IF the city's TABOR were voted out of the city charter, the city would still have the same limitations under the state TABOR: Cannot collect more tax than the TABOR cap allows, cannot raise taxes without a vote of the people, etc. The major difference would be how grant money would be counted for our city.

ANY tax money collected from sales, property, and use taxes goes to fund city services. We pay the lowest per capita total tax rate of any Front Range city. This is a good thing; however, we do suffer in many ways, most notably in public safety where our police officers are leaving (after we train them) for better paying jobs in the Denver area, for example. We are well below the national average in officer per 1000 population and this results in slower response times and in forcing crime victims to report their crimes on the Internet or by telephone.

The main provision of TABOR is GOOD: asking those who pay taxes if they want to raise taxes. However, there are some flaws in TABOR that should be fixed: the "ratchet" effect and the inability to set aside a portion of our tax money in good years for use in hard economic times. For the city, the requirement our enterprises to count grant money from governmental agencies as tax income needs to be fixed.

Would I support a total repeal of the city TABOR? No. As a fiscal conservative and a responsible citizen, I want low taxes, but realize that it takes taxes to provide the services that our citizens deserve and expect. Colorado Springs is a great place to live, not because we just provide the bare necessities of minimal police, fire, and infrastructure, but because we do have a great park system and community events and recreational programs. If we eliminate the grant counting provision, I think we would be very close to the state TABOR and so, it wouldn’t much matter if we keep the city version as well.  There was talk in Governor Ritter’s (D) State of the State address that he’d like to eliminate TABOR. He can’t do that. TABOR, a Colorado Constitutional amendment, can only be modified by a vote of the people. However, our local TABOR, if modified to allow our city to accept grant money without counting against our TABOR limit, is a good “backstop” to the state TABOR and any tinkering the “tax and spend” Democrat legislators may try to do.

I don’t know what the council is going to do with the committee’s recommendation to completely eliminate the local TABOR rather than the alternate recommendation to just fix the grant problem.

As a former councilmember, if only for one year, I went through a budget cycle at a time when the economy was pretty good (2006 for the 2007 budget). I did not see a lot of "fat" in the budget. Our employees are pretty well paid and that is okay with me since this is a fairly well paid population especially if you work in the defense, aerospace, or computer industry. I did find the city employees as very hard working, dedicated to the city and their jobs, and very knowledgeable and helpful. In many years, they have not had any pay raises and their salaries are at or below the mean for cities our size.

In summary, I believe we have a great city that is facing some tough challenges. Someone said to fire the person who over estimated the budgeted income by 20%. Well, the 2008 budget was approved in 2007. Who could have predicted $4 a gallon gas or the mortgage loan collapse which resulted in a big downturn in housing starts? All of this put pressure on the predicted tax revenue. The city DOES have to live within a budget - a balanced budget - and it is adjusted throughout the year as actual revenue and expenses are compared to budgeted income and expenses.