Open letter warns HB26-1065 expands unelected power and state control

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

An open email to the sponsors of HB26-1065 and the House Finance Committee Members

In keeping with earlier posts, I have been watching affordable housing legislation this session. One of the bills that came up in an earlier post is HB26-1065. I link to that bill first below.

Mild in the impact, especially compared with efforts that take away local control and further reinforce the NGO/nonprofit/government complex, this bill is still concerning in what it sets up.

My open letter to the committee is copied below the link. If it’s helpful to you in advocating on this issue, please feel free to use any part or the whole.

Before I get to my email (and testimony if I can make the hearing) however, I think it’s helpful to talk over what the bill does so you have a better perspective on why I find it concerning. Let’s back up, then, and do some learning.

This bill has some provisions that are not new territory. Some non-contiguous quotes from the bill’s summary illustrate what I mean.

–The bill creates yet more unelected officials who get to spend your money.

To wit, it “Creates a mechanism for a local government and transit agency, subject to state approval … to create a transit investment authority (authority) or to designate other financing entities with the power to receive and use the increment of revenue derived from the state sales tax collected in the area … to finance eligible improvements related to the project”

–The bill puts some part of the decision making in the hands of state officials. Whether or not you think creating a transit zone authority to spend your tax money is a good idea, the state will have some control over how things are done. Screenshots 1 and 2 attached are from the bill’s text and spell out what your local plan would have to include to be approved by state regulators.

–Additionally, the bill makes sure the state regulators get to appoint some members of the board too. It “Specifies that an authority is governed by a board consisting of a certain number of members appointed by the commission and a certain number of members appointed by the local government;”

–The bill puts more tax credits in the hands of the Colorado Housing Finance Authority (CHFA). If you want some context on CHFA and tax credits for things like this, see my earlier newsletter linked second below. Specific to the bill, the summary says it “creates the Colorado affordable housing in transit investment zones tax credit (tax credit). The tax credit is administered in the same manner as the Colorado affordable housing in transit-oriented communities tax credit; except that the tax credit is awarded in connection with qualified low- and middle-income housing projects in transit and housing zones. The bill allows $50 million of credits to be awarded each calendar year beginning in the 2027 calendar year through the 2033 calendar year.”

Let’s now talk about something new. Urban renewal efforts have often been financed with a slick little dance called Tax Increment Financing (TIF). What’s new in this bill (at least to me) is that this is the first time I’ve seen it used for transit financing and the first time I have seen it done with sales taxes.

Quoting from the bill’s summary, any potential transit authority once approved would “…use the increment of revenue derived from the state sales tax collected in the area” to help build out transit infrastructure. For example, a transit authority could use TIF to help finance a transit hub where people could transfer among bus lines or train and bus lines.

I linked to some resources for further reading on TIF’s below. The third link is to an earlier newsletter about TIF (using a Loveland fuss as an example). The fourth link below is to a Wikipedia page on TIF.

Though it’s often sold as magic, TIF’s are a clever way of taking money from others to give to someone else. It’s wealth transfer by another name. Amidst all the “good words” supporters put out, don’t lose sight of the simple fact that money don’t grow on trees.

Stripped of fancy language, this bill lets the newly created (and partly state controlled) transit authority keep some portion of the state sales tax created in a district for use in transit projects. This is money that would normally be going to to the state to help pay state bills.

Can you guess what happens when the state collects less money? If you think they trim their budgets to live within their means, you’ve not been doing your homework lately. No, they just collect more from others or they don’t return it to you via TABOR.

My open email is below the links along with all the relevant emails.

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hB26-1065

https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/185717618?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts%2Fpublished

https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/cfoics-update-due-to-new-laws-to?utm_source=publication-search

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_increment_financing

Julie.Mccluskie.house@coleg.gov
steven.woodrow.house@coleg.gov
dylan.roberts.senate@coleg.gov
tony.exum.senate@coleg.gov
brianna.titone.house@coleg.gov
max.brooks.house@coleg.gov
lorena.garcia.house@coleg.gov
ken.degraaf.house@coleg.gov
sean.camacho.house@coleg.gov
ryan.gonzalez.house@coleg.gov
anthony.hartsook.house@coleg.gov
bob.marshall.house@coleg.gov
yara.zokaie.house@coleg.gov
rebekah.stewart.house@coleg.gov

An open email to the sponsors of HB26-1065 and the House Finance Committee Members

Hello all,

My name is Cory Gaines. I am writing today representing myself and all the other taxpayers in this state who get to fund your pet projects. Who get money taken from our families to be given to others you think more worthy.

I am writing (and will publish) this open email to share with you my reasons for opposing HB26-1065.

Year after year, this body, like its Federal counterpart, cedes yet more authority to unelected and unaccountable boards. HB26-1065 continues this wrongheaded tradition by either creating or expanding the power of existing unelected boards.

Even worse, it continues what has been a new tradition for the single-party state of Colorado: it brings the heavy and far-off hand of state government into local decisions. The bill makes sure that state authorities retain some control over what happens locally. Why would we want all the appointed officials to be appointed locally? They might make decisions we don’t like after all.

And what will the transit authorities do? When you clear away all the jargon, and the spin of sponsors and supporters, what we are doing is a wealth transfer. It might not look like it at first. I haven’t heard everything said by everyone about the bill, but I’ll bet my lunch it’s been sold at least once as financing transit without taking money from anyone!

Wrong. I urge anyone reading to not be deceived,. Only children and the gullible think that money grows on trees. It is not possible to spend money without it coming from somewhere. Whether it’s tax credits, a loss of revenue to the state we all (to a man or woman listening/reading) know will be made up by losing TABOR refunds or having to pay more elsewhere, the money given to this authority to be passed to developers comes from taxpayers.

Let me repeat. It is not possible to spend money without it coming from somewhere.

One last thing to mention. I’d like to point out that this bill would send less money to the state when the state has a budget hole to fill.

Let local governments that want transit, fund it.

Let local governments that want transit, have control over it.

Stop abdicating the authority to spend money to unelected boards.

Vote no on this bill.

Thank you,

C

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Is Colorado chasing data centers out?

I thought the Complete Colorado op ed by Sarah Montalbano was a thorough analysis of one of the two competing ideas coming out of our legislature this session about data centers.

It’s linked first below and worth a read. If energy and its intersection with politics in Colorado is an interest/passion, Ms. Montalbano’s well-written substack is linked second below.

I think the fight over data centers and what (if any) incentives/regulations our state should have for them ought to be interesting. From what I’ve read in other articles, it seems that there are two rough directions. One is more environmentally minded while the other (at least in the minds of lefty reporters at the Sun–see their blurb on legislation to watch linked third below) is more business minded.

Ms. Montalbano, in her op ed, takes up the more environmental of the two, and from what I read in the op ed, I think her conclusion that it’s a great way to chase development out of our state is the correct one. Throw it on the pile of other Democrat regulation over the last 4 years that has made Colorado one of the most highly regulated states in the union.

There’s a lot of technical detail which I’ll leave to you to read, but the upshot is this: the “environmental” bill is so far removed from reality as to make anyone thinking of building a data center in this state change their mind. Why would you obligate yourself to higher costs and a risk of unreliability?

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.