April 27, 2009 05:27 AM UTC

Colorado Governments: Competing Priorities

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• by: Thorntondem

  Two examples of competing prioritis are city vs. city and city vs. county.

City vs. City: Cities in Colorado compete with one another for sales tax revenue. Why? Because sales tax is how cities pay for services like street maintenance, Fire, Police ect…

Cities will pay millions of dollars in incentives to developers to bring in large retailers. The city that agrees to the largest incentive wins! New sales tax revenue will be generated for street repairs, Fire and Police. The other city loses.

Shouldn’t our cities be looking for ways they can work together? Shouldn’t all Colorado citizens, regardless of what city they live in, expect to live in a community that is safe, clean and prosperous complete with thriving schools, Parks, Libraries, Open Space and Trails? How can we work together to bring much needed city services to all of our citizens regardless of city boundaries?

What about expanding sales tax revenue sharing with more Intergovernmental Agreements? Or should we say no to that. Let’s just make sure we get ours!

Cities vs. Counties: A great example of competing priorities is HB 09-1327. This bill has passed the House and is now in the Senate. This bill, in part, would force cities to share TIF (Tax Increment Financing) revenue from URA’s (Urban Renewal Areas) with counties, school districts and other districts. After 5 years 50% of the revenue would go to the counties, school districts and special districts. (Denver and Broomfield are exempt from this bill) Currently cities are able to keep 100% of the TIF revenue in the URA. TIF revenue that is diverted from school districts is back filled by the state.

Some cities and the Colorado Municipal League are saying that this bill would prevent cities from Urban Renewal in areas of cities that really need the revitalization and economic development.

Many counties are advocating for the bill stating that much needed revenue that pays for county social sevices(that cities generally do not provide) are being lost when cities do not share the TIF revenue from URA’s.

And it is obvious that this is a difficult issue down at the capital. It passed the House 36-29 with democratic Reps. on both sides of this issue.

These are two examples of competing priorities between governments here in Colorado. How can our governments work together to better serve us?

“Government should be about community, first and foremost, about forming a community at all levels, about working together for mutual benefit. That is the ideal toward which we should be striving. I am so tired of the way we have regressed into a dog-fight in which the last dog standing wins.” Steve Harvey (Colorado Pols.com contributor)