Colorado: Colorado Supreme Court

Avoiding further chaos for an already-strapped state budget, the Colorado Supreme Court today ruled that a 2007 law that allowed local property taxes to grow did not violate the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.

The seven-member court overturned a May 2008 district court ruling that said the law, which kept local mill-levy rates from going down, violated TABOR's requirement that voters approve any additional tax increases.

The court flatly rejected that argument advanced by opponents of the law, which included the Mesa County Board of Commissioners. The court said that was because voters in 174 of the state's 178 school districts had voted to cast off limitations under TABOR, allowing them to keep property tax revenues.

The Colorado Supreme Court has delayed its ruling on a controversial property tax increase for months, and at a Wednesday breakfast speech, Attorney General John Suthers speculated about the reasons for the delay.

Speaking before the Colorado Civil Justice League, a statewide tort reform coalition, an audience member asked Suthers when he expects the Colorado Supreme Court to rule on a controversial case concerning a Democrat-championed property tax increase ruled unconstitutional by a lower court.

"Something strange is going on over there," Suthers said. "That decision should have been made five months ago."

The question prompted Suthers to speculate about whether Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey, one of the court's staunchest liberals, was holding up the decision because she was attempting to persuade fellow justices to support the tax increase.

A proposed 2010 ballot measure appears to roll back property tax actions passed after 1992, but legislators aren't sure because they say the language is confusing.

"Honestly, I don't what they're trying to do here," Rep. Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, said after reading the proposal.

Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction and Senate minority leader, said: "I'm torn. I love tax cuts, but I have a longstanding policy against run-on sentences and non sequiturs in the Constitution."

Other lawmakers who reviewed it said the authors might be unwittingly giving undocumented immigrants the right to vote. That's because it allows Coloradans to vote on property tax issues in any district where they own taxable property.

Amid the hand-wringing over cuts to vital programs this year, a small group of lawmakers has been quietly mulling over an effort to undo one of the key constraints on the state budget.

And they have found new hope in a legal opinion that says their target, known as the Arves-choug-Bird limit, is not protected by the state constitution.

Named after the lawmakers who sponsored the legislation in 1991, the provision limits growth in spending from the state's general fund — the pot of money from which most operating needs are drawn — to no more than 6 percent a year.

With few exceptions, the provision prohibits any money collected beyond the limit from going to operating needs — the ongoing costs of state government to run prisons, schools, colleges, health care and social services.