The Colorado House and Senate convened for the penultimate day of the 2024 session Tuesday as they rushed to wrap up legislation on property taxes, gun regulations, housing, land-use policy, transportation and other priorities. That includes a property tax relief bill that was unveiled Monday.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
Updated at 10:40 a.m.: The bill to reform state property tax policy for the long term cleared the Senate on a 33-2 vote Tuesday morning, hitting a key milestone on its way to passage.
The proposal, Senate Bill 233, was introduced on the last possible day a bill can be introduced and still become law, meaning any snag would effectively kill it. It now needs to go through a committee vote and informal voice vote in the House today so it can be cleared for formal passage on Wednesday.
The proposal would exempt the first 10% of a residential property’s value, up to $70,000, from tax calculations and also lower the percent of that value used to calculate the money owed to local governments. According to the governor’s office, homeowners in property valued at $700,000 would owe about $300 to $400 less in property taxes under this proposal compared to current law.
It would additionally cap property tax revenue growth, though local districts can ask voters to lift that cap, and cut the assessment rate for most commercial properties.
Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat and sponsor of the bill, called it a “critical bill for Colorado” and one that emphasized the commitment to keep education funded at the level required by the state constitution. He has been a key negotiator on property tax policy for years, including chairing the committee that examined long-term reforms.
Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican and fellow sponsor, noted that without this bill, property taxes will increase. The temporary measures used to soften the sharpest increases are set to expire at the end of this tax year. And, she added, it means the state will have no answer to a pair of ballot initiatives that would institute a hard cap on property tax increases and significantly lower the assessment rate — and blow a hole in the state budget.
Those initiatives, 50 and 108, would cost an estimated $3 billion in the first year that would need to come out of the state’s $16 billion state budget, she said.
“Even if we cut those (most state) departments by half, we need to figure out where another $2 billion comes from,” Kirkmeyer said. “And that’s education and higher education. Two billion dollars in the first year cripples the state budget.”
Updated at 10:22 a.m.: Lawmakers on Monday evening finalized a bill that would backfill protections of wetlands that were erased by a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year.
The Senate approved House Bill 1379 earlier in the day and, after the House concurred with Senate amendments in the early evening, it was ready to be sent to the governor’s desk. The bill, once signed, would create a program in the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to regulate how and when wetlands and seasonal streams can be disrupted by construction activity.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year ruled that many wetlands and seasonal streams were not protected under the federal Clean Water Act. The decision left those waters with little protection in the vast majority of states, including Colorado.
The legislation passed Monday was one of two bills introduced to fill the gap in protections. The sponsors of the other bill, Senate Bill 127, negotiated changes to the House bill and agreed to let their bill die as part of a compromise.
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“It’s important that we do this right,” Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, who sponsored the Senate bill and later joined the House bill, said in a news release Saturday. “And I believe this bill helps lay the foundation to ensure that we do this right.”
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