May 29, 2007 08:39 PM UTC

Alternatives to Property Tax Freeze/"Hike" in Works?

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel reports, a third way could yet emerge on the politically-polarized issue of education funding in Colorado–or further muddy the waters around a settled issue, depending on who you’re talking to.

Even with Gov. Bill Ritter’s controversial property tax-rate freeze signed into law, lawmakers continue to study alternatives to the governor’s school-funding plan.

Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, and a handful of other lawmakers have floated proposals behind closed doors to use either a sales tax or an income tax hike to fund education instead of raising property taxes in Mesa County and across the state, according to documents obtained by The Daily Sentinel.

At the behest of multiple lawmakers, the nonpartisan Colorado Legislative Council prepared an April memo outlining how Colorado could collect $1.8 billion for K-12 education during the 2008-2009 fiscal year without using property taxes.

In order to halt the use of school district property taxes, the memo states lawmakers would need to raise the state’s sales tax from 2.9 percent to 5.1 percent or raise the income tax from 4.63 percent to 6 percent.

The memo outlines several of either tax hike’s drawbacks, including the instability of income and sales tax revenues and the fact that raising sales taxes could hit lower-income residents hard.

Buescher said the rapidly rising home values in Mesa County forced him and other lawmakers to consider alternatives to the controversial mill-levy freeze, which Ritter signed into law May 9.

It appears the alternatives here are at least as onerous as Ritter’s proposal, and would definitely require a statewide vote where the governor’s property-tax “freeze” does not (Republicans will take immediate issue with this assertion).

Of course, the fact that we’re discussing alternatives at all should have Dick Wadhams eagerly licking his chops. Any second-guessing of this kind, especially by a powerful Joint Budget Committee Democrat, represents a real messaging headache for Ritter–and increases the possibility that this won’t go away soon.

At the same time virtually everyone agrees, from Andrew Romanoff to Hank Brown, that public education funding in Colorado is in trouble and will be broke within a few years. Since we’re all offering our belated opinion on the matter, what would you do? A poll follows.

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