Voters gave OK, lawyers at property tax trial say
By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published May 9, 2008 at 9:30 p.m.
Local voters in most of Colorado's school districts opted out of protections against property tax increases - even if they didn't know it, attorneys for Gov. Bill Ritter and the Colorado Education Department told a district court judge Friday.
The assertion came during final arguments in a suit challenging a revenue-raising measure approved by the legislature last year with Ritter's backing.
Opponents charge the measure, which freezes property tax rates in most school districts, should have gone to voters statewide under Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. The frozen rate raises the tax bill for owners of property that increased in value.
Statewide, the increase is more than $117 million this year.
The attorneys backing Ritter and the education department told Judge Christina Habas that the elections already occurred when voters, as early as 1995, allowed their local school districts to keep all revenue collected beyond caps set in TABOR.
Several school board members testified during the trial that voters in their districts were told the ballot items would not raise taxes. The assurances were sometimes contained in literature sent to voters by the school district.
But those assurances were not legally binding, said John Mill, representing the education department.
"They have no relevance under law," Mill said.
Richard Westfall, an attorney representing plaintiffs, argued that the local votes were not good enough. The measure to increase revenue needed a statewide vote, he said, since it altered the state school finance act, which governs all 178 Colorado school districts.
He noted that the local votes were in the books for years before anyone concluded they permitted a tax increase.
"Doesn't this require a complete suspension (of disbelief)? That everyone has been getting it wrong for over a decade?" Westfall asked.
Habas set no deadline for a ruling, but indicated it could be several weeks.
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May 10, 2008
11:13 a.m.
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otterjill writes:
I'd say that this is unbelievable, but it really isn't. I suppose a better word would be disgusting.
May 10, 2008
3 p.m.
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lissmth writes:
It is this kind of twisting and deceit that gives politicians and lawyers a bad name. State Treasurer Cary Kennedy (a lawyer and a politician) dreamed this all up. Remember that next time she asks for your vote, and just say, "No." She is devious and dishonest.
People like Kennedy smile to your face and stab you in the back. That's exactly what she and her Democrat comrades have done to the voters.