Three Ballot Initiatives Would HARM Colorado

With the 2010 election quickly approaching, voters will make critical decisions about Colorado's priorities. Three of the measures on the 2010 ballot would take Colorado in the wrong direction. The Colorado Nonprofit Association Board of Directors voted in January to actively oppose the following measures:

Amendment 60
Amendment 61
Proposition 101

Proponents of these initiatives say they will reduce taxes, but at what price?
These proposals would:

Increase Colorado's job loss by more than 70,000; this is in addition to 110,000 jobs lost in the recession. A majority of these jobs will be in trasportation, health care and construction.
Create a state and local deficit of $4.2 billion with no plan for reducing or eliminating it.
Burden small businesses and nonprofits with fee increases to reduce this deficit.
Cut income taxes by a quarter, cut school taxes in half, cut car license fees that fund highways and bridges, and cut telecommunications fees used to provide local phone and internet service to rural Colorado.
Cut school funding in half, eliminating 8,000 classroom teachers and increasing class sizes in schools with the highest impact at the K–3 grade levels.
Eliminate any practical means for construcing public infrastructure projects in the future including airports, dams, bridges, highways, utilities, hospitals, prisons, schools, sanitation projects, etc.
Impede the ability of nonprofits to deliver needed services.

Together, Amendment 60 and 61 and Proposition 101 would:

Weaken our communities. Colorado is strong when nonprofits, business, and governments have strong partnerships to meet community needs. These measures impair the ability of state and local governments to be strong partners and to serve communities well.
Place greater burdens on Colorado's nonprofits. When Colorado's state and local governments cannot meet basic needs, nonprofits bear much greater responsibility for serving Coloradans within existing resources.
Hurt the nonprofits and businesses that rely on well-functioning public services and infrastructure – such as education, roads, utilities, and health care facilities – to fulfill their missions and carry out their operations.
Further cut government contracts that support nonprofits. Additional budget cuts for state and local governments will likely include contracts with nonprofits that deliver public services.
Drive up competition for limited funding from private sources. Nonprofits that lose public contracts will look to fill budget gaps, leading to increased competition for funding from private donors, foundations, and corporations.

View a free webinar for nonprofits on these measures.

Read the Legislative Council’s analysis on the impact of these three measures (PDF).

How Your Nonprofit Can Help

Endorse the opposition effort. Sign and send this resolution statement (PDF) showing your organization's opposition to these harmful ballot measures.

Tell your constituents, volunteers, and staff. Let the people you serve, your donors, your staff, board, and volunteers know how these measures will impact your organization and why they should vote NO on them. Click here for a sample email or letter to constituents (Word doc).

Sign up for campaign information. Click here to download the campaign’s toolkit (PDF) and visit www.donthurtcolorado.com to sign up for email or Facebook updates, make a contribution and for more information.

Get Involved Locally. Locally-based coalitions have formed to coordinate opposition efforts in most Colorado communities. For information on coalitions in your community, email info@donthurtcolorado.com.

Inform your own communities. Letters to the editor of your local newspaper are a great way to send a message to elected officials, local leaders and your neighbors. Click here for a sample letter to the editor (Word doc).

Sign up for campaign information. Visit www.donthurtcolorado.com to sign up for email or Facebook updates, make a contribution, and for more information.

For more information, also contact Mark Turner at (303) 832-5710 / (800) 333-6554 ext. 203 or mturner@ColoradoNonprofits.org.

Amendment 60 would:

Cut more than a billion dollars of local school funding each year. The state would be required to backfill local property tax reductions by further cutting other parts of the state budget, even though billions have already been cut in the last few years. This will lead to more school closures, teacher layoffs and increased class sizes, impacting the quality of Colorado's future workforce.
Undermine local control. Amendment 60 would overturn hundreds of local elections where voters have chosen to increase funding for school and library districts, police and fire departments, and other services.

Amendment 60 changes Colorado's property tax policies by:

Requiring that all school districts cut their mill levies by half by 2020.
Overturning voter-approved measures allowing local governments to keep and use property tax revenues above TABOR revenue limits.
Requiring that any future local tax measures end after ten years unless there is a second vote to extend them.
Forcing local governments to tax enterprises and authorities, such as universities and municipal airports, and then offset any increased revenue with lower tax rates.
Allowing individuals to file petitions to lower property taxes in local elections and vote in any district where they own property.

Click here to view the Amendment 60 fact sheet.

Amendment 61 would:

Severely limit building, expanding, or even maintaining government buildings and infrastructure. including schools, hospitals, fire and police stations; roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, and even prisons. This will lead to poor quality and delivery of essential services that benefit all Coloradans and could even threaten the safety of our residents.
Require local governments to repay any debt within ten years instead of a more reasonable time frame such as 20-40 years. Many local governments will find it unaffordable to pay for large projects on such a short time frame. This places the burden on today's taxpayers to pay for these projects quickly and foot the bill for future generations who will benefit long after these projects have been paid off.
Increase unemployment and send jobs out of state as businesses that contract with government to carry out these projects see far less work, lay off employees, and consider relocation.

Amendment 61 changes Colorado's government bonding policies by:

Prohibiting state government from taking on debt, obtaining loans or borrowing money or items of value.
Requiring local governments to obtain voter approval to take on any debt, loan, or lease - even if voters have previously given local government this authority.

The amount borrowed by a local government can never exceed 10 percent of total property values in the area.
After each loan is repaid, tax rates for local governments must decline by the amount of planned annual repayment.
Any debt must end within ten years.

Click here to view the Amendment 61 fact sheet.

Proposition 101 would:

Cut discretionary areas of the state budget such as higher education, mental health services, the arts, and more. This includes not only services that are contracted out to nonprofits, but also services to help nonprofits build an effective workforce.
Disproportionately hurt industry, commerce and tourism by targeting transportation. These tax cuts would lead to more crumbling bridges, poorly maintained roads, congestion, and potholes.
Increase disparities between urban and rural areas of the state. By targeting telecommunication fees, rural Colorado would lose critical funding to maintain telecommunications infrastructure, including phone, cable and internet access. This would hurt not only communication across rural communities, but harm small businesses, and inhibit economic development.

Proposition 101 eliminates funding sources in Colorado by:

Cutting revenue for state services by more than a billion dollars by reducing the income tax rate from 4.65 to 3.5 percent over ten years.
Eliminating a major funding source of hundreds of millions of dollars for road and bridge construction across the state. This includes an estimated $277 million of revenue cut from the Colorado Department of Transportation - one quarter of its current annual revenue.
Cutting the vehicle ownership tax to two dollars on new cars and one dollar on used cars. This cuts about $500 million of revenue that goes to local governments and supports critical programs like local school budgets.
Eliminating government telecommunications charges.

Click here to view the Proposition 101 fact sheet.

Information Sources

Click here to view the ballot language and draft ballot analysis text for the Blue Book.

Information on this page was compiled from:

455 Sherman Street
Suite 207
Denver, Colorado 80203-4494
(303) 832-5710
(800) 333-6554
info@ColoradoNonprofits.org