On January 11, 2012, state senators and representatives from throughout Colorado will gather at the State Capitol in Denver to begin the 2012 legislative session, making and repealing laws, considering public policy issues, debating and adopting a budget for the expenditure of state funds and most of all, jockeying for positions that will affect their individual and party successes in the upcoming 2012 legislative elections.
Although 2011 was the off-election year of this session, there have still been a few resignations and new appointees, necessitating some changes in leadership for the upcoming year. For instance, the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Mike Kopp, has resigned to take care of his young children following the tragic loss of his wife, and Senator Bill Cadman has been elected to take Kopp’s place as Senate Minority Leader. In the House of Representatives, Representative Sal Pace, House Minority Leader, has given up his leadership position in order to concentrate more of his time to his congressional campaign. Mike Ferrandino of Denver has taken Pace’s place.
Reapportionment, with the redrawing of state legislative districts and Congressional districts, has changed the landscape significantly for a few of the legislators as they look to the 2012 elections. Senate President Brandon Shaffer of Longmont is running for the 4th Congressional District seat against Congressman Cory Gardner, and Representative Sal Pace of Pueblo is already running hard to unseat Congressman Scott Tipton in the 3rd Congressional District. With the realignment of the 6th Congressional District, Representative Joe Miklosi, and perhaps others, are running against Congressman Mike Coffman.
In statehouse seats, realignment of districts has played some pranks, such as putting two current Democrats and one Republican representative all in the same district, which will lead to some interesting maneuvering in the upcoming primary races. Representative Randy Baumgardner, a Republican from Hot Sulphur Springs, who has represented the seemingly safe district that includes Grand, Routt, and Jackson Counties, has now been put into the same district with Democratic Representative Claire Levy, of Boulder. So much for “community of interest.”
Big ticket issues facing the legislature will once again revolve around the annual budget, making the revenue stretch to cover the state’s needs and programs. A recent court decision declaring the state’s funding of K–12 education to be woefully inadequate will generate a lot of discussion and angst, because there’s not really a lot the state can do about it in light of budget constraints.
An issue that may prove to be divisive is the proposed reinstatement of the Senior Homestead Exemption. House Republicans seem determined to renew this exemption for the following year, while Governor Hickenlooper has argued that the state budget cannot afford to give up this tax source. Voters approved adding the senior homestead exemption to the State Constitution in November 2000. Under the exemption, 50 percent of up to $200,000 of a residential property’s market value is exempt from the property tax. The portion of a residential property’s value exempted from property tax is called the homestead exemption. To be eligible, homeowners must be age 65 and over and have lived in the same primary residence for the immediate prior 10 years. The exemption has been suspended in several of the past ten years. Although the exemption will result in a significant loss of property tax revenue, local governments are backfilled for the loss, so the impact is primarily on state revenues.
There are a couple of other budget-balancing measures being considered at the state level that could affect local government financing. For instance, the Division of Local Government is suggesting that the state contribution to volunteer firefighter pension funds be reduced to those fire districts whose pension funds are actuarially fully funded, and mineral impact funds are in danger of being raided to shore up state revenues. SDA will be closely monitoring these proposals for their impact on special districts.
SDA’s Legislative Committee will be meeting regularly during the legislative session, monitoring all bills and evaluating them for their affect on special districts, and will be reporting regularly on the SDA Web site (sdaco.org), and in the SDA Newsletter. As always, SDA welcomes input from members on legislative issues, and encourages members to establish contacts with local legislators, in order to be ready to contact them when necessary to inform them regarding bills of importance to special districts.
SDA’s lobbying team for this session will consist of Executive Director Ann Terry, former Executive Director, now lobbyist, Evan Goulding, and long-time lobbyist and legislative liaison for Governor Bill Ritter, Mary Kay Hogan.
