Attorney calls mill levy case ‘compelling’

GRAND JUNCTION — Attorney Richard Westfall is confident his clients have the evidence to prevail in a Colorado Supreme Court trial to decide if a 2007 mill levy freeze was unconstitutional.

A district court judge ruled the freeze, which increased property taxes for people with rising property values, unconstitutional May 30. Gov. Bill Ritter, a defendant in the case, is expected to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Westfall said he’s prepared for that trial and hopes it will wrap up by late November, before next year’s property tax notices go out.

“The legal case we’ve put together is compelling,” he said Saturday morning at a press conference outside Main Street Cafe. The cafe’s owner, Evan Gluckman, is one of the plaintiff’s in the case, along with the Mesa County Board of Commissioners.

Ritter has 45 days from the district court decision to request the appeal, according to State Court Administrator spokesman Robert McCallum. The court is in recess in July and August.

Without the freeze, school district mill levels drop when property values rise in the property tax formula to keep property taxes relatively stable in school districts that have de-Bruced from the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Between 1995 and 2006, voters in 175 of Colorado’s 178 school district’s voted to de-Bruce so that school districts could hold onto grant money.

De-Brucing did not give permission for a property tax change, argued plaintiffs.

The de-Brucing ballot measures did not allow a property tax change, agreed district court judge, Christina Habas. Defendants from the Colorado Department of Education said the measures referred to “all revenues,” but Habas said TABOR refers to revenue and property tax revenue separately.

Defendants the state of Colorado also argued the freeze allowed “budgetary flexibility” instead of a tax policy change and freed the state to shore up money in the education fund, but the judge disagreed. This year, that freed-up state money ($117.8 million) will pay for 5,500 preschool slots, among other things, such as full day kindergarten and children’s health insurance.

The district court decision does not throw out a multimillion dollar provision in the School Finance Act that brings the bottom 11 school districts’ funding up to 94.3 percent of the state average last year and 95 percent this year.

Reach Emily Anderson at eanderson@gjfreepress.com.