The bottom line on the Legislature’s latest attempt at property tax relief is it doesn’t do much. Cobbled together in desperation and rolled out this week amid the frenzied final days of the 2024 session, it’s more or less as underwhelming as prior versions.

Then again, lawmakers probably wouldn’t have bothered to come up with any iteration of relief if not for a looming citizens initiative that will be on November’s ballot.

That proposal eclipses anything that has come out of the Legislature and — given its likely appeal to voters amid skyrocketing property taxes — has lawmakers running scared. They are loath to rein in the state’s burgeoning budget, so they are pitching property-tax relief lite, instead.

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The ballot proposal, by the advocacy group Advance Colorado, means business. It would reset property values to 2022 levels, limit annual increases in property tax bills to 4%, and lower residential and commercial assessment rates that are used to help calculate tax bills.

The bipartisan legislative plan, unveiled at the Capitol on Monday as Senate Bill 24-233, pales by comparison.

Perhaps foremost, it does nothing to roll back the 19%-to-25% surges in property-tax bills that stunned Colorado homeowners this spring. Meaning, the Legislature’s plan, which likely will be approved by the House on Wednesday, the session’s last day, doesn’t fix damage already done.

Its 5.5% cap on annual increases in property tax bills is not only less aggressive than the ballot issue’s 4% cap but in fact is nearly meaningless given its loopholes. The legislation exempts property taxes collected for schools — which consume most of the average homeowner’s property tax bill — as well as for home-rule cities.

And other local governments would be able to evade the cap as well so long as their governing bodies — not the voting public — approve any mill-levy hikes at public meetings. All would do so, no doubt.

The property-tax assessment rates actually would rise for residential property, to 7.15% for schools and to 6.95% for property taxes other than for schools or home-rule cities.

The ballot proposal, by contrast, would lower residential assessment rates to around 5.7% to roll back property values to 2022 levels.

The legislation offers homeowners a sweetener — a 10% reduction in the assessment value of a home up to its first $700,000 in value. A growing number of middle-class Front Range homes exceed that, however, and the savings per household is capped at only $70,000.

The assessment rate on commercial property will be pared slightly under the legislation, from the current 27.9% to 27% next year, 26% in 2026 and 25% in 2027. Arguably, that’s better than nothing — and was used to enlist buy-in from some Colorado business groups.

Even so, heavyweight business group Colorado Concern’s President Dave Davia said the reduction doesn’t represent “material tax relief” for home or business owners.

Lawmakers did relent on one point that had been a recurring feature of their previous versions of tax relief. SB 24-233 no longer seeks to claim part of taxpayers’ TABOR refunds, supposedly to “backfill” local governments that might be shortchanged on property tax revenue under the legislation. The Legislature seems to have realized that piece of their earlier proposals just wouldn’t fly because it would essentially make taxpayers foot the bill for their tax relief.

We’ll say it again: Lawmakers had their chance at bat on property tax relief and struck out. Come November, it’ll be voters’ turn not to settle for what lawmakers pitched them this week.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board