It’s the people, the places and the can-do culture that have always made Colorado special. Looking back on my time in business and civic life, there is one other key ingredient in our state’s collective success through all these years — the ability of our civic and political leaders to find reasonable, common-sense solutions to the major challenges facing the people of our state.

On the issues that deeply matter to the citizens, time and time again, Colorado has come together and charted a balanced, reasonable approach that rejects the extremes and carries the best interests of the people forward.

It is those very words — balance, common sense, reasonable — that best describes an effort to reform Colorado’s property tax system that will appear on the ballot this November. I urge Colorado to vote “yes” for both ballot measures.

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For the last four years, our elected leaders have tried — but mostly failed — to address a massive surge in property tax that’s crushing small businesses, driving the elderly and working class from their homes and pushing the dream of homeownership farther and farther out of reach for young professionals. Leasing homes or apartments is not a viable alternative as property taxes directly increase the price of rent.

How we got to this point is worth understanding. For the better part of 20 years, Colorado’s population has grown rapidly. Unfortunately, new housing opportunities have not kept pace as a supply-demand imbalance has consistently driven up home values. In 2020, Colorado voters repealed the Gallagher Amendment, a constitutional limit that forced the state to increase property taxes on main street businesses but capped property taxes on homes. Repealing Gallagher prevented another tidal wave of tax increases on businesses, but the repeal ended a tax shelter for homeowners. Since 2020, low-interest mortgage rates boosted demand for more housing but new construction continues to lag, causing property values to surge even higher. With no tax cap in place, property taxes have increased as rapidly as home values — by 25%, 50% and even 70% in this one year alone. 

The property tax mess has become a national storyline. A New York Times headline trumpeted “40% property tax increases” here, and Politico said the mess has caused a “tax rebellion,” even in a state that has turned reliably Democratic.

This November, voters get a chance to fix what the legislature hasn’t.

Two ballot measures on the ballot would reduce property taxes back to their 2022 level, and cap future property tax revenue increases at 4%. To know how this measure will impact you, a good short cut is to look back to your property tax bill from 2022 — that’s about what you’ll return to if these measures pass.

For local schools and fire districts who fund operations with property taxes, these ballot measures are fair and responsible. They eliminate the huge spike in property taxes paid in 2024, but still allow districts to fund their organizations at 2022 levels — which were the highest in state history — plus 4% into the future.

There are bureaucracies and interest groups who want to keep every dime of this property tax increase, which is their right but irresponsible. With these ballot measures, property tax collections will grow from $12.7 billion in 2022 to $14.8 billion in 2024 to $16.6 billion in 2030, according to analysis from Colorado Concern. These ballot measures slow the rate of property tax increases over time. Even Tim Foster, who adeptly ran the state’s system of higher education for many years, has denounced partisans who allege these measures won’t adequately fund our colleges, schools and health care systems. They will.

How do these numbers compare with what will happen to property taxes if we do nothing? Even with all the various watered-down laws passed by the legislature, property taxes will still grow from $12.7 billion in 2022 to more than $20 billion in the next six years. That’s fully $4 billion more in property taxes paid by the people of this state if these ballot measures do not pass.

Colorado’s success through the years has been a function of our ability to find balance on the issues that truly matter. Two ballot measures that would return property taxes to a responsible level and cap them into the future are crafted in that grandest tradition of this balance.

Bruce Benson is the former president of the University of Colorado, the institution’s longest serving president in 65 years, and longtime Colorado business executive who is a member of the Colorado Business Hall of Fame. He is past chairman Metropolitan State College of Denver board and past chairman of the Denver Public Schools Foundation Board.