By Lindy J. Gwinn, Mountain Valley News staff
Executive Director of Club 20 Reeves Brown said at the Delta County Municipal Quarterly Meeting that Club 20 opposes November ballot initiatives 101, 60 and 61 because it will put a strain on smaller governmental budgets.
“People tend to look at these initiatives in the way that it will personally impact them. The fact is, even if these initiatives pass, people will end up paying this money in increased fees and taxes in other places later anyway,” said Brown.
“Governments are going to have to come up with these funds anyway, one way or another, otherwise they are going to have to cut services,” said Brown.
“Club 20 opposes all three of these initiatives, however, we support efforts to make governments be efficient and accountable with funds across the board,” said Brown.
The municipalities in Delta County are very concerned about how these amendments and proposition 101 will impact the things they now have planned and future impacts to capitol improvements.
Proposition 101 reduces Colorado state income tax to 3.5 percent from the current 4.63 percent. That reduction equates to an approximate $1.2 billion reduction. It also proposes the elimination of the specific ownership tax on vehicles, and approximate $500 million dollar cut to schools and other local revenue.
Proposition 101 includes a clause to reduce vehicle registration to a flat $10 fee, translating to a $375 million cut to local road and bridge funds. It may also trigger a $535 million dollar reduction in federal Medicaid funds to the state of Colorado.
Amendment 60, if passed, would enact a 50 percent reduction in school district mill levies with a required state backfill. Amendment 60 would require enterprises and authorities to pay property tax. The amendment would also repeal local property tax (de-brucing), which would take away local voter decisions about tax issues and limits future property tax increases to ten years.
Amendment 61 would prohibit all levels and divisions of government from bonding, lease purchasing and anticipating revenue, even if they have the authority to do so.
“Cedaredge just put two new police cars under a lease purchase agreement and we would not have been able to purchase those vehicles if this amendment had been passed,” said Cedaredge Town Administrator, Katie Sickles.
“We have several projects we are trying to plan for and move forward with that will be impacted if these initiatives pass in November. We have a major street improvement project that could be seriously impacted if this passes,” said Mayor of Cedaredge, Pat Means.
Paonia Mayor Neil Swiederman said that Paonia has a couple of projects as well that could be significantly impacted if these measures pass.
