COLORADO SPRINGS — On Wednesday, every Fire Chief in El Paso County sent a letter to Governor Polis and lawmakers, urging them to reconsider property tax relief that would hurt funding for fire districts.
"Any cut is going to be significant. It's going to impact service in some way to every fire district," said Cimarron Hills Fire District Chief Andrew York.
York is the President of the Pikes Peak Fire Chief Council, which includes all 27 fire departments in El Paso County. They're worried that property tax relief for homeowners will mean a reduced budget for Fire Districts.
"Primarily, all fire districts in the state of Colorado are funded through property tax. So any reduction in property valuation or property tax received by fire districts, results in us losing revenue, which has its consequences. losing revenue does mean there are potential impacts to services," said York.
He says that inflation and supply chain issues have driven up prices for departments, causing them to make tough decisions with an already tight budget.
"You look at a fire engine a couple of years ago, it costs 600-700 thousand dollars. now we're at 1.2, 1.3 million for that same engine. Several years ago it was 4 million dollars to build a really nice, new, shiny fire station, and now we're seeing $12 million," continued York.
The Fire Chiefs are advocating for other options besides reductions in property values, like reducing income tax, proposing a statewide sales tax, or at minimum, asking the state to backfill any lost revenue from lower taxes.
Legislators are set to meet this Friday for a special session to create legislation concerning property tax relief. So far, both Democrats and Republicans are set on lowering taxes for homeowners.
"First and foremost, [our goal] is property tax relief," said House District 18 Representative Marc Snyder, who is a Democrat.
"Republicans are focused on honest tax relief," said Republican Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen.
Snyder says the consensus among Democrats is that they prefer to backfill the school and fire districts affected.
"There is strong support for backfilling school districts and fire districts. I think now there is a consensus to backfill 100% of fire districts," he told me.
Senator Lundeen says Republicans are opposed to backfilling, instead looking towards a long-term solution of having these districts work with smaller budgets.
"If we need to provide buffering, or transitional dollars on a short-term basis for some of the smaller counties or smaller districts that actually have a financial problem, then we can have that conversation," he said.
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