A state panel charged with finding long-term relief from Colorado’s skyrocketing property taxes had better not settle for a mere “Version 2.0” of the ineffectual relief-lite that was ginned up by last fall’s special legislative session.

If it does, hard-pressed taxpayers are likely to give up waiting for the state to take meaningful action — and opt instead for a statewide ballot proposal to get the job done.

The unheralded Commission on Property Tax, which is scheduled to issue a report with its proposals to the Legislature on Friday, was created by lawmakers during the special session in November. The forgettable, four-day session ended up yielding only a smidgen of relief even though it was supposed to atone for Proposition HH — the bait-and-shaft tax hike disguised as a tax cut that Colorado voters rejected by an 18-point margin only weeks earlier on Nov. 7.

Stay up to speed: Sign up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

The session’s handiwork essentially recapped the marginal cuts of HH — lowering the residential assessment rate for the 2023 tax year by a sliver of a percentage point and allowing homeowners to exempt $55,000 of their home’s value from taxation.

Even more disappointing, those minor tweaks were only for one year — i.e., the property tax bills that went out to homeowners and businesses in January — so a longer-term fix still is needed in any event. The creation of the commission as lawmakers’ final act before they walked out the door at the end of the special session was supposed to provide that fix.

Will it succeed? A recent report by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce’s news service doesn’t offer much hope.

Stakeholder groups supporting a far-reaching alternative that could land on next fall’s ballot have urged the commission to come aboard. The groups’ pending citizens ballot initiative would roll back property assessment values and cap year-to-year increases thereafter.

But as reported by the Chamber’s Sum & Substance, the bipartisan big tent represented on the commission doesn’t seem inclined toward such bold moves. It may be more inclined toward half-measures.

One approach the panel is considering, for example, would exempt property taxes collected for schools from any cap on total annual increases. Of course, most of the average property tax bill in our state is for schools. So, that carve-out wouldn’t do much to tame the kind of 19%-to-25% surges in residential property-tax bills homeowners are seeing this year.

If the commission offers only a timid response to Colorado’s ongoing property-tax tidal wave, voters will lose patience.

As noted in the Sum & Substance report, Advance Colorado, one of the advocacy groups promoting the ballot solution, has commissioned polling showing 77% support for its proposed 4% cap on annual property-tax increases. The group wants the commission to embrace a similar tack, or the ballot initiative will continue to move forward.

The ballot question, backed not only by Advance Colorado but also by the business and civic group Colorado Concern, would reset property values to 2020 levels, limit annual increases in property taxes to 4% until a property is sold, and lower the statutory residential and commercial assessment rates that are used to help calculate total tax bills.

“I hope this group will engage,” political consultant and former state Sen. Josh Penry, working on behalf of Colorado Concern, told commission members in an appeal to them the other day.

Penry added, “If you don’t, we’ve built a common-sense approach that gives people the relief they need.”

Lawmakers and commission members — take heed.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board