The Colorado General Assembly gaveled in this morning for what members hope will be a three-day dash of lawmaking that ends in a final truce in the long-running political fight over property tax policy.

This story will be updated throughout the day.

Updated at 6:20 p.m.: The House Appropriations Committee has advanced the primary property tax bill on a vote of 8-3. Two Democrats, Reps. Emily Sirota and Elizabeth Velasco, and Republican Rep. Scott Bottoms voted in opposition.

Supporting lawmakers argued ballot initiatives 50 and 108 posed too much of a risk, even as they took shots at the process that led to the special session. Rep. Leslie Herod, a Denver Democrat on the committee, also noted that this proposal was not about a new, substantial cut to property tax rates.

“We’re not taking down folks’ property tax bills by a substantial amount of dollars, but we are saving K-12 (schools) from, frankly, huge cuts in Denver,” Herod said. “We are saving higher education. We are saving in so many areas that, quite frankly, can’t face the cuts that are coming if those two ballot measures pass.”

Sirota, who chairs the committee, said before her no vote, “I very much regret the situation we find ourselves in.” Lawmakers had passed an assessment rate cut in May worth an estimated $1.3 billion — one that many hoped would result in the initiatives being pulled.

But the groups backing the initiatives, chiefly business advocacy organization Colorado Concern and conservative advocacy organization Advance Colorado, pulled back from that deal and continue to push the initiatives.

RELATED: Tensions simmer as Colorado lawmakers gavel into second property tax special session

Sirota noted that representatives for those groups did not testify at the committee hearing Monday. She previously had criticized them for not testifying in May, either. She called it “shameful and disrespectful to the people of Colorado that we are all here to have this conversation out in the open,” but the backers, who are essentially forcing the special session, did not appear at the committee.

Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado, said in a text message that his group sent a letter to the committee earlier and that sponsors of the compromise bill were there to answer questions on it.

“We’ve been very public during this whole process,” Fields said.

Bottoms voted against the bill, citing that he’d rather see the ballot initiatives pass this fall.

Updated at 4:37 p.m.: The House Appropriations Committee is still working, though they’re getting close to a vote on the primary property tax bill. But the late hour means that the House (which will hear the property tax bill, assuming it clears its committee vote later today) won’t hold its first of two full votes on the measure tonight.

Because of the legislature’s timeline requirements, that means this special session will stretch into at least Thursday. The Appropriations Committee has two more bills to hear after the big tax bill, too, so this group’s work will stretch a bit later into Monday evening.

Updated at 1:38 p.m.: This morning brought with it the official, nonpartisan fiscal analysis of the primary property tax deal set to be debated this week. According to that analysis, the bill would provide just under $248 million in property tax relief statewide in tax year 2025 and $271 million the year after. The state would be on the hook for backfilling — or compensating local governments and schools — for $81 million and nearly $93 million in lost revenue for those respective years.

As financial projections were refined, the potential impact came into clearer view. Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat, said an average home in an area with typical mill levies would see a reduction in the ballpark of $77 a year — though the impact will vary with local circumstances. Those reductions also may only partially offset tax growth in some areas.

Those cuts are on top of the reductions passed in May under Senate Bill 233. They also represent a sliver of the steep reductions that would’ve been instituted by Initiative 108.

Lawmakers also have proposed a dozen other measures for this week’s session, and after some technical difficulties this morning, a handful of legislative committees set about debating, advancing and killing those bills. Bills that cleared their initial committees include House Bill 1007, which provides additional relief to owners of accessible properties (“accessible” means for folks with disabilities), and House Concurrent Resolution 1. That is a proposed constitutional amendment that, if passed by voters in November, would require that any future statewide initiative affecting property taxes win local voter approval to apply to their local government.

That measure has been embraced by Democratic lawmakers and is motived by several things: a wariness with the repeated property tax wars at the legislature; a related frustration over the backroom negotiations with Colorado Concern and Advance Colorado and a desire to avoid having ballot measures used to force the legislature’s hand again; and a desire by some lawmakers to stay out of the property tax debate, given that property taxes benefit local services (not state coffers).

Republicans, though, have already voiced opposition to the bill, and Democrats will need at least one Senate Republican to back the bill to reach the supermajority threshold to send it to the voters.

Kevin Bommer, the executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, mused to lawmakers that he wanted to see “which of the usual proponents of local control will oppose giving voters the chance to decide if they want more of it. That’s what we’re talking about.”

Meanwhile, several bills died today. They included a bill to better target relief to lower-income homeowners by using a median value calculation; a proposed ballot initiative to reinstate the Gallagher Amendment; a bill to create a tax code task force; and a bill to start taxing property based on the value of the land upon which it sits.

Lawmakers in the House Appropriations Committee were still discussing the primary property tax bill early this afternoon.

Updated at 12:33 p.m.: Representatives for the organizations backing initiatives 50 and 108 sent a letter to lawmakers this morning. It reiterates the groups’ commitment to pulling those measures from the November ballot — and promising not to bring similar tax initiatives for at least six years — if the proposed framework becomes law. (Read the letter here.)

The letter was signed by Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado; Dave Davia, president of Colorado Concern; and J.J. Ament, president of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. They also reiterated that the truce requires all branches of state government not to go back on the agreement by later raising assessment rates or the cap on property tax collections, or by changing the requirements for ballot language local governments would use to seek approval to opt out of the caps.

How much the framework legislation can be changed without blowing up the deal has been a topic of consternation for lawmakers.

Sen. Chris Hansen, a sponsor of this and other property tax bills, reiterated this morning that the bill would go through the normal legislative process, including amendments, and that it ultimately would be Fields’ decision if he thinks the final version breaks the deal.

Updated at 10:26 a.m.: An hour before lawmakers formally started the special session, legislative leadership sought to stress to reporters the importance of the deal they and the governor’s office had struck with conservative and business groups backing two ballot measures that the legislators said would be “catastrophic” to state and local finances.

“What we are doing here today, at the governor’s call, is governing with great responsibility,” said House Speaker Julie McCluskie, who told colleagues Thursday that she had sought to avoid the special session. “This is a moment for us to diminish the threats of two ballot initiatives that would upend the state, that would deliver catastrophic blows to the investments we have made over these past few years, particularly to public education, to the services that are provided locally within our state, and to special districts, things like fire and emergency response.”

Legislative leaders also sought to emphasize that, though a deal had already been struck, there was still room for negotiation and for legislators to do their jobs. That claim comes as other lawmakers — particularly House Democrats — have chafed at feeling as if they’ve been called back to the Capitol to serve as “rubber stamps” for a deal already negotiated between senior leaders, the governor’s office and outside groups.

It remains to be seen how much — if any — of the deal can or will be changed, or if other legislation brought outside of the deal may imperil it, as some Republicans have said they will. House Minority Rose Pugliese, one of the sponsors of the deal with McCluskie, told The Denver Post last week that there was some wiggle room but that much of the framework should remain unchanged and that she wanted lawmakers to only focus on the deal.

Updated at 9:51 a.m.: Lawmakers have introduced a slate of bills to consider this week, though one will be what drives the Capitol for the next several days: A proposed “framework” that includes an additional cut to the state assessment rate, changes to the cap on how much local property tax revenue can grow in the future, and other tweaks. Those components have been agreed to by legislative leaders, outside conservative advocacy organizations and the governor’s office.

The proposed changes would cut statewide property tax collections by an estimated $270 million annually, on top of the $1.3 billion cut signed into law following last year’s legislative session. It would also lead the conservative group Advance Colorado to yank a pair of ballot measures that, if passed by voters in November, would force even deeper property tax cuts and enact a stricter cap on statewide property tax collections that opponents warn would devastate state and local government services.

But how the agreement was reached and how it’s being used to pull lawmakers from across the state back to the Capitol has prompted pointed criticisms and frustrations from some lawmakers.

Rep. Steven Woodrow, a Denver Democrat, referred to Advance Colorado president Michael Fields as “Gov. Fields” during a public caucus meeting where leadership previewed the special session for House Democrats.

Sen. Chris Hansen, a key architect of this and other property tax bills going back years, said at a Sunday caucus meeting of Senate Democrats that the special session is “fundamentally a failure of (Advance Colorado and Colorado Concern) to negotiate in April and May.”

He called the new proposal a “relatively small change from (last session’s bill) that completely eliminates the risk of two catastrophic ballot initiatives.”

The Denver Democrat also told lawmakers that they’re not confined to what’s in the proposal, either.

“We have negotiated a framework that both sides felt was doable, but we now go into a different phase of the discussion, which is with the 100 members of the General Assembly,” Hansen said. He added that he thinks it will be “an open question” whether Advance Colorado supports the measure up until it reaches the governor’s desk.

For his part, Fields said in an email: “Coloradans deserve real property tax relief and we are confident that this will get done this week during special session.”

Heading into the first day, it’s clear the framework does not have the unequivocal support of the Democratic majorities. At the very least, lawmakers said they’re still working to understand the proposal fully. Democratic Sens. Janice Marchman and Chris Kolker, of Loveland and Centennial, are hosting a public study session of the bill at 5 p.m. today so that lawmakers can talk through the proposal and ask questions of legislative analysts. Public comment will be reserved for the committee hearings.

Kolker has already flagged “serious concerns” that the draft bill would result in homeowners with properties valued at less than $600,000 seeing increases in the property taxes they owe over the first year of its implementation. But owners of properties valued at $2 million or more would see decreases.

The proposal will need to speed through the legislative process if lawmakers want to finish in three days — the minimum amount of time for a bill to pass. To hit that timeframe, lawmakers plan to formally introduce the main bill Monday and hold its first committee hearing and full floor debate that same day.

On Tuesday, the bill will need to formally pass the House and then go to the Senate for a committee hearing and floor debate in that chamber. On Wednesday, the Senate will need to formally vote on the bill, and then the two chambers will need to reconcile any differences on it.

The public will be able to comment on the proposal at the committee meetings.

Any snag in debate or behind-the-scenes negotiations could stretch the special session further.

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Originally Published: August 26, 2024 at 9:51 a.m.