Re-Bruce, Part II

By The Daily Sentinel
Wednesday, April 01, 2009

The Mesa County commissioners apparently spooked Democrats in the Legislature when they talked of school districts “re-Brucing” to make up for the mill-levy freeze.

The Mesa County commissioners alerted us to the fact that they had a plan to get taxpayers in the rest of the state to subsidize their schools. We're not spooked, in fact we expect politicians from Mesa County to look for new ways of getting the rest of the state to subsidize them.

The School Finance Act, introduced in the Legislature this week, includes a provision to penalize school districts that re-Bruce in an attempt to reduce their property taxes. The legislation also includes new student-monitoring requirements for school districts that approve changes related to the mill-levy freeze.

It doesn't penalize the school districts, it just says we won't make everybody else in the state pay more to make up the difference. If people in Grand Junction want to pay less for their schools why should everyone else in the state have to pay more for their schools? If we reward that kind of thing, they'll decide not to pay anything for their schools and we'll have to pay all of it.

It was Colorado Attorney General John Suthers who noticed the measures, buried within the lengthy school finance bill, and alerted the public and GOP lawmakers to them.

Interesting. Colorado's Attorney General sees his jobs as supporting Republican legislators rather than upholding the laws of the state.

Now, Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry is hoping he can strike a compromise with Democrats about the provision.

We hope he’s successful. Voters in school districts around the state should have the option — without penalizing their school districts — of making it clear they never intended to raise property taxes when they approved overrides to TABOR revenue limits.

And there's nothing in the school finance act that would increase their property taxes. This is about what happens when they lower their property taxes. If people in the school district lower the property taxes they pay for their schools, does everyone else in the state have to pay more to make up the difference.

That was the case for years, until the Legislature passed the mill-levy freeze in 2007. It prevented school districts’ mill levies from dropping as their assessed valuations increased. That effectively raised taxes in 174 school districts statewide. The Supreme Court ruled last month that the mill-levy freeze didn’t violate TABOR.

The reasoning here is that not letting people in Grand Junction lower their property tax rates is actually a property tax increase. They say it's an increase because if the value of a person's home goes up, the amount of tax they pay goes up.

Oddly, the Mesa County Commissioners think that's just fine when it comes to paying property taxes to support their county. They just don't like it when it applies to paying property taxes to support their schools. What's the difference? A subsidy. If the Mesa County Commissioners cut their own property taxes, they lose money.

But they were hoping that if they cut their property taxes for schools, we'd force taxpayers in the rest of the state to increase their subsidy of the Grand Junction schools to make up the difference.

In response, the Mesa County commissioners suggested School District 51 should “re-Bruce” — reinstate the provisions that allow the mill levy to drop as the district’s assessed valuation increases.

We argued last week that putting such a question to voters should be a decision of the District 51 School Board, not the county commissioners. And, even though members of the School Board don’t seem inclined to push such an approach, we believe they ought to have the option.

But with language included in the School Finance Act, they would be penalized for doing so.

School funding comes from both local property taxes and the state general fund. The school-finace language says if school districts vote to re-Bruce, they won’t get any additional state funding. Whatever money they cut in local property taxes will be deducted from the school district’s budget.

Is that a radical concept. You cut the taxes you pay so your school district has less money to spend?

Additionally, any school district that votes to re-Bruce would face new requirements for reporting to the state and for boosting student achievement, mandates that other school districts wouldn’t have to meet.

This is something the Senate put into the bill and it does seem unfair. We might take it out in the House.

We’re all for doing things to improve student achievement, but these requirements are clearly punitive, designed to treat school districts differently if they try to overcome the mill-levy freeze.

We don’t think many school districts will try to do that in the current economic crisis. But, with the School Finance Act, the Legislature is telling voters in 174 school districts, “We raised your property taxes without your permission, and we’re going to do everything we can to prevent you from reducing them.”

Not really. The provision they're talking about said that if the voters in a school district voted to let the district keep the money it gets from the existing property tax rate, the district can keep it.

The provision in this year's bill just says that if you lower your property taxes we won't force everyone else in the state to pay more to make up the difference.

That’s not exactly the way to promote trust in government.

Actually, it's exactly the way to promote trust in government.