Water district moves forward with ballot measure that could end TABOR limits

A water district in Adams County is the latest governing agency to ask its residents to consider a ballot measure that would exempt them from revenue collection limits imposed in Colorado by TABOR (the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights).
On Monday, the board of directors for the South Adams County Water and Sanitation District voted to add a ballot measure to the November general election that would ask residents in Commerce City and parts of unincorporated Adams County who utilize the district’s water if they would support removing an existing cap on the district’s access to state revenue.
“TABOR puts a cap on the amount of revenue that we can collect from a prior year’s revenue collection, from the non-utility fund revenue,” said Abel Moreno, district manager for the South Adams County Water and Sanitation District. “It’s about 5.5% including a factor for inflation and growth.”
However, if voters approve a TABOR exemption, the district would be able to tap into more revenue in the form of state grants in order to help fund more projects aimed at improving the community’s water quality.
“Because we don’t have a TABOR exemption, he primary source of the district’s revenue source are really two-fold,” said Moreno. “One is an enterprise fund, which is based off of rates and fees and then the other one is a general fund, a non-utility fund that is based off of property tax and other revenue sources.”
Access to more funding has become crucial for the South Adams County Water and Sanitation District, with projects already in the works to improve the community’s wastewater infrastructure, build a new water treatment plant and manage immerging contaminants.
“Since I’ve lived here in 2008, the water has not been good. [We] only use it for laundry, cleaning or bathing,”said David Bondarchuck, who is a Commerce City resident. “The water sometimes has an odor. Since they’ve done upgrades to it, they’ve added a large water softening plant and since they’ve done that, the water is now slimy.”
Bonarchuck says he would love to support the district’s efforts to increase their access to revenue, but says he is concerned this ballot initiative would mean the district would be able to take away tax refunds residents might receive from TABOR.
“I would be inclined to vote on it if it were in fact going to fix our water issues, and I can actually use it and feel comfortable and safe in doing so,” said Bonarchuck.
Moreno says that would not be the case if voters support this measure.
“In the history of the district as far as I know, the district has never issued any type of tabor surplus refund, because we typically don’t collect the full authorized amount that we’re able to collect, so we don’t expect that that’s going to happen in the future either,” he said.
Utimately, voters will have until the November election to decide if they support removing TABOR restrictions for the water district, which leaders like Moreno hope could mean having the funds to improve the communities’ water quality in the long term.
“Commerce City is a disadvantaged community that has long been environmentally impacted due to a variety of reasons or sources,” said Moreno. “By being able to tap into revenue sources that are not related to property taxes or rates and fees really is a benefit to our rate payers in the district, because we’re able to offset some of the expenses that we would have to pass on to them, if not for state grant funds being available to us.”