Face The State Staff Report
Under intense public pressure to maintain a city requirement that all proposed spending increases go to a vote of the people, the Colorado Springs City Council has decided to draft ballot language for a TABOR revision instead of a full repeal.
Colorado Springs: Birthplace of TABORcpt.spock/Flickr
At an informal Monday night meeting, the council met to discuss a possible revision to the city's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, known as TABOR. The move comes amidst growing concerns about budget cuts and after recommendations made by the Sustainable Funding Committee, usually referred to as the SFC.
At a meeting in early January the SFC presented the City Council with three funding "solutions": a full repeal of the city TABOR, keeping a taxpayer property tax refund, and an indefinite extension of a mill levy tax scheduled to sunset in 2009.
Colorado Springs is the only municipal government in the state to operate under both a statewide TABOR, passed in 1992, and a citywide TABOR passed in 1991. TABOR, both at the state and local levels, is a restriction on government spending that requires city governments to put all proposed tax increases to a public vote. The spending cap imposed on the city is directly related to inflation and population growth but also counts federal grants as city revenue. This means the upcoming stimulus package from President-elect Barack Obama could put Colorado Springs over its spending limits.
TABOR critics and supporters alike agree that this provision of TABOR should be changed to allow for the influx of federal capital for development projects.
Former Senate Minority Leader and city resident Andy McElhany has been a public supporter of a city TABOR revision but opposes a full repeal in favor of a modification allowing for the federal funds.
"Currently there are problems like the immediate issue of the federal stimulus package that would count against the TABOR cap and make it impossible to accept the stimulus money," said McElhany. "What we need to do is amend the charter so that federal funds don't count against the TABOR limit so we can take stimulus funds for city projects without doing away with TABOR."
After hearing about a potential TABOR repeal being placed before voters on an April ballot, several groups launched into action to defend TABOR in its own birthplace.
Sean Paige, a former editorial page editor for the Colorado Springs Gazette, leads Local Liberty Action, a local non-profit dedicated to smaller government. He has teamed up with Americans For Prosperity, the Colorado Union of Taxpayers and several other groups to defend the city's spending limit.
Paige thinks public pressure to preserve TABOR has worked, as evidenced by the sudden change of heart at Monday's meeting.
"I think the coalition deserves a lot of credit for putting a lot of pressure on City Council in a very short period of time," said Paige. "Only two weeks ago did it become apparent that a repeal effort was underway. We successfully averted a repeal attempt."
Paige also jokingly pointed out the recent State of the State speech by Gov. Bill Ritter, helped their cause by taking away their opponents' argument that a statewide TABOR is enough to protect taxpayers.
In his State of the State speech Ritter said, "There is also an opportunity here — a chance to address TABOR and the constitutional and statutory straitjacket that makes modern, sensible and value-based budgeting an impossibility."
"I'd like to thank Gov. Ritter for helping us save TABOR in Colorado Springs," said Paige. "If he hadn't attacked it in his State of the State address we might have not been so successful."
The council will meet again on January 27th to vote on the proposed ballot language, which has yet to be released.