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Get the facts on Initiative 50, a deceptive measure that delivers big tax cuts to wealthy homeowners and big corporations but that do very little for seniors, the middle class, small businesses, or rural Coloradans.

Initiative 108 would force $3 billion in cuts right away, and increase those cuts over time, with absolutely no plan to replace that revenue for our schools, roads, libraries, parks, and other local services.

These proposals will tie funding for local public services to property values in other parts of the state. 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.

At the end of Colorado’s 2024 legislative session, 92 out of 100 legislators passed a law to permanently cap and cut property taxes for businesses and homeowners. It also protects funding for schools and other local districts.

SB24-233, the Bipartisan Property Tax Policy, was a breakthrough after years of emergency actions and partisan bickering over property taxes.

“Ballot Initiative 50 is pretty problematic. I think when people understand the full impact of that initiative, I am predicting that it will not pass.”

— Republican State Senator & Minority Whip Cleave Simpson

“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.”

— Republican State Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer

“[…] we once again are putting everybody in the same box. We are cookie cutter all the way, and I don’t think that’s fair because you might have exceeded growth, large revenue gains in Denver metro, and that means rural Colorado is going to have to abide by this.”

— Republican Assessor of Las Animas County Jodi Amato

“These measures, if passed, will have far-reaching and detrimental effects on the ability of county governments to serve their residents. This includes critical services like law enforcement, fire protection, EMS and transportation.“

— Republican County Commissioner Dan Williams (Teller) and Democratic County Commissioner Tamara Pogue (Summit)

“Quite simply, Initiative 50 is like giving a machine gun to a monkey. I hope the backers pull it.”

— Jon Caldera, president of the Independence Institute

One of the earliest and most vocal opponents to the proposed ballot measure has been the Denver-based Bell Policy Center, which likens the series of ballot measures lining up as setting the stage for a fiscal “train wreck.”

“I just feel like this measure is mugging the state and we have no money in our wallets. This is not serious public policy. It is deeply concerning,” said Scott Wasserman, president at the Bell Policy Center, a progressive think tank.

An estimate provided to the group expects the measure would blow a $2.8 billion hole in local government revenues, one that would only worsen over time. Wasserman has a sense of what gets cut first in the state budget — higher education — to the point that the state might be forced to shut down a college or university.

One of the biggest problems with the measure is that it rigidly caps from the top down a funding source that around 3,500 distinct local governments, school districts, and special districts use across the state, Wasserman said.

“Property taxes are local taxes and I object to the idea that the entire state gets a say on whether a local district can or can’t raise a local mill levy. We are going down an increasingly slippery slope,” he warned.

In late January, Colorado’s bipartisan tax commission took an informal poll among its 19 members to gauge support for the dozen or so ideas they’d been discussing to deliver tax relief to homeowners.

One emerged as a clear loser: a cap on property tax revenue growth.

The concept — backed by influential conservative and business groups outside the Capitol — ranked among the lowest of any proposal among the committee’s members, garnering strong opposition from Republicans and Democrats alike.

“Hard caps are a terrible idea,” Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat and chair of the commission, told The Colorado Sun in an interview…

Colorado’s budget director laid out a list of actions the state could have to take — including higher-education funding cuts that could lead to “consolidation of campuses or closure of campuses” — if a pair of property-tax-cut ballot initiatives pass in November.

Speaking to the Commission on Property Tax, Office of State Planning and Budgeting Director Mark Ferrandino said state officials would have to cut the $17 billion general-fund budget between $2.25 billion and $3 billion annually if voters approve Initiatives 50 and 108. Initiative 50 would cap annual statewide growth of property tax revenues at 4%, and Initiative 108 would cut tax-assessment rates for both residential and commercial property and require the state backfill local governments for money they lose due to the measure.

Members of the appointed commission expressed both surprise and concern at the level of cuts the state would have to undertake to bring down its budget, and they prodded Ferrandino about potential alternatives such as cutting Medicaid funding. Some local officials on the commission said they believed that even the full list of proposals would not leave them whole via backfill.

If [initiative 108] passes, [Governor’s Budget Director Mark] Ferrandino told the state Property Tax Commission last week that Colorado could see the return of the K-12 school funding shortfall, $800 million in cuts to higher education, a $450 million cut to local highway funding and layoffs in the state judiciary. Medicaid providers — far from getting the reimbursement bumps needed to keep clinics open — would be at risk of closures and further consolidation, particularly in rural areas.

If Colorado voters approve a November ballot measure cutting property taxes by $3 billion, the governor’s budget director says the legislature would have to make draconian cuts to balance the state’s finances.

Colorado could see the return of the budget stabilization factor in K-12, $800 million in cuts to higher education, a $450 million cut to local highway funding and layoffs in the state judiciary. Medicaid providers — far from getting the pay bumps needed to keep clinics open — would be at risk of closures and further consolidation, particularly in rural areas.

And even that wouldn’t be enough to cover a projected $3 billion hole, Mark Ferrandino, the director of the Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting, told the bipartisan Property Tax Commission on Friday.

“None of these are good decisions,” Ferrandino said. “These are all bad decisions. We will have to make ones like this if (Initiative) 108 were to pass.”

Colorado’s nonpartisan Legislative Council Staff conducted a fiscal summary of Initiative 108 and found that it would force cuts at the local level of $3 billion per year, force the state to reimburse them, without any replacement for the revenue at the state level. This is the core deception of Initiative 108.

Teller County Commissioner Dan Williams, a Republican, and Summit County Commissioner Tamara Pogue, a Democrat, join up to talk about the threats to local communities presented by Initiatives 50 and 108.