{"id":97035,"date":"2018-11-21T16:29:13","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T23:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hickenlooper-asks-state-supreme-court-to-weigh-on-tabor-gallagher-conflicts\/"},"modified":"2018-11-21T16:29:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T23:29:13","slug":"hickenlooper-asks-state-supreme-court-to-weigh-on-tabor-gallagher-conflicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hickenlooper-asks-state-supreme-court-to-weigh-on-tabor-gallagher-conflicts\/","title":{"rendered":"Hickenlooper asks state Supreme Court to weigh on TABOR, Gallagher conflicts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Greater Eagle Fire Protection District was one of dozens of special taxing districts across Colorado that sought taxpayer approval to annually adjust mill levy rates to offset revenue declines under the state\u2019s Gallagher Amendment.<\/span>Jason Blevins\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gov. John Hickenlooper on Tuesday asked the Colorado Supreme Court to look into conflicts between two state constitutional amendments that critics say combine to drain away tax revenue needed by communities around the state to fund schools, firefighting and other services.<\/p>\n

Those conflicts are \u201cpreventing local governments from funding even limited essential services,\u201d Hickenlooper\u2019s filing with the court says. \u201c\u2026 It has resulted in the steady erosion of the budgets of local governments in communities throughout the state that rely on property taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two amendments, both passed by voters years ago, are known as the Taxpayer\u2019s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, and the Gallagher Amendment. Conflicts between the two overlapping amendments have kept residential property tax revenue across the state lower than it would be otherwise, the governor argues.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the governor\u2019s office said Hickenlooper had submitted \u201cinterrogatories\u201d to the state Supreme Court asking it to examine conflicts between the two amendments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interaction of TABOR and Gallagher has resulted in a system in which provisions in both amendments are not working as intended and is adversely affecting local communities,\u201d Tuesday\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n

Under the state constitution, the governor can directly submit \u201cimportant questions upon solemn occasions\u201d on constitutional issues to the Supreme Court in the form of interrogatories. It\u2019s up to the court whether to review the questions and rule on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado\u2019s local governments must be able to provide essential services,\u201d Hickenlooper said. \u201cWith clarification from the Colorado Supreme Court, we will be able to address the funding issues caused by the conflict and find a workable solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gallagher amendment, adopted in 1982, permanently set the shares of total property tax statewide that owners of residential and commercial property pay, with homeowners paying a combined 45 percent and businesses 55 percent.<\/p>\n

The amendment also fixed the assessment rate on most commercial property at 29 percent of value, but called for the rate on residential property to slide up or down at a uniform level statewide as property values change so that the state\u2019s homeowners kept paying 45 percent of total property taxes.<\/p>\n

But TABOR, passed in 1992, bars tax increases unless approved by voters. TABOR has been interpreted by lawmakers as blocking the residential adjustments called for under Gallagher, with the effect of pushing down residential assessment rates statewide as property values have increased sharply in metro Denver in order to maintain the 45-55 percent ratio.<\/p>\n

As a result, according to Hickenlooper\u2019s filing, residential assessment rates have dropped from 21 percent in 1983 to 7.2 percent currently.<\/p>\n

Since home values have increased far less in rural areas, local governments in those parts of the state have been receiving less property tax revenue each year as the residential assessment rates get pushed down under Gallagher as impacted by TABOR, Hickenlooper argues. Rural communities that rely on property taxes to fund schools, fire departments and other services are being squeezed<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the governor wants is for the Supreme Court to weigh in if there actually is a conflict between the Gallagher Amendment and TABOR,\u201d Christopher Jackson, a political and public law attorney in Denver, told 9News. \u201cThe government thinks there is some kind of conflict, and so he is trying to get some kind of guidance from the Supreme Court to say, if these two provisions conflict, what are state and local governments to do? What is the best way for them to address that conflict?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson said that if the Supreme Court finds a conflict, the legislature or a group of citizens can ask for a constitutional amendment in the next election.<\/p>\n

Backers of the two measures say that it\u2019s proper to ask taxpayers to approve any tax increases. But others say that TABOR should not be seen as overriding Gallagher\u2019s provisions and that assessment rates should be allowed to rise or fall as the voters intended.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper\u2019s interrogatories ask the court to determine whether TABOR had \u201coverwritten or superseded\u201d parts of the Gallagher Amendment, or even \u201cinvalidated\u201d Gallagher.<\/p>\n

It also asks at what level can the General Assembly can set the residential property-tax assessment rate in future years.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper asked the Supreme Court to answer his interrogatories ahead of the next legislative session in January, but there was no immediate indication of whether the court could act that quickly.<\/p>\n

State Rep. Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo, a member of the legislature\u2019s Joint Budget Committee, issued a statement Wednesday supporting Hickenlooper\u2019s move.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the unintended consequences of the Gallagher amendment are not addressed, Colorado will continue to see major problems for education, fire, library districts and our rural communities,\u201d Esgar said. \u201cIt will be helpful to get additional clarity from the court on this issue as we continue looking for solutions. Whether you\u2019re a Republican, unaffiliated, Democrat or the governor, we all recognize that this is a critical issue that is depriving communities and that we have to work together and to address it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2017, the Colorado State Fire Chiefs, facing severe budget cuts, asked Hickenlooper to seek the Supreme Court examination of the matter, The Denver Post reports.<\/p>\n

Tom Demint, president of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs and chief of the Poudre Fire Authority in Fort Collins, noted that his group has been engaged in a \u201clong effort to address the negative fiscal synergy between Gallagher and TABOR.\u201d<\/p>\n

He thanked Hickenlooper for his action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are extremely pleased that the governor decided to ask the questions of the Supreme Court prior to the 2019 General Assembly. Depending on the action of the Supreme Court, we may have a more positive fiscal future for the fire protection districts in Colorado,\u201d Demint said in a statement.<\/p>\n

In an interview with 9News in April, several Colorado fire chiefs complained that the situation was hampering their ability to provide services and save lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have two (fire) stations,\u201d Chief Alan Fletcher of the Fairmount fire district near Golden said at the time. \u201cThe potential is we\u2019d go down to one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fire chiefs group was listed as a \u201csupporting agency\u201d in Hickenlooper\u2019s filing, along with the Colorado Professional Fire Fighters, the Special District Association of Colorado, Colorado Counties Inc., the Colorado Association of School Boards and the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor says amendments are hurting local governments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-97035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97035","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=97035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97035"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=97035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}