Proposed bill aims to keep more money in cities for roads and bridges

To provide more money to cities to improve transportation issues, state Sen. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge, has introduced Senate Bill 100, which requires counties to notify cities before they change the road and bridge mill levy.

The levy provides counties and cities with money to address road concerns.

The bill generally opposed by counties and supported by cities went to the Senate Transportation Committee for discussion on Feb. 23. Representatives of counties, cities and other interested parties can offer their insights and opinions for possible revisions before it moves forward. Jahn is meeting with stakeholders this week, and the bill will then return to the transportation committee. From there, it would go to the Senate floor and then to a House committee before a vote in the House.

State law requires counties to charge a property tax on commercial and residential properties for their road and bridge funds as part of counties’ annual budgets. Counties also have a road and bridge mill levy –; separate from the property tax that they can raise or lower as road conditions require.

The county-city split of road and bridge funds is supposed to be 50-50. But counties can reduce the road and bridge mill levy without letting municipalities know, which Jahn said is a problem because that reduces the amount of funds municipalities can access.

In Jefferson County alone, Jahn said, this resulted in municipalities losing $ 11.3 million in 2015 that could have been spent addressing transportation needs.

Counties lower the levy for a variety of reasons, including small changes to keep themselves TABOR compliant.

“I think the taxpayer has been duped a little,” Jahn said. “Many people think the money in the road and bridges fund is going to their municipalities. But in many places around the state, municipalities don’t receive any road and bridge funds, and it’s just not right.”

Jahn’s proposed bill stops counties from reducing the rate of the levy unless all municipalities in that county are notified. Then, a majority of those municipalities must consent to the reduction or the county must make an annual additional payment to each municipality to compensate for lost revenues.

This bill essentially would give municipalities more control over money to address their own transportation issues, and require counties to collaborate with municipalities on shared transportation funding solutions.

“Cities have budgets that need to be accounted for in all of this,” Jahn said. “It’s absolutely about fairness and making sure these funds make it to municipalities.”

But Jefferson County commissioners and a statewide county organization oppose Jahn’s proposed bill, Jefferson County Commissioner Libby Szabo said. The commissioners have more information than municipalities, which allow them to make better decisions on the rates, she explained.

“When we do our budget process, it’s a very big responsibility to do what is best for the taxpayers, which is what they rightly expect,” Szabo said. “We look at what rates are best at the time based on the needs we see based on the information we have.”

The rate changes almost every year based on the economic situation, she added, but there are years when it doesn’t –; several of the recession years saw no change.

Cities throughout the state –; including Arvada, Colorado Springs, Lakewood and Westminster –; favor the bill, said Kevin Bommer, deputy director of the Colorado Municipal League.

“There is supposed to be a state-local partnership on these issues,” he said. “The way it is now is unfair to cities.”

The City of Lakewood supports the bill because it gives it a seat at the table during discussions, said Nanette Neelan, Lakewood’s deputy city manager.

“This bill creates a discussion between counties and cities before counties lower the levy,” Neelan said. “This is about restoring fairness and ensuring one branch of local government doesn’t restrict the funds of another branch.”

But Colorado Counties Inc., a nonprofit membership program that allows counties to discuss common issues, discussed the bill and joined Jeffco commissioners in opposing it, Szabo said.

“I think it’s a little presumptuous for these municipalities to think they can do the budget better than us without all the information we have,” Szabo said. “It would be very difficult for municipalities to be objective about these funds and find a balance.”

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