FAQs
“In all likelihood, we will have to cut a lot. We'll have to cut everywhere […] I don't know about you, but I do not want to just roll the dice.” - Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer (R-Larimer, Weld), opposing Initiatives 50 and 108.
If you’re having a hard time understanding what Initiatives 50 and 108 are and what they might do, that’s because they are so complicated that even their proponents can’t explain how they work or how much they’ll cost. These measures turn Colorado’s budget into an unpredictable and messy knot of new mandates that it will hurt our economy, public schools, or any other service that depends on state or local tax revenue. Let’s learn more about them.
What is Initiative 50?
Initiative 50 is a proposed constitutional amendment brought by dark money groups that would destroy funding for public schools and local services by instituting a 4% annual cap on total statewide property tax revenues and force a statewide vote for any local district that wishes to keep revenues above that cap. This would cut up to $1 billion after just three years on the books, without replacing that lost funding for local communities.
Initiative 50 has qualified for the 2024 November ballot and needs 55% of the vote to pass. If Initiative 50 passes this November, it would decimate funding for community services like libraries, fire departments, sheriffs, schools, parks, roads, water, mental health services, and so much more.
The exact ballot language is: Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning mandatory statewide voter approval to allow local governments to retain property tax revenue that exceeds 4% growth from the total statewide property tax revenue collected in the preceding year, and, in connection therewith, requiring any referred measure for such approval to be a stand-alone subject with specified language?
This misleading and dangerous initiative is designed to deceive voters. It avoids telling the truth about the many services that we all depend on, which will be permanently slashed. It hides the fact that our public schools and universities will never recover from these drastic cuts.
What is Initiative 108?
Initiative 108 would cut $3 billion per year from our local communities by dropping property assessment rates and mandating that the state’s General Fund backfill all local districts. These rate changes would also drastically slash funding for services like libraries, fire departments, schools, parks, roads, water, mental health services, and more. Initiative 50 is bad enough on its own, but in combination with 108, it’s a double-whammy to Colorado we can’t afford.
The same dark money groups backing Initiative 50 are behind 108 as well. Initiative 108 has qualified for the 2024 November ballot and will need 50 percent of the votes to pass this November.
The exact ballot language is: Shall funding available for counties, school districts, water districts, and other districts funded, at least in part, by property taxes be impacted by a reduction of $3 billion in property tax revenue by a change to the Colorado Revised Statutes concerning a reduction of the valuation for assessment of certain real property for property tax years commencing on or after January 1, 2025, and, in connection therewith, reducing the valuation for tax assessment for property other than residential real property, producing mines, and oil and gas lands to 24% of the property's actual value; reducing the valuation for tax assessment for residential real property to 5.7% of the property's actual value; requiring the state to reimburse local districts for revenue lost as a result of these changes; and requiring the state to maintain current funding for the state education fund?
Unlike Initiative 50, Initiative 108 is at least honest about the cuts it’s going to make to our communities, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous, reckless, or any better for our residents.
Why should I vote no on Initiatives 50 and 108?
They take away local control from our communities.
These proposals are a one-size-fits-all approach that will weaken local control and take power away from our communities to decide what’s best for our schools, healthcare, and roads, letting big cities dictate how small rural towns should operate.
Colorado has 4,600 unique localities, school districts, and special districts. Each has their own challenges and priorities. Voters in each community can hold local elections and decide for themselves how to handle property taxes. But we shouldn’t force a statewide, one-size-fits-all approach like these proposals, especially after the legislature passed a broadly bipartisan deal to cut property taxes without jeopardizing schools or services at the end of the 2024 session.
They give windfalls to the wealthy and big corporations
These proposals deliver big tax cuts to wealthy homeowners and big corporations - but do very little for older adults, the middle class, small businesses, renters, or rural Coloradans. We agree that Coloradans need property tax relief, and the legislature delivered a responsible plan for everyone in Colorado in May of 2024.
They hurt rural Colorado and small towns the most.
These proposals will tie funding for local public services to the property values in other parts of the state. By imposing a uniform statewide cap on revenue growth, Initiative 50 pits districts against each other. Even if your community’s property values are holding steady or decreasing, so long as property values in places like Denver, Aspen, or Boulder are going up, your community may have to cut its budget or ask statewide permission to prevent budget cuts.
City politics shouldn’t dictate or affect rural life, and local communities need to be able to decide what’s best for them individually. These proposals turn decisions that are best handled locally into statewide matters.
They will force the state to cut funding in order to plug local gaps…
50 and 108 recklessly cut $3 billion per year from school districts, roads and bridges, libraries, parks, and other local services and stick the state with the bill.
These dangerous initiatives would also require cutting state funding for other things important to Coloradans, like healthcare and transportation, by as much as 15% per year. These irresponsible cuts are roughly equivalent to the devastating cuts made at the height of the Great Recession in 2008, which public school funding just finally recovered from this year. We need property tax relief, but our schools and roads can’t afford a $3 billion cut.
…but there’s no guarantee the state will plug those local gaps at all.
There’s absolutely no guarantee that communities will be able to restore these cuts because the state government ultimately decides if and how to address those cuts. There is currently no way the state can even repay the loss in local funding that would result from Initiative 50, so these cuts would only be for local governments, school districts, and special districts, leading to cuts to programs like K-12 education, libraries, mental and behavioral health services, parks and road maintenance, fire safety, and water infrastructure.
They deal a huge blow to public school and higher education funding.
Initiative 50 would decrease the local share of education funding by $121 million in the first year, reaching $1.38 billion by 2032. Such cuts will increase class sizes, shortchange classrooms, and make giving raises to our best teachers impossible.
Meanwhile, because Initiative 108 mandates that the state backfill local governments for their lost revenue, the state would be forced to severely cut funding for higher education across Colorado, raising tuition and making our colleges and universities less competitive and desirable to our own students.
They’ll halt critical housing affordability progress.
These measures slash funding for our local communities and the services we rely on by billions of dollars a year, right when communities need that funding to address the growing housing affordability crisis. These proposals do nothing to build more homes that regular people can afford, and they could very well make our housing affordability problems even worse than they already are.
And renters will be the biggest losers. These proposals provide no tax relief to renters, many of whom are struggling with the cost of housing. But they will cut funding for education, healthcare, transportation, water, and other services that all residents depend on.
What happens if they both pass?
Either of these measures would have a devastating impact on Colorado. The combined impact of both passing is an unimaginable double whammy for our schools, our local communities, and everything that makes Colorado great. The negative impact of these policies would be felt in every sector of our economy, at every level of our state, with local communities suffering the most.
Financial, legal, and business experts are warning that these measures will threaten the ability for local districts to pay their bills, which could downgrade their credit ratings, and make it much harder to attract private investment. That will force taxpayers to pay higher costs to build housing, schools, fire stations, and water treatment facilities, or take all of those kinds of community investments off the table for the foreseeable future.
I don’t like the sound of 50 & 108, but I need property tax relief now!
Colorado just passed a tax relief package with overwhelming Republican and Democratic support. The bipartisan package, Senate Bill 24-233, lowers property tax rates and caps future property tax growth while protecting funding for education and targeting the tax relief to those who need it most. 92 out of 100 legislators voted in favor of SB24-233 because they knew it was the best way to give property tax relief to Coloradans, while ensuring that education funding is protected and that local communities are still in charge of their own property taxes without state government getting in the way.
SB24-233 balances multiple important priorities to simultaneously provide responsible property tax reductions to property owners, ensure more predictability for both homeowners and businesses, protect K-12 funding, and avoid deep cuts to the local governments that provide essential community services. If measures 50 or 108 pass, SB24-233, which is already in effect, is automatically repealed.
Here are some of the key features of this law:
Institutes a 5.5 percent annual cap on property taxes for all local districts. While the cap does exclude local mill levy increases approved by voters and bond obligations, it will ensure that property taxes do not spike in the same way they did in 2020 and 2022. The flexibility is important to allow local communities the ability to balance changing economic conditions with the need to keep property owners’ taxes from rising too quickly.
Permanently reduces taxes for homeowners, especially those that need it. In addition to decreasing assessment rates, it provides an exemption to reduce the value available for taxation. 10 percent of the first $700,000 of a home's value is exempted from property taxes. This ensures that the people who are struggling the most with higher property taxes get the largest cuts. Also, instead of assessment rates going back up to 7.15 percent, they are at 6.95 percent for mills that do not go to schools.
Permanently reduces taxes for commercial property owners and owners of agricultural land. Commercial assessment rates have not budged since 1982, and Colorado’s ratio of commercial property taxes to residential property taxes is among the highest in the country. This bill permanently lowers the assessment rates for commercial property owners from 29 percent to 27.9 percent in 2024 (with a $30,000 value exemption), 27 percent in 2025, and then to 25 percent in 2026 and every year thereafter. This will save businesses
Protects funding for K-12 education. More than half of public school funding comes from property taxes, so that any time property taxes are cut, local school funding is cut. SB24-233 created a new system, whereby the assessment rates for school district mills are unchanged, so that funding for schools is kept intact. The assessment rates were only cut for non-school district mills.
Keeps property taxes and decisions local. Property taxes in Colorado are a local tax. There is no such thing as a “statewide property tax”. Property taxes are paid to counties, cities, school districts, and special districts. That way communities can respond in a way that works for them, without any one-size-fits-all mandate from the state. Communities can raise and lower mills – which would raise or lower taxes paid – as they see fit. SB-233 keeps this dynamic in place, keeping local communities in local hands.
