Legislative Updates

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In response to the failure of Proposition HH at the November 7, 2023 election, Governor Polis called the First Extraordinary Session of the 74th General Assembly which convened on November 17, 2023 and concluded on November 20, 2023. Below is a summary of legislation impacting special districts passed during the special session. For a full text of the legislation, click the title below to link to the Colorado General Assembly website.

SB23B-001: 2023 Property Tax Relief

Summary:

Changes in Valuation Assessment: The law makes temporary reductions in the assessment rate for multi-family residential real property and all other residential real property. For the 2023 property tax year, the assessment rate for both multi-family and all other residential real property will be reduced from 6.765% to 6.7% of the amount equal to the actual value minus the lesser of $50,000 or the amount that causes the valuation to be $1,000.

Reimbursements. The State is currently required to reimburse local governmental entities for property tax revenue lost because of the reductions in valuation enacted in Senate Bill 22-238. The law maintains this backfill mechanism and provides an additional backfill mechanism to reimburse local governmental entities for property tax revenue lost because of the additional reductions in valuation enacted in the law. The State will reimburse the following local governmental entities a total of $65,000,000 for the total amount of property tax revenue lost by those local governmental entities because of the reductions in valuation in the law in the same manner as provided in Senate Bill 22-238, except that:

Fire districts, heath districts, and ambulance districts, are reimbursed entirely; and
Local governmental entities for which the assessed value of property in the local governmental entity increased by 15% or more between the 2022 and 2023 property tax years are not reimbursed at all, while local governmental entities with less than 15% increase in assessed value may be eligible for reimbursement.

The law also modifies both the existing backfill mechanism for Senate Bill 22-238 property tax revenue reductions and the backfill mechanism for the law’s property tax revenue reductions by:

Specifying that the amount of revenue lost for a property tax year is based on a local governmental entity’s mill levy for the 2022 property tax year, excluding specified mills;
Clarifying how local governmental entities, which are defined in the law, are treated if their boundaries are in more than one county for purposes of the backfill; and
Requiring the state treasurer to reduce a backfill as necessary to prevent a local governmental entity from exceeding its constitutional fiscal year spending limit.

The law requires the State treasurer to transfer $135 million from the general fund to the State education fund to offset school district property tax revenue reductions.

Delayed Deadlines. Finally, the Law implements delays in deadlines as necessary due to the valuation changes for the 2023 property tax year and makes conforming amendments related to the valuation changes. The following delays are implemented:

The deadline for assessors to certify final assessed valuation to local governments is changed from December 10, 2023 to January 3, 2024.
The deadline for local governments to certify mill levies is changed from December 15, 2023 to January 10, 2024.
The deadline to adopt a budget is changed to January 10, 2024.
The deadline to file final budgets is not changed.

The law was signed by the Governor on November 20, 2023, and became effective immediately.

We have been advised that some counties are already hard at work to make the required adjustments and intend to certify final assessed valuations to local governments before the new deadlines listed above. We will continue to work with accountants to make necessary adjustments and to finalize budgets which have already been adopted.

Learn More

If you have specific questions about how this new law impacts your district, please reach out directly to the responsible attorney.

This year’s Legislative Session officially wrapped up on May 8, 2023. As in past years, we are providing a summary of the pertinent legislation impacting special districts and community associations. Each law listed below is linked to the Colorado General Assembly website and can be accessed by clicking the individual bill titles. Updated information related to laws that have not been signed as of the date of this memorandum or which do not officially become effective until after the referendum period runs will be provided on our website at www.whitebearankele.com. If you would like more detailed information on any of the information contained herein or on bills that were introduced but not passed, please let us know.