Steve Pomerance

The Boulder City Council is considering forming a Downtown Development Authority (DDA). This entity would be run by downtown property owners and have the power to use tax-increment financing (TIF) to fund improvements in downtown. The theory is that the DDA’s improvements would increase property and/or sales tax from this area, so it should be able to collect this increment to finance public improvements. The DDA’s board would make the decisions within the limits of Boulder’s zoning and other regulations, and state law. DDA’s are potentially useful in areas where there is a lot of development potential and attendant public infrastructure needs. But that is not the case in Boulder, where our downtown is mostly built out, and whose business success is more a function of the quality of the experience of residents, tourists and employees who come there but live outside of this area. A significant concern is that what the downtown property owners want may not be what the rest of Boulder...

I was surprised by a recent move in our Legislature by some Democrats who are pursuing House Joint Resolution 25-1023. This resolution, if passed by both houses, would initiate a lawsuit in state court to invalidate Article X, Section 20, of our state constitution, commonly known as TABOR. Their objective apparently is to disempower our ability to vote on state-level tax increases, a power that we voted for ourselves over three decades ago. They want to do this without having to put it on the ballot so we get the final say. The politicians’ position is based on the U.S. Constitution’s Article IV, the “Guarantee Clause,” which requires that states have “a Republican Form of Government.” Their argument is that this does not include “direct democracy,” like citizen-sponsored initiatives. Although the resolution specifically targets TABOR, this could end up being applied to other direct democracy votes, because the arguments would be the same. My first research was to look at which states ...

The Legislature, the Governor, and Advance Colorado and Colorado Concern, the groups behind Initiatives 50 and 108, struggled to write a bill in the special session to reduce property taxes further than the 2024 session’s SB24-233. The stimulus was the increased property tax burden that resulted from rapidly increasing property values in many areas of the state. They accomplished that goal, a bill was passed and the groups pulled their initiatives from the ballot. That was good work. But unfortunately, there are still some fundamental problems with the tax structure that have not been addressed. So, I expect that these issues will reemerge down the road. Our local and state governmental entities are mostly funded in five fundamental ways: income/capital gains tax, sales tax, property tax, fees and Federal grants. Fees may be for operating costs (charged per unit and based on cost, like for water treatment and delivery) or for capital facilities needed because of growth (charged based o...

I’ve spent weeks trying to decipher the effects of the Proposition HH ballot measure. I’ve read the state Blue Book, much of the legislation and multiple articles (CPR.org has one of the best). Here are my observations to date, though the principles underlying its structure elude me. The stimulus for Prop HH was the rapid increase in property taxes in high-demand areas over the last few years. This bump was mostly due to the shift to remote work stimulated by the pandemic, resulting in people moving to desirable locations, like Colorado’s Front Range and resort areas, thus pushing real estate prices up rapidly. For context, per WalletHub.com, 2019 (pre-pandemic) Colorado was ranked the 11th best state for low-income people in tax burden as a percentage of income, 10th best for middle-income people and 14th best for high-income. Apparently, Colorado was not overtaxing people. In 2023, for overall tax burden, Colorado ranked 24th best state of 50. So, our governments’ taxes are now in th...