DENVER — As Colorado homeowners struggle to navigate rising property valuations and higher tax bills, state leaders on Monday announced a bipartisan bill to bring down property tax bills in the short term and over the next several years.
“This is huge. We’re talking about a huge property tax cut for property owners without crippling our state budget, which is where I felt we needed to get,” said Republican State Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, flanked by a group of bipartisan legislators and Governor Jared Polis. “I feel confident the state can do this without using Tabor surplus, without using general fund reserves or needing to revert back to the budget stabilization factor, this is huge.”
Legislators introduced Senate Bill 233 on Monday as the 2024 regular session winds down on what appeared to be broad agreement around a potential solution for Coloradans.
Legislators said SB24-233 would bring property tax relief to Colorado homeowners by allowing them to exempt 10% off the first $700,000 actual value of the property.
The exemption would work on a sliding scale as the property value increases above the $700,000 mark.“Let’s say you have a $1.2 million house, it knocks $70,000 off the value,” said Governor Polis. “If it’s a $400,000 house, it knocks $40,000 off,”
SB24-233 would lower the residential assessment rate for Colorado homeowners of single-family properties from an estimated 7.06% to 6.7%.
Politics
Colorado lawmakers to consider major property tax plan as session nears end
Commercial property valuations would be reduced over the next three years, according to the bill.SB24-233 states “under current law, for commercial property, the valuation assessment (valuation) is 29% of the actual property,” said the bill.
For the 2024 property tax bill, the valuation “is 27.9% of the amount equal to the actual value of the property minus the lesser of $30,000 or the amount that causes the valuation for assessment of the property to be $1,000,”
The commercial property valuation in Colorado would drop to 25% by January 2027, according to the bill.
Legislators said the bill would reduce total property taxes in Colorado by $1.3 billion in the first year.
“We will be providing homeowners and business owners with immediate financial relief fostering economic growth across our state and providing stability in local communities,” said Senator Kirkmeyer. “This bill also balances meaningful relief while ensuring the state can maintain its fiscal health, where the state of Colorado will be able to make critical investments still in higher education, in K-12 education, in public safety well into the future.”
Colorado legislators have been scrambling since 2023 when homeowners were stunned with massive increases in property taxes after a historic bump in home values.
After Colorado voters in November said no to Prop HH, Governor Polis called a special session of the legislature to address property tax relief.
“We had a very unusual assessment period where property values went up very high double digits, 35 to 40%, that’s what puts several exclamation points on this discussion and one of the things that brought legislators together around providing relief,” said Polis during Monday’s press conference.
While Republicans in the legislature support the plan, outside conservative groups say it’s not good enough.
“We’ve waited four years for a long-term solution. This is definitely not it,” said Michael Fields with Advance Colorado. “There’s not real residential property tax relief in this bill.”
Fields said they plan to continue pushing ballot measures, Initiatives #50 and #108, which would provide more aggressive cuts to property taxes.
“Our measures are two pages long, they cut and cap property taxes, very simple,” said Fields. “People supported it and that's why if the legislature can't do anything in the next two days we're going to continue forward.”
But some lawmakers say those initiatives would harm the state.
“I've been very clear that I think Initiatives 50 and 108 would be extremely damaging to the state,” said Hansen. “It basically copies the mistakes that California made three decades ago, that has led to huge problems for them for local services and their K-12 funding.”
Initiative #50 has already qualified for November's ballot.
Fields said they are still collecting signatures for Initiative #108.
The Colorado legislature has until May 8, the end of the 2024 legislative session to pass SB24-233.
Senate President Steve Fenberg said he did not believe there would need to be a special session to address property tax relief.
To read the full text of SB24-233, click this link.
