If you had hoped that liberal legislators had an honest change of heart regarding Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), I’m sorry to be the one to disappoint you.

Two months ago, our Facebook feeds, television news programs, and cellphones were littered with advertisements from liberal candidates championing the $750 checks that were sent to each Coloradan because of TABOR. Today, Democratic legislators from the state House and state Senate have proposed legislation to end those refunds forever.

Was last fall’s pitch just an election-year ploy for votes? It’s difficult to call it anything else.

Perhaps the temptation is just too strong? After all, Coloradans are projected to receive $9 billion back over a four-year period. The allure of adding more of your hard-earned money to state coffers is too hard to resist.

TABOR is now 30 years old, and unlike Billy Ray Cyrus, the Sony Walkman, and pagers, it’s more popular than it has ever been. Recent polling by Americans for Prosperity found that TABOR maintains 78% support from Coloradans. With our state government

fully in the grasp of one political party, TABOR’S protections are more relevant than ever before.

TABOR requires that tax increases must go to a vote of the people. Unsurprisingly, far-left legislators have used the last three decades to try to find ways to get around this provision. The most common way is by calling taxes “fees.” The increase in fees over the last 10 years has been staggering.

Even though voters approved Proposition 117 in 2020 — which said that big fees had to go to a vote of the people — the Legislature still increased fees on gas, deliveries, and ride sharing without voter approval the very next year.

While Coloradans are familiar with TABOR’S requirement on tax increases, the constitutional amendment’s revenue limit is what brought those $750 checks to everybody’s mailbox late last year.

In effect, the revenue limit allows for the state government to grow at a reasonable rate, adjusted for inflation, population growth, and tax increases that Colorado voters approve. As Colorado’s economy rebounded from COVID-19, revenue collected by the state shot up, surpassing that revenue limit and triggering refunds to every taxpayer.

That $750 went a long way to helping struggling families get through the holidays. It was their money, after all.

TABOR betrayed

That will never happen again if Colorado Democrats get their way. State Rep. Cathy Kipp, D-fort Collins, and state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, D-arvada, are the sponsors of a referred measure that will effectively eliminate the revenue limit and supposedly put those dollars into our public education system instead. This isn’t the first time the ruling party has attempted this — nor is it the first time voters have rejected such a plea.

In 2019, a robust coalition of groups and organizations from across the state helped defeat Proposition CC, which would have also permanently eliminated TABOR refunds and funneled the funds toward education and transportation.

Proposition CC was supported by Gov. Jared Polis, and the opposition coalition was outspent 3-to-1. Yet, voters soundly rejected the idea of paying more money to a government with a poor track record of delivering results. It was defeated by an 8% margin.

With the measure being proposed this year, the chirping from liberal special interests will be the same tired refrain we’ve heard time and time again: Don’t you support our kids?

Much like anything in government, it isn’t that simple.

Funding for public education has been increasing year after year, yet we don’t see improved results. The COVID-19 pandemic peeled back the layers of this onion, revealing serious issues that few politicians want to address. The majority of students in our state cannot read or do math at grade level.

Meanwhile, the school boards that oversee their education in some of our largest districts are consumed by infighting and personality conflict.

As a former elementary school teacher, I’d love nothing more than to tell you that the only thing holding back our schools is a bit more funding, but that simply isn’t the case.

In 2021, the Common Sense Institute published research that investigated our state’s increased education spending and where it has gone. While funding has steadily increased since 2013, the share of dollars that are allotted to in-classroom education has fallen by nearly 8%. According to the Department of Education, only 55% of Colorado’s education dollars go toward “instruction.” In Utah and Nebraska, it’s 63% and 62% respectively.

And while teacher salaries have remained relatively stagnant, districts have gone on hiring sprees in regard to administrators. Since 2000, the student count has grown by 25% and the teacher count by 36%. Amazingly, the count of vice principals and principals has grown by 73%, and administrators have grown by 132%.

Boon to bureaucracy

Colorado’s public education system doesn’t need our refunds — it needs reform.

Rep. Kipp told Chalkbeat that she felt her proposal had a good chance of being supported by the majority of voters because “people are much more aware of the issue facing our schools, and people are more aware that our teachers are very underpaid” since the pandemic. Our teachers should absolutely be paid more. Unfortunately, this proposal won’t guarantee that happens.

State law dictates that school districts have the responsibility to “employ all personnel required to maintain the operations and carry out the educational program of the district and to fix and order paid their compensation.” That’s a fancy way of saying that districts, not the state government, are responsible for salaries.

Therefore, while Kipp might earnestly want to see those dollars be used for salaries, once the money is transferred from the state government to a local school district, it’s out of her hands.

There is also no guarantee that these dollars will even be used for education. The measure being crafted is a statutory measure, meaning that it is not a constitutional amendment. While the portions of the measure regarding revenue have to be approved by the voters, any portions pertaining to where that money goes can be modified by the General Assembly at any time, even after voters approve it.

Now, you might be wondering: If taxpayers are set to receive billions in refunds over the next few years, how much is the state government keeping?

When Polis took office, his first budget request was for $34.5 billion. This year, it sits at $42.7 billion. That’s a 24% increase in just four years. During Polis’ first term, we’ve seen unprecedented growth in state government. Over a dozen offices have been created, thousands of new full-time state employees,

It’s safe to say that our state government is not hurting for money.

About-face

This stands in stark contrast to the election-year messaging that Polis and these liberal legislators were broadcasting during the election. They rebranded the refunds as the “Colorado Cash Back,” they held a news conference with a giant fake check, and they plastered it all over their campaign ads. All of this just a few years after they tried to eliminate the refunds with Proposition CC. Even the media couldn’t help but point out the hypocrisy.

“People are paying more for everyday items like gas, groceries, and rent through no fault of their own. Instead of the government sitting on money that Coloradans earned, we want to give everyone cash back as quickly and easily as possible to provide immediate relief and empower people to do what they want to with their money,” said Polis in 2022.

What changed? Inflation is still high, gas prices are still unstable, we can’t keep eggs on the shelves, and utility bills are soaring. Coloradans are still struggling.

What changed is that these elected officials no longer need to pretend to win an election.

Here’s the good news: You’ll have a chance to weigh in. Because of TABOR, increases to state revenue via taxes or adjusting the TABOR cap must be approved by the voters. If Kipp and Zenzinger’s referred measure makes it through the state House and Senate, it will need to be put up for a vote of the people before going into effect.

Reject the inevitable guilt trip and pleas for the students. As it stands today, property taxes are set to increase by at least 26.5% next year based on the statewide housing price surge. Roughly half of those dollars will go toward our schools. Our state government is flush with cash, and local school districts have proven their inability to prioritize instruction over bureaucracy.

If this proposal gets to the ballot, remember that this confiscation of your refunds is permanent. When Referendum C passed in 2005, politicians at least put an expiration date on it. With this year’s proposal, they couldn’t even humor us with such a guardrail.

Billions of dollars is set to be refunded back to taxpayers — money that can help pay for groceries, utilities, and even that increased property tax bill.

TABOR — and its required refund mechanism — is our only defense against reckless growth of government. It ensures Coloradans keep more of their hardearned money. We would be wise to keep it that way.