Public employees fight back with education, coalitions and mobilization

“A Taxpayer Bill of Rights [TABOR] may sound good and, believe me, proponents will make it sound like the people will be the winners. But in the end, the people are the losers when there are no services, and the more they demand, the less they get,” says Colorado Federation of Public Employees (CFPE) president Jo Romero.

Romero, and the state and county employees she represents, know firsthand that TABOR’s stranglehold slowly and systematically constricts funding for government programs—all government programs, from healthcare to higher education to public safety. Lured by the promise of tax rebates and control over government spending, voters passed TABOR, albeit by a slight majority, as an amendment to the state’s constitution in 1992.

Now, more than a decade later, voters aren’t getting what they bargained for— tax rebates and public services—but tax rebates and drastically reduced or diminished public services.

But the architects of Colorado’s TABOR are getting exactly what they wanted: a reduction in taxpayer-funded programs and services for communities and people.

TABOR Fundamentals: Cut, Cut and Cut

Colorado’s TABOR, which applies to every level of government from water and library districts to municipalities, counties and the state, is made up of a number of different provisions. Even policy experts who understand the amendment inside and out admit it is complex to understand, much less explain, to the average voter.

Here are key TABOR fundamentals:

• requires voter approval of any new tax or tax-rate increase;
• restricts government spending through growth formulas;
• limits the amount of revenue that can be collected; and
• requires excess revenue collected be returned to taxpayers.

The Bell Policy Center, based in Denver, sums up the formulas limiting revenue collections this way: “TABOR prescribes that state government cannot grow faster each year than household consumer prices (inflation) plus population growth, and that local government cannot grow faster each year than the value of net new constructions plus the increase in inflation.”

The formulas don’t mean much until numbers are plugged in. Carol Hedges of The Bell Policy Center provided some TABOR stats to participants at a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities conference in November in Washington, D.C. She said Colorado state government: has returned well over $3.2 billion to state taxpayers in revenue collected that was in excess of TABOR limits; is $1.6 billion below the level of services provided in 2001; has a $250 million deficit; estimates that $459 million will be returned to taxpayers in 2006.

Explaining the amendment’s “ratcheting-down,” effect, Romero says TABOR “assures there is no growth in government and government resources in good economic times, and it accelerates the shrinkage of government and government resources in bad economic times.” Furthermore, Romero says TABOR does not have a mechanism that allows the government budget to make up during economic booms for the accelerated reduction in government programs and services during the economic bust.

A second inherent flaw within the amendment is that the formulas do not account for changing needs and demands. “Colorado had the highest number of deaths from West Nile [in 2003],” said Hedges, noting that the virus was unheard of in the United States when Coloradans passed TABOR in 1992.

TABOR’s Stranglehold on Public Services

“Colorado stands to be the first state in the union to lose publicly funded public higher education,” says Mary Emmett, a CFPE member who works as an office administrator for the political science department at Metro State College in Denver. (Colorado ranks 48th in state per-capita funding of higher education.)

Emmett spent the better part of 2003 doing double duty, without extra pay, helping another department that lost its office administrator due to budget cutbacks. But office administrators are not the only public higher education employees to be squeezed by TABOR. Emmett says the political science department has three vacant tenure-track positions that are not being filled because of the budget.

“TABOR won’t allow our higher education institutions to increase tuition,” says Romero. “The University of Colorado has been granted ‘enterprise’ status by the Legislature because it is receiving less than 8 percent of its funding from the general fund. Under enterprise status, the university should be allowed to automatically raise tuition; however, Republican Gov. Bill Owens would only sign the enterprise bill if it included a provision granting him the right to regulate tuition increases.”

TABOR’s effects are equally being felt in the judicial branch, says Romero. Due to budget cuts and layoffs, “we have felons out on the street who aren’t being tracked because there is not enough staff to do so.”

AFT Mission: Stop TABOR in its Tracks

“Our advice to others who are facing a potential TABOR initiative? Make it the number-one priority for your members,” says Romero. “Educate and mobilize your members, build coalitions and then educate and mobilize the public.”

“It is not easy,” Romero adds. “Taxes and TABOR are complex. You will find that public employees will vote for TABOR and that those [citizens who will be] most affected by service cuts will vote for TABOR.” That explains why the two-pronged approach of educating members and the public is essential. “People will always find it appealing to have lower taxes, but they have to understand that the impact of TABOR on their jobs and on the community can be devastating.”

CFPE formed the OneColorado coalition in 2003 to bring together like-minded groups concerned about the budget crisis and elimination of critical services. More than 255,000 Coloradans are members of the two-dozen plus organizations that form the coalition.

Although TABOR reform was not on the 2004 ballot, both Romero and Emmett say the outcome of the state legislative races was voter reaction to the decline in public services. Democrats gained control of both houses of the Legislature, Emmett notes, for the first time in 44 years.

TABOR: Coming to a State Legislature Near You

“It is a values choice,” says CFPE member Wendy Sime, an occupational therapist at the Wheat Ridge Regional Center, a state-operated facility for people with developmental disabilities. “Do you want your tax refund, or do you want someone who has serious health-related issues to receive excellent, sometimes life-saving, services?”

Thirteen state legislatures seriously considered TABOR proposals in 2004, according the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. At least half as many states are expected to revisit TABOR in 2005, including Maine, Ohio, Oregon and Wisconsin.

AFT-Wisconsin is prepared, however. In 2004, the union mobilized its members and formed a coalition with other groups opposed to TABOR. The proposal did not make it far, notes Cory Mason, AFT-Wisconsin’s legislative director. “There was dysfunction among proponents who had different ideas of how it should be structured,” which is what led to its demise, Mason said, noting that it will certainly be on the Republican agenda in 2005.

TABOR: Holy Grail of Anti-government Conservatives

TABOR talk among Wisconsin legislators started in 1999 after some state lawmakers returned from a corporate-sponsored conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a self-described organization made up of corporate officials and conservative lawmakers who advance the “principles of free markets, limited government, federalism and individual liberty.”

As part of its “membership benefits,” ALEC offers “model legislation.” ALEC’s model legislation for TABOR is called the Tax and Expenditure Limitation Act. According to ALEC’s Web site: “This legislation amends a state’s constitution to limit increases in state spending. Annual spending increases are limited by yearly percentage changes in the cost-of-living, population growth, and the average percentage change in per capita personal income of the state’s prior three fiscal years.” The bill also calls for taxpayer refunds of excess revenue, prevents cost-shifting to local governments, and limits taxes and expenditures at the local level.

In addition to ALEC, Americans for Tax Reform, led by Grover Norquist, who is thought to be one of the most influential members of the Republican Party, is another widely known TABOR proponent. Grover Norquist has called TABOR the Holy Grail of anti-government conservatives, said Hedges, noting that the initiative “slowly bleeds government,” starving it to the point where “you can’t help but have irrational results. It feeds the notion that government is bad.”

Joining ALEC and Norquist as TABOR proponents is Freedom Works, a project of Citizens for a Sound Economy & Empower America. Freedom Works, based in Washington, D.C., has state chapters in at least 27 states, including Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

While ALEC and Norquist are more commonly associated with stealth activism, Freedom Works was openly involved in Wisconsin’s TABOR debate in 2004, through its “United Wisconsin” coalition.

Nevertheless, there are some conservative state lawmakers who are bucking their party and coming out in opposition to TABOR, including former Wisconsin Gov. Lee Dreyfus.

Speaking at a rally last summer before Wisconsin’s TABOR debate fizzled out for 2004, Dreyfus said: “Maybe we don’t need to change the constitution. Maybe we need to change the legislators.”