What can you do about rising property taxes? Giving the people what they didn't ask for. And, don't turn my retirement into your political football.
Now we light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. What can you do about rising property taxes? A few concrete things.
This is part 3 of 3. In this part, let's talk what you can do about property tax increases.
I am going to divide this into two parts. Let's talk immediate things, and let's talk long term things.
**Quick note: I'm not an expert and have reached the age where I know full well how very little I do actually know. If you have thoughts or ideas, please share for the good of the group!
In the short term, there are a couple ideas I have heard of from the Assembly.
The first is the bill that Rep Frizell was talking about in her interview with Ross Kaminsky. I re-linked that discussion below, along with her bill and also a one page explainer Rep Frizell was kind enough to send.
If you're short on time, or if you want to prepare testimony in support of the bill, I'd recommend looking at screenshot 1. It's the quick run down on what Rep Frizell's bill does.
I personally think it's a good idea and am adding it to my list of bills to watch. I hope to testify, or, barring that, at least write in an email.
As of this writing, it's been assigned to a committee but hasn't got a hearing date yet.
The second bill I'd like to mention is still in its draft stages (when I spoke with Sen Pelton as of this writing he said he was working on the language to get the best possible version out there prior to introducing the bill).
Details are slim right now, but the idea would be to form a commission of LOCAL governments to discuss what to do about the repeal of the Gallagher amendment and to provide some relief to taxpayers.
I will watch Sen Pelton's page for the bill and will update when I see it. In the meantime, if you wanted to watch too, the link to his legislator page is fourth below.
On a longer time scale, I think a good direction to go in would be to revisit with your local county/city governments their "De-Brucing" and waiving the 5.5% rule (see yesterday's second post if you've not got the context).
Get with your county commissioner and ask about revenue needs and whether or not some of those measures could be sunset. Get some other people together and start a phone call/email campaign. It's your money, speak up in its defense!
You could also move to run a local initiative (this is something you can really only do on the city level--can't for a county sadly) if you find they're not amenable. I'm researching this right now and will get back to you when I know.
If I can help with ideas or connections to resources, please don't hesitate to ask!
https://koacolorado.iheart.com/featured/ross-kaminsky/content/2023-01-25-state-rep-lisa-frizell-and-the-potential-disaster-of-property-tax-bills/
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb23-1054
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IK15OdiQFj72PawI_-GYIl64XLjslfOL/view?usp=sharing
https://leg.colorado.gov/legislators/byron-pelton
I didn’t ask for it, I don’t need it …
"Giving" something to people they see no value in.
When I used to teach at a private high school in Denver we would do a yearly award ceremony. Now that I teach at college, we do a yearly award ceremony in my department.
I truly am happy to see the excitement and pride on the faces of the students for whom such awards matter; that is why I bother submitting names and going.
I also realize, however, that not everyone sees value in these things. After all, there is always some percentage of people who don't show to the ceremonies now (or, when it was mandatory at my high school, there was always some percentage of awards that students don't take any farther than the trash can at the gym entrance).
The point I'm trying to make is that the students aren't always asked what would be meaningful for them in these ceremonies. We chose. Maybe a certificate, maybe a little medal, maybe a plaque, but the choice was made top-down.
When I read the two articles linked below, I thought of that. The first one details how Colorado Parks and Wildlife is going to the state to get an additional $2.2 million for the "Keep Colorado Wild" pass program (the program where if you don't opt out the state will charge you $29 at your vehicle renewal and then you can get into state parks for free) to help clear up some communication and refund issues they're having.
I.e. they need more money to help the program get off to a good start because if they don't, it puts their anticipated extra funding from the program at risk.
In the second article we can see that the plastic bag mandate is also having some issues out of the gate. Turns out there was no real guidance on what to do with the share of the bag fee money collected that was supposed to go to local governments. And the local governments aren't knocking on doors asking for the money.
I.e. there's money sitting around that retailers are holding (and will have to pay taxes on) that, in many municipalities, no one asked for, no one wants, and no one knows what to do with.
See the thread? What if these policies had broader support than just meeting the political needs of one party in this state? What if we had more options to tailor a specific idea to meet the needs and interests of differing regions and people in this state? What if policy makers listened better?
And, frankly, what if we spoke up more?
One last thing, this one from the "if government is the problem the solution is more government" playbook many of the Progressives running this state use, I present to you a proposed solution by one of the sponsors of the original bag ban.
It's in the screenshot.
Looks like the solution, according to Rep Valdez, is to possibly have the state manage it. I'm sure that will put things to rights.
https://coloradosun.com/2023/01/27/keep-colorado-wild-pass-rollout-challenges/
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-bag-fee-unintended-consequence/
Don’t turn my retirement into your political football … an update.
The Op Ed below came out pretty recently and I thought it was worth an update on this bill.
I posted a while back about a new greenhouse gas bill that would, among other things, move up the state's greenhouse gas targets and inject the politics of climate change into the state's retirement fund (PERA).
The bill recently passed its first committee hearing and is on its way to the Senate Finance Committee.
The Op Ed below goes into more detail about the thinking behind the bill with regard to how climate politics is increasingly being forced into areas of life that used to be separate from it.
I will leave it to you to read up on that. I would just say that, whether you are in PERA or no, you should give serious thought to working against this bill.
In other words, standing up now when it's just the thin end of the wedge will make it harder to drive it in further. I hope you join me and the President of PERA (see attached screenshot from the Op Ed) in saying to the Assembly and Polis that retirement funds should not be their political footballs.
