{"id":44921,"date":"2021-08-30T15:09:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T21:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/two-statewide-tax-initiatives-qualify-for-2021-colorado-ballot\/"},"modified":"2021-08-30T21:09:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T21:09:00","slug":"two-statewide-tax-initiatives-qualify-for-2021-colorado-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/two-statewide-tax-initiatives-qualify-for-2021-colorado-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Two statewide tax initiatives qualify for 2021 Colorado ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=fac11c39-027c-4395-9db4-037bf1d7d931&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"950\" height=\"944\" alt=\"Ballots at the Durango post office for an election in 2019. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Ballots at the Durango post office for an election in 2019. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Two tax measures are headed to Colorado\u2019s 2021 statewide ballot after supporters submitted the required number of voter signatures, Secretary of State Jena Griswold\u2019s office announced last week.<\/p>\n<p>The measures, Initiatives 25 and 27, are the first to qualify for the 2021 ballot. Supporters submitted more than the 124,632 valid signatures \u2013 5% of the total votes cast for secretary of state in the previous general election \u2013 as required by the Colorado Constitution, Griswold\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n<p>Initiative 25, the \u201cLearning Enrichment and Academic Progress Program,\u201d would fund a $150 million statewide effort to provide tutoring aid to Colorado students by raising the sales tax rate on recreational marijuana from 15% to 20%. The measure is backed by a bipartisan coalition that includes many education reform groups.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEducators, employers, families and Colorado voters understand \u2013 we have an opportunity to support the students who need this help the most with Initiative 25,\u201d Tony Lewis, a supporter of the initiative and the executive director of the Donnell-Kay Foundation, said in a statement. \u201cThe educational future of our children has been upended by the pandemic and while the most marginalized children will likely have the most learning loss, this has impacted students in nearly every political, geographic, economic, and racial group in our state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Initiative 27, filed by conservative dark-money group Colorado Rising State Action, would slash Colorado property taxes, reducing the residential assessment rate from 7.15% to 6.5%, and the non-residential rate from 29% to 26.4%.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, a fiscal analysis by nonpartisan state staff members estimated that the cuts would drain more than $1 billion from city, county and school district budgets across Colorado \u2013 though that impact could be partially offset by changes to property tax classifications approved by state lawmakers in the final days of the 2021 legislative session.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/coloradonewsline.com\/\" id=\"link-6a610b2022c874b239ea6ba234c59658\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em id=\"emphasis-7d3ce1f2351304c1d8bdecbafd417a6c\">To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>measure would raise taxes on marijuana, another would slash property taxes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,28,135,1264,1509,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-marijuana","tag-property-tax","tag-state-elections","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44921"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}