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Tax measure for schools gets paddled

Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 13, 2007 at midnight

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A prominent Republican lawmaker is crying foul over $66 million of tax savings homeowners would have seen if not for a law passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Bill Ritter this year.

Ritter signed into law Senate Bill 07-199, freezing property tax rates indefinitely at current rates.

The measure eliminates tax cuts that otherwise would have taken place under a 1994 school-finance law - an estimated $48 million for fiscal year 2007-2008.

"It's the fact that we had said - from day one - it's a bottomless pit and that it will be working families and seniors that will be paying it," said Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma on Wednesday.

"While people are facing foreclosures on their homes, their property taxes just went through the roof, and the governor did it all without a vote of the people."

The 1994 finance law had driven down property tax rates, with the resulting decrease in local tax revenue, forcing the state to make up the difference to close the gap in school district budgets.

Ritter had proposed the freeze as a way to address the problem of a $100 million deficit in the state budget that pays for schools through the 2011-2012 academic year.

Wednesday, Gardner received a report from the legislative counsel staff indicating that property tax revenues statewide would be $114.1 million higher this year as the result of SB 199.

"This dollar amount is $65.9 million higher than was estimated during the legislative session," the report said. "Of the total estimated increase in property tax revenue of $191.8 million, $77.7 million would have occurred under the law that existed before Senate Bill 08-199 was enacted."

But Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, who sponsored the House version of the school-finance bill, said Gardner doesn't understand how the law works.

"It's not a tax increase," he said. " . . . The money that comes from the school district never leaves the school district."

He said the money was not going to the state budget and that all the local school districts affected by the law had held a vote to exempt themselves from the TABOR limits to keep the property tax revenues.