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August 27, 2024 15 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The preferred tax policy of many Democrats. I won't say all,
but many would be. For income tax, for example, a
form that just has two lines on it. One line
says how much did you make last year? And then
has a little blank for you to put in your
income from the previous year.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
And then the next line says send it in.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Similarly with property taxes, I think for many, now I
won't say all Democrats, their mindset is how much can
you afford to send in for property tax? All right,
send that in in ten percent more, because I think
you weren't telling the truth. So that's part of the

(00:39):
reason that since Democrats are in full control of our
state government, when we had these incredible increases far far
exceeding inflation in the value of holmes, that would then
result in property tax increases that far exceed inflation and
far exceed the costs of operating the governments that the

(01:00):
property taxes fund. At least in some cases, the Democrats
did very little. We got Senate Bill two thirty three
at the end of the recent legislative session, and some
Republicans tried to sell.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
It to me as a great deal, but it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
It was better than nothing, but it wasn't good enough,
and taxpayers are still being abused. I was going to
use a more aggressive word than that. So now we
are at a special session in which we are supposed
to get some kind of larger and more permanent relief
because Democrats are afraid of the threat of ballot measures

(01:37):
that could cut property taxes even more so with that
very long setup, I'm very pleased to welcome State Representative
Lisa Frizzell, who represents House District forty five, and at
least as important as her house job, you need to
know that she was the Douglas County Assessor, and I

(01:57):
suspect that there is nobody in the state legs who
knows even half as much about property text as Lisa does. Lisa,
welcome back to the show.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Hey, thanks Ross, it's great to hear your voice.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Let's do a little bit of nuts and bolts politics.
There was an effort by some of the far left
loons like Emily Serrata and Chris Hansen to try to
derail this with some crazy stuff yesterday. So what happened yesterday?

Speaker 3 (02:24):
So yesterday we had a number of bills that were
introduced into the House. They were assigned to committees. We
ran three committees concurrently, House Appropriations, House Finance, and the Transportation, Housing,
and Local Government committees. Different numbers of bills assigned to
different committees and Appropriations. We have three, including the compromise bill.

(02:49):
We had I think six that were assigned to Transportation, Housing,
and Local Government and four that were assigned to House Finance.
Of all of those bills, three are coming to the
four or second reading today.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Okay, So yeah, folks, I think you understand, like this
is pretty complicated and part of this early stuff, some
of the stuff that went to committee was basically an
effort by the far left of the Democratic Party to
insert their own kind of poison pills. Basically, so this
compromise deal wouldn't happen.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Now.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
One of the things that I'm concerned about, Lisa, is
this thing called House Concurrent Resolution ten oh one that
passed out of the House Transportation, Housing, and Local Government Committee,
and as the Colorado Sun says, it would refer a
constitutional amendment to the November ballot asking voters to enact
new local controls on property taxes. And what that means

(03:45):
is if a ballot initiative passed statewide then if this
other thing happened, then voters for each local government taxing
district would have to approve it before that limit would
apply to them. And I have good reason to believe
that if this were to go forward, the whole compromise

(04:05):
would blow up and the ballot measures would stay on
the ballot. So what's your take on this.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
I think you're completely correct Ross if this, if this
particular referendum goes through, I think the deal is off
the table. The compromises over this is a really bad
face effort, in my opinion on the part of the Democrats,

(04:33):
to usurp what is a really important process in Colorado,
and that is the ability for citizens to bring initiatives
to the ballot. They the Democrats would like nothing more
than to usurp that authority that Colorado citizens have, and
this is just another way that they're trying to get

(04:53):
around it.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, I mean, at least when it comes to taxes,
if the Democrats didn't deal in bad faith, they wouldn't
be dealing in any.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Kind of faith at all. It's the only kind of
faith they have.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
They're really really they're not just wrong, they're bad in
their scheming and they really piss me off. So do
you think this compromised deal is going to happen? And
then a second question, do you think this compromised deal,
especially given who's in control right now, is really about
as good as limited government people should be able to

(05:29):
hope for given who's in charge.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
I think it's something that Michael Fields was comfortable agreeing to,
and I'm going to follow his lead on this. What
I like to see more of a reduction and residential rates. Absolutely,
But you know when I was working on Senate Bill
two thirty three in this last session, this is a

(05:54):
balancing act. We have to balance the ability for local
government to provide services, and we also need to always
always keep forefront in our minds the needs of our
citizens and their ability to withstand tax increases like we've seen.
The tax increases that we've seen are not sustainable for

(06:16):
our citizens, and they are it's unconsionable for our local
governments to continue to take in record amounts of revenue.
So it is a balancing act, and this bill gives
a significant haircut to local governments.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
So I would like to see if you agree with
my slightly sarcastic but only slightly way that I frame how.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Democrats talk about this issue.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
So imagine that I went to my boss here at
iHeart and demanded a forty percent raise, and they gave
me a thirty percent raise, and I spent all my
time complaining about getting a ten percent salary cut.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
That seems to me, like what's.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Happening here when you have people, whether they're just runn
of the middle Democrats or people in some of these
taxing districts saying, look.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
How much money you're costing us?

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Like they just got this massive increase of money that
I earned and they didn't because property values happen to
go up way more than inflation. And they're complaining that
they're not going to get the whole increase and they're
just going to get.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Most of it. Am I Am I thinking about that wrong?

Speaker 3 (07:37):
No, you're not thinking about it wrong at all. And
in fact, in your particular example, the state government would
come in and pay for that additional ten percent and
pay you for it, because that's what's been going on
per Senate Bill twenty two to two thirty eight, which
created a backbone mechanism for local governments for perceive you know,

(08:00):
quote unquote loss of revenue most of the revenues that
they were ever really.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Meant to have.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
But you have many, many special districts out there who
have received backfill from the State of Colorado and in
many cases to the tune of you know, millions of
millions and millions of dollars.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
But that's insanely So I'm not blaming you. You're against
this stuff and it's been around for a while, but
I mean, are we going to see backfill for this again?

Speaker 2 (08:28):
I mean, you stick with my metaphor.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Right, I demanded forty percent, they gave me thirty percent,
and now I'm going to run around like saying I
got slighted ten percent and demand that other people make
up the ten percent. To me, it's it's really crazy.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
I agree. I think it's crazy. On it's uncomfortable because
you know where that backfilm's been coming from. It comes
from the tabor surplus, which should be going back to
the property owners or sorry, it's the taxpayers of the
state of Colorado. So that's a big problem for me,
which is why I was very insistent in two thirty

(09:08):
three that we eliminate that bill. And I was equally
assistant insistent when we were having conversations around this particular
bill House built ten oh one in the special session
that we again do not provide back bill. The state
needs to be out of the backfield business. It doesn't
make any sense.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
Right, Okay, So at the moment, do you think that
the compromise will pass?

Speaker 3 (09:35):
I don't know. We have what we're seeing now when
we saw this yesterday in health appropriations as a real
effort on the part.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Of the fire.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
The fire district lobby and the fire districts to exempt
themselves from this bill. In other words, they do not
want a haircut. They really are insisting that they get
carved out. And I don't know that that's actually going
to fly. Again, we have seen, especially in the Metro Area,

(10:07):
prior districts that have seen record revenue increases plus backfill,
and I don't think that our citizens have seen revenue
increases of their own. When I'm talking about revenue increases,
I'm talking about twenty five percent over two years. Did

(10:28):
you get a twenty five percent increase in your pay us?
Because I surely haven't, and I don't know anybody who has.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Oh, Lisa, I signed my current contract two months before COVID,
and I am locked in on my income for a while.
So not only have I not seen a twenty five
percent increase, I basically haven't seen any and you know,
I'm really feeling it. But this this isn't about me.
But you know, just to answer your question, no, and
of course, in the in the county where you were assessor,

(10:56):
the average increase in property values is close to forty
so you know where you live and where you represent,
the damage is even worse.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Ross.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
We're talking to people whose monthly payments for their mortgage
have gone up five hundred dollars, eight hundred dollars, one
thousand dollars, and their take home pay does not increased
to that degree. Yes, take that into account. Combined with
other increases in cost of living, groceries, everything, this is

(11:32):
really pinching our citizens. And that's why if the Democrats
don't come to the table, those initiatives are going to pass. Right.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
And for listeners who are asking, like why would a
mortgage payment be up so much? Remember, not only have
property tax has gone up a lot, but also homeowners
insurance has gone up a lot, and most people include
both of those things in their mortgage payments.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
All right, let me ask you an inside baseball thing.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
And for those just joining, we're talking with Lisa Frazel.
She represents House District forty and she's former Douglas County Assessor.
By the way, what are the rough geographic boundaries of
House District forty five.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
It's essentially the town of Calthrock. Its extends a little
bit farther east into southern unincorporated Parker area, but by
and large the foot print of the town of Capua.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
So there's been a little bit of stuff in the
news about how some of some Democrats, especially some of
the more left wing Waco types, are a little upset
they feel like they were left out of the process. Now,
I personally find it a little bit amusing to see
Democrats angry with other Democrats. It's kind of like a
grab the popcorn kind of moment. But just to be

(12:42):
as honest and objective as possible. Do you think they
have a point? Do you think this is a kind
of behind closed doors deal that some folks have a
right to object to a little bit?

Speaker 3 (12:57):
You know, I think that this has definitely been negotiation
over weeks, and the real negotiation has been between the
Governor's office and the proponents of the initiatives and Canadaly.
I think that's rightfully where it needs to be until
it gets to the public forum, which is where we

(13:18):
are today and where we were yesterday. It is really
important and this this is the same rot is. The
Democrats were really behind the Gallagher repeal in two thousand.
They had the chance to replace Gallagher in two thousand.
I'm sorry, I'd need to back up. Gallagher was repiled
in twenty twenty. In twenty twenty one, the Democrats had

(13:41):
a session and Republicans and there was no replacement that
was forthcoming, and as a result, there were ballid initiatives
that were run because there were no there were there
were no solutions. In twenty twenty one was a reappraisal year.

(14:02):
Values went up and there was no relief for property owners,
and so the Governor's office had to come to the
table and strike a deal, and that was Senate built
two ninety three and twenty twenty one. Twenty twenty two,
the same thing happened, and we thought Senate built two
thirty eight. In twenty twenty three, same thing happened, and

(14:24):
the Governor's office pushed off to the Senate built three
UH three, which became property to eight. Those were always
responses to initiatives, to the initiative process. If Michael Field
and Colorado Concern had done nothing, we would have seen
huge property tax increases. They've been the heroes in this

(14:46):
whole story. And here we are again in twenty twenty
four and the Governor's office had to come to the
table again.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Absolutely, And it's been interesting hearing some far left folks
like Ian Silveri and a few other who are really
mad about this deal and say nobody should negotiate with
with Advanced Colorado and Colorado Concern. And these people are
if the deal happens, we will look at Michael Fields
and other folks as having saved us in the aggregate

(15:16):
billions of dollars, and I think we'll all be we
will all be extremely grateful. So Lisa, thanks, I know
you need to get back to work. Lisa Frazzelle is
state representing House District forty five. She's a former Douglas
County assessor, which is why she understands so much about this.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Grateful for your time, Lisa, go fight the power.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
Thanks ros great to talk to you, and thanks to
your listeners. For the support that we felt up here
at the Capitol glots two days.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
You got it, you got it. Thanks Lisa, all right,
I hope you found that interesting

The Ross Kaminsky Show News

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