House District 39 Issues

TAX FAIRNESS FOR EDUCATION, HEALTHCARE, AND EARLY CHILDHOOD FUNDING

Colorado has long faced large structural deficits on account of the provision of the state Constitution known as TABOR (the Colorado Fiscal Institute published a nice explanation here). Last year’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) made the problem vastly worse. The Colorado Sun explained the problem in an article it published before last summer’s special session of the General Assembly to address a sudden OBBB-induced budget shortfall. 

This spring, I am helping to petition onto the November ballot a constitutional amendment to address this persistent and growing problem. Initiative 195 will implement a graduated income tax. The 97 percent of Colorado taxpayers with incomes less than $500,000 per year will get a tax cut. Those with incomes of $500,000 or more will pay at higher graduated rates that top out at 8.4 percent for incomes of $1 million or more. Revenues above what the current flat tax would bring in – over $2 billion additionally per year – will be directed as supplemental funding equally in support of the following causes: K-12 Public School Education, Health Care, and Early Child Care and Education.

In addition to helping strengthen Colorado’s fiscal house, Initiative 195 rebalances the tax bills that Coloradans pay. As the Colorado Fiscal Institute shared here, the federal OBBB “raise[s] taxes by nearly $18 billion on Americans making $30,000 a year or less—while cutting taxes by $242 billion for people making more than $1 million a year.” This graduated income tax for Colorado restores a measure of fairness.

I urge you to join the effort to get Initiative 195 onto the ballot (learn more and sign up at Protect Colorado’s Future) and campaign for its success. Also come to the kickoff rally at noon on March 17 at the Capitol. In the event we do not succeed, as a member of the House I will join with colleagues to refer a graduated income tax onto the 2027 ballot.

Every day on average, 25 people move to Douglas County. The increased demand for water has put an unsustainable burden on existing water resources, which face rapid depletion. For the sake of our quality of life, agriculture, recreation, and the environment, we must do more to conserve our precious water resources.

Douglas County recently received a draft 2050 Douglas County Water Plan from contractor Forsgren Associates, Inc. Finalization of the plan is scheduled to conclude sometime in June, in connection with engagement and outreach efforts that are to include a dedicated website, an open house, and perhaps other opportunities to inform and receive feedback from the public.

The Plan does a good job of presenting the difficult challenge that Douglas County and all of Colorado face in ensuring that projected supplies of water exceed projected demands. It appropriately describes recent state legislation “that will further support sustainable use of water supplies for years to come” and it recommends policies that Douglas County can implement to better conserve our increasingly scarce supplies of water.

The state also devotes resources to address this challenge through the Colorado Water Plan, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) that administers it, and through an annual bill that funds the CWCB (SB25-283 last year). I will be very active in seeking to harmonize state, regional and county efforts. 

Many of us know someone who has suffered heart-wrenching loss from wildfire, such as the Marshall Fire that struck Boulder County in December 2021 and was the 10th costliest fire in U.S. history. That same month, the Chatridge 3 fire, which ended up burning 24 acres in Douglas County, necessitated local evacuations but fortunately did not cause injury or significant property damage. Two years before I moved to Castle Pines, the Cherokee Ranch fire burned 1,200 acres and spurred the evacuation of over 10,000 residents.

Out of a total state population of 5.7 million, about 3 million of us live in what’s called the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where buildings and fire-prone wild areas meet. In Douglas County, 82 percent of us live in areas of at least some wildfire risk and 22 percent in areas of high risk of negative impact.

The danger of wildfires in Colorado is growing worse at an accelerating rate. The 20 largest wildfires in Colorado history have all occurred since 2002. Four of the five largest have occurred since 2020. Like so many devastating wildfires the whole country has experienced in recent years, an electric power line was one of the causes of the Marshall Fire. 

Last year, Xcel Energy (along with two telecom companies) settled a class action lawsuit in the Marshall Fire case for $640 million. Xcel is also taking infrastructural steps to reduce the risk that it might cause another catastrophe: undergrounding some 50 miles of power lines, putting up monitoring cameras near power lines, and swapping in insulated wires to reduce the incidence of sparking. Under Colorado law, Xcel and other power utilities are required to gain approval for their Wildfire Mitigation Plans, and the PUC’s discussion and approval of Xcel’s 2025-2027 plan is here.

As a member of the General Assembly, I will work with colleagues – particularly those in the Wildfire Matters Review Committee (WMRC), which I would seek to join – to ensure that all power utilities in Colorado promptly undertake these and other measures. Last year, the WMRC produced draft legislation – BILL 5: Utility Wildfire Mitigation Plans – and sent it out to stakeholders as a framework for a collaborative effort to enact comprehensive legislation to promote solutions to Wildfire Risk that stems from power utilities. I am studying these proposals as well as the final report that the WMRC released last December. 

The state must do more to promote housing affordability. Constraints on the state budget make this difficult. How can we find the resources to achieve it when we have so many competing priorities for state funds?

An approach I would champion is the mansion tax.

According to an interactive online tool that the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) has made available, a two percent “mansion tax” on the sale of homes in the top 1% of home values would raise about $35 million per year. Under my proposal, 5% of the proceeds would be retained by the county of jurisdiction and the balance would go to the Colorado Housing Finance Authority (CHFA). 

CHFA directly assists homebuyers with mortgage assistance and guidance. It also provides financing to assist in the development of affordable housing for lower-income renters. For instance, in 2025, CHFA’s affordable housing tax credit (AHTC) program helped make possible the Ponderosa Pines project in Parker. Of the project's 204 units, 11 are set aside for tenants at 30% of area median income (AMI), 9 at 50% AMI, 164 at 60% AMI, and 20 at 70 AMI.

Let’s get help on the way!