Were you underwhelmed by the special legislative session that was supposed to rein in our state’s skyrocketing property taxes? You were in good company. Turns out Gov. Jared Polis – who had convened the session – wasn’t much impressed, either.

He didn’t admit to it in those words, of course. Instead, as reported by Colorado Politics, the governor sent a letter to local governments statewide on Thursday, calling on them to reduce their local mill levies to provide more relief to Colorado homeowners.

Which is pretty much an acknowledgment by the governor that state lawmakers failed to do what he had gathered them to do in last month’s four-day mini-session. So, Polis now wants cities, counties and other jurisdictions to pick up the ball where the state dropped it.

As we noted here at the special session’s conclusion, precious little reining in of property taxes actually was enacted by lawmakers. The legislature, controlled by Polis’ fellow Democrats, only wound up passing a version of their Proposition HH – the bait-and-shaft tax hike disguised as a tax cut that Colorado voters rejected by an 18-point margin on the Nov. 7 ballot.

The special session was supposed to atone for that abysmal ballot proposal; instead, it fell short of even that mark. The resulting legislation signed by the governor in fact offers only a year of property-tax relief, pending a longer-term solution to be drafted by a new task force next year. It recaps the nips and tucks of HH – a slightly lower statewide assessment rate for property, and a somewhat higher amount of a home’s value that can be exempt from tax liability.

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The upshot is a typical homeowner’s property tax bill along the Front Range still will be stratospheric compared with prior years. And, unlike HH, even the minor cuts in the special session’s handiwork don’t apply to commercial, agricultural or other non-residential property.

Polis’ follow-up outreach, urging local governments to pitch in, is falling flat, as well. As Colorado Politics put it, local officials who have been wrestling with rising property taxes for years were annoyed by the governor’s message. They don’t need the governor to tell them they can tweak their mill levies to lower local tax bills. Douglas and Teller counties, for example, already have decided to reduce their mills to provide more substantial property tax relief.

State Rep. Lisa Frizell, a Republican who served as Douglas County assessor for eight years, told Colorado Politics the governor’s appeal to local governments to, in effect, “tighten their belts,” is outrageous given how he has “bloated state government.”

Leaning on local government to provide more substantial property tax relief also is problematic in other ways, not least because there are so many different kinds of local taxing entities, including myriad special districts. All of them ding homeowners’ tax bills and would have to coordinate cuts in their mill levies to implement comprehensive local tax relief.

Meanwhile, more substantial statewide tax relief proposed by citizens’ groups for next year’s ballot would roll back the assessed value of real property by a year or two and then cap annual increases in property tax bills thereafter. The caps generally would be in line with inflation.

Whether it’s the state or local governments that do the cutting, more meaningful, permanent curbs on property taxes are needed. The governor himself seems to agree.

But how to get there?

Convening lawmakers obviously didn’t work; hectoring local governments won’t help. Local and state governments alike simply will have to give up more of their coveted windfall from soaring real estate values.

Coloradans’ homes are supposed to be an investment for their owners, after all – not a cash cow for politicians.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board