Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland, found himself on the outs with his own party last session for siding with Democrats on key budget issues and his sponsorship of Senate Bill 228, which eliminated the 6 percent growth cap on general government spending.
Face The State recently caught up with Marostica, who was appointed to serve on the legislature's Long-Term Fiscal Interim Committee. While Democrats mull a plan to address the expiration of Referendum C (and thus the return of constitutional limits on spending), Marostica thinks Colorado would better off re-evaluating the Amendment 23 formula and the Gallagher Amendment first.
MarosticaFTS File Photo
"It's a long haul," Marostica said. "We've got to go back to the voters. It may be a 10 year plan to figure it out mathematically."
Amendment 23 requires K-12 spending be increased by inflation plus one percent until 2010, and then by at least inflation thereafter. The Gallagher Amendment divides the state’s total property tax burden between residential and commercial property. Of the total amount of state property tax collected, 45 percent must come from residential property while 55 percent must come from commercial property. Gallagher requires the assessment rate for commercial property be fixed at 29 percent, while the residential rate is annually adjusted to hold the 45/55 split constant.
Gov. Bill Ritter, on the other hand, recently hinted that a repeal of TABOR's spending limits might comes as early as 2011. "We said we began to untie the Gordian knot [in the state's constitution] with the 6 percent solution, but that we need to deal with TABOR," Ritter told The Denver Post. "We need to deal with it in November 2011 on the ballot. And we need to plan with how we deal with it with a group of people from across the state."
SB 228's other sponsor was Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, who recently told the Denver Business Journal, "This is a fight for the soul of Colorado and it's just beginning."
But unlike the Democrats with whom Marostica has aligned himself, he recognizes TABOR as a popular feature of Colorado’s constitution. “I think if you poll TABOR, you won't see much change [from when it was passed],” he said. “People really like it.”