Property tax increase on the horizon?
Published June 17, 2008 by CSBJ Staff
During this afternoon’s State of the City address, Mayor Lionel Rivera said that Colorado Springs should consider shifting funding for public safety from sales tax revenue to “more stable” property tax revenue.
“It may be a more difficult pill to swallow, but there is no question that it’s the right medicine,” Rivera said.
However, such a shift would appear to necessitate a substantial property tax increase.
According to the city’s 2008 budget, Colorado Springs expects to collect $21.5 million in property taxes.
The budget for the police department is $73 million and the budget for the fire department is $39.9 million – which would leave a shortfall of $91.4 million if paid from current property tax revenue.
Filed under CSBJ Breaking News, Rivera, Taxes
Absolutely not!!! Property taxes are high enough as it is. The police and the firemen protect all of us, not just the homeowners…….funds should come from sales tax revenues that are paid by everyone, share and share alike.
I hate taxes in general, but given we will have some form of taxes to pay for public services I think shifting the tax burden from a sales tax to a property tax makes sense. Sales taxes are only paid by those who live here and make purchases. A lot of commercial property is owned by out-of-state purchasers who don’t pay any sales taxes, but reap the benefit of fire and police services. I would argue that a property tax would actually be a more equitable way to tax the beneficiaries of the services. Out-of-state buyers often overpay for property as well, driving up property valuations. Although higher property taxes will have a negative impact on investment, they at least will provide some benefit to the city from the same out-of-state purchasers driving up real estate values.
That being said, I don’t think it appropriate to resolve poor budgeting and a tax shortfall by making the shift from a sales tax to a property tax. Any shift should be structured to be gradual and its burden should be relatively equal to what it is under the sales tax system.
I agree that a property tax would be more stable, but I don’t like how its been presented as a fix for the city’s poor budgeting.
If $100 million is shifted from sales tax to property tax, it should equate to some sort of reduction in sales tax.
I agree with the first poster. There are many residents here who are not property owners but do have the benefit of services. Property taxes are only the “easy” answer for the Mayor not the right answer. Many city’s simply focus on citations to raise money making those foces self sutaining. I have lived and see that method work well. Most of those city’s have more then enough well paid personal who help contribute to the bottom line through the fee’s they generate. They need to stop looking out the window and start looking in the mirror.
As a point of clarification, when I used the term “shift” I mean just that. As an example; We could ask our citizens at a City election to replace the 0.4% Public Safety Sales Tax with a 5.32 mill levy. It would be the same dollar amount, but a more stable funding source.
Lionel Rivera-Mayor
Hmmmmm. I must admit that the property tax in Colorado Springs is low for the national average. One could also argue that it’s a well known fact that we pay the second lowest amount in Taxes (just ahead of Fort Collins) even though we are the second largest city in the state. The problem with tax hikes here is that most businesses are considered “small” (82%.) These employers can rarely afford to give consistent raises and the employees who work for them have limited means. Are they going to be able to afford the hike? Maybe we could find a way to pay city council members a competitive salary. This would not only make the positions more competitive but we could vote people in who have experience in dealing with such huge community issues and they would work full time to boot! Right now we have the rich and/or retired folks on the council because they can actually afford to get paid the peanuts that we give them for the position. Don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent leaders on the council (Jan Martin) but unfortunately, I don’t see how we can grow and evolve without a full time and deservingly paid council. Let’s bring in efficiency experts that will go through our city and find any slack that is tying up (or wasting) funds. Tabor passed because the citizens were concerned that the city wasn’t managing our money and taxes properly. Now the city is countering with the fact that they are now in the hole. Where is the middle ground and as citizens do we feel that our money has been managed properly?
Perhaps the mayor and his ilk should be better stewards of our money. Yes Mr. Rivera, it’s OUR money not yours. As our economy retracts, we as working individuals have to tighten our belts. Perhaps the city should consider the same approach.
Really, was the road widening between Centennial and 30th Ave on GoG a prudent use of our money considering Worldcom, Agilent Technologies and Intel were cutting back employees at the time. Fewer workers, less traffic?
Chris and people like Chris are why vision is lacking in the Springs. We need to spend a little money to make a little money.
Colorado’s spending on higher education is somewhere like 50th in the US. While we have a highly educated work force, the work force is not home grown, they are from somewhere else.
So what if GoG is being made wider, one would think that maybe, just maybe, that could be some incentive perhaps for a business to take -over some of the hundreds of thousands of feet of empty space we have in that sector.
MM Mills is probably a retired military person with no kids in school and no “skin in the game” for our region. We have one of the lowest tax rates in the state and probably in the US.
Nice dialogue though. Keep it up.
I do agree with jariah on paying the mayor and city council more. It makes total sense. But, how are we going to pay for it? I know, a city council tax….JK
Perhaps I am missing something. It looks to me like the mayor is asking for a 91 million dollar tax increase in property taxes to pay for safety from property taxes. The budget for safety is 112.9 million dollars. So is there already 21.9 million in excess funds being collected in property taxes? How much is currently being collected in sales taxes to pay for safety? Where are those millions of dollars which continue to be collected going to go if they are not paying for the safety budget? Is this really a creative plan to get another 100 million dollars from us?
Colorado Springs’ natives and transplants are prone in recent years to touting our national standing, at least in terms of magazine rankings. We collectively pat ourselves on the back for a range of very legitimate ‘upsides’ to living in the city and region. We aspire–or at least we should–to become a world class city. Yet, we continue to settle for substantially less than world class infrastructure. We simply can’t have it both ways.
If we want to live in a city that can boast the kinds of services, infrastructure and lifestyle resources we want for ourselves and our children, we must find a way to pay for it. Sales tax? Hardly the kind of stable revenue model needed to think and plan strategically. Property taxes are never going to win unanimity in public opinion sweepstakes. The arguments against can be compelling.
However, it is a more stable means of developing the resources needed to build the kind of world class infrastructure we all covet.