution — TABOR (the Taxpayers Bill of Rights) — supposedly limits the growth of state and local government property tax collections, unless the government first obtains voter approval for the increase.
So Archuleta County (which asked for a voter-approved increase in 2011, and lost 3-to-1) will not be able increase its budget enough to take full advantage of the (60%?) increase in local property taxes. The County will be assigning the higher property values, but without being able to fully enjoy the resulting tax increase.
The School District (ASD) is limited in a different way. And in this case, in a way the will not benefit local educators or families.
In 2021, the Colorado Supreme Court essentially removed TABOR protections for many of the state’s school districts, including ASD, in response to a request for an interrogatory decision on HR21-1164. As a result, there’s no clear Supreme-Court-approved limit (as far as I can tell) to the amount of property taxes a school district can collect without asking the voters.
When this 2021 decision was handed down, the Deomocrat-led legislature was pleased.
The folks who believe TABOR is a constitutional amendment, and should receive some respect from the Supreme Court, were not happy.
From an article in Law Week Colorado by Jessica Folker:
Chief Justice Brian Boatright criticized that assumption in a dissenting opinion. Due to the mill levy increase, he wrote, property owners will pay more in taxes from one year to the next. “That is the very definition of a tax increase under our constitution,” states the dissent. “Therefore, in my view, this bill [HR21-1164] violates our constitution by raising tax rates without voter approval…”
…Public Trust Institute director Daniel Burrows represented 36 Republican lawmakers who oppose the bill. “We’re disappointed, but not particularly surprised,” Burrows said in an email.
“The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights has gotten second-class status in the courts for decades. Judges treat it like an annoying inconvenience rather than a constitutional right, and when politicians want some quick way around it, the courts have been all too willing to oblige,” Burrows said. “It’s unfortunate that the Chief Justice was the only one willing to enforce what our constitution plainly says: that a ‘mill levy above that for the prior year’ requires a vote of the people. Like most decisions involving TABOR, the majority opinion is an exercise of politics, not law…”
As a person who has been following school funding for many years, I have to agree with Mr. Burrows. When it comes to TABOR conflicts, the Colorado Supreme Court has pretty consistently sided with government, rather than with the actual language of the constitution.
In spite of all that, ASD will not directly benefit from the higher property valuations recently announced by the County Assessor.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the board of directors for the Pagosa Peak Open School, one of our local public schools, but this editorial reflects my own opinions and not necessarily those of the PPOS board as a whole.
Once upon a time, local communities in Colorado funded their own school districts, according to local voter sentiments, and pocketbooks. This pattern is suggested in the Colorado Constitution:
Section 15. School districts & board of education. The general assembly shall, by law, provide for organization of school districts of convenient size, in each of which shall be established a board of education, to consist of three or more directors to be elected by the qualified electors of the district. Said directors shall have control of instruction in the public schools of their respective districts.
But the Colorado Constitution also requires uniformity:
The general assembly shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment and maintenance of a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, wherein all residents of the state, between the ages of six and twenty-one years, may be educated gratuitously.
So we have an obvious conflict written right into our constitution. Public schools must be “uniform”… but “control of instruction” is assigned to local boards of directors.
Are we confused?
Yes.
As things have shaken out, the state government has gradually assumed control over the funding of public schools (and many other things as well) while leaving the amount of teacher salaries, and choice of textbooks, and management of school buildings, etc. etc. to local school boards… so long as the schools show satisfactory results on state-mandated standardized tests.
The state legislature has established the base school funding for the 2023-2024 at $10,614 per student, an increase of about 10% above the funding for the past school year. The funding is basically a mix of local property taxes and state income taxes.
Basically, no matter where you live, and no matter what decisions are made by your local school board: $10,614 per pupil.
Basically, no matter how much your community pays on property taxes, the state backfills with income tax revenues to deliver $10,614 per student. In some wealthier Colorado communities, local property taxes pay almost the entire bill. In smaller, poorer communities, the state foots most of the bill.
So what happens when a community like Pagosa Springs sees its property taxes skyrocket? The local taxpayers will foot more of the local education budget, and the state will pay less. The property tax increase makes absolutely no difference to the amount of money the school district has to spend.
A 60% increase in Pagosa Springs property taxes will mean a great deal to many property owners and renters.
It will mean, essentially, nothing at all to the funding of our local public schools.