Probably no emergency could better justify a special session of Colorado’s Legislature than the urgent need to rein in the state’s skyrocketing property taxes. Homeowners were slammed by property-tax bills that had leaped 25% or more this past spring.

Thanks to a scoop by our news team, we’ve learned such a special session now might be in the works.

As reported Monday in The Denver Gazette, the session would be part of an agreement by advocates of property-tax reform to withdraw two statewide ballot proposals that otherwise would go to voters this November. In exchange, the state’s elected leadership would — at long last — consider substantive changes in policy to ease the crushing burden on homeowners and so many other Colorado property owners. Tenants, too, would receive some relief as their rent rises with property taxes.

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

Hammering out such reform would be the mission of the special session, which would have to convene soon in order to meet deadlines for withdrawing proposals from the fall ballot.

The Gazette Editorial Board supports the two ballot proposals, as do key voices in Colorado’s business community. Both are citizens’ initiatives authored by advocacy group Advance Colorado and supported by hundreds of thousands of voters who signed petitions to place them on the state ballot.

Amendment 50 would cap future property-tax increases from year to year at 4%. It leaves wiggle room to allow local governments to keep up with growing demand for their services.

Proposition 108, still awaiting final validation of voters’ signatures by the Secretary of State’s Office, would cut property tax assessment rates to 5.7% for residential property and 24% for commercial property. It would return property tax bills to their levels of a couple of years ago.

The two proposals are reasonable and badly needed. They also have a good chance of winning the public’s support in November.

So, any legislation to emerge from a special session on the subject would have to go a long way toward accomplishing the same goals. Meaning, lawmakers couldn’t settle for yet another token half-measure that attempts merely to appease taxpayers.

Let’s not forget we’ve all been down this road before.

At the end of the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers — anticipating public outcry at the coming property-tax tidal wave — slipped through legislation that offered marginal, temporary relief to only a small slice of the public. They also placed a measure on last fall’s ballot that amounted to an insult to voters. It asked them to pay for property-tax relief using their own surplus revenue refunds to which they already were entitled. Voters overwhelmingly rejected it.

Last November, lawmakers convened in special session to do what they didn’t do the previous spring in regular session, or on their by-then-defeated ballot measure — enact real reform — and they didn’t do it again.

The latest feeble gesture at property tax relief was fast-tracked through the Legislature this past May, in the closing days of this year’s session. Once again, it was a pale imitation of real relief.

That’s why Advance Colorado moved forward with its ballot proposals — which now are bringing the legislative leadership and governor to the bargaining table. Evidently, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming.

This all could have been avoided had lawmakers been willing to prioritize the taxpaying public, for once, over the ruling party’s own insatiable thirst for growing the state government. They’ve wasted so much time, and taxpayers hardly can be blamed for being angry.

Another special session? Bring it on — but it had better deliver the real deal.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board