The St. Vrain Valley School District board voted Wednesday to certify its 2022 property tax mill levy rates in time for the Thursday deadline, as required by Colorado statute.
The law requires school districts to certify their mill levies to their respective county commissioners by Dec. 15 each year.
The mill levy is the tax rate that’s applied to the assessed value of a property: a $1 tax payment for each $1,000.
The state enacted new legislation in 2021 that requires school districts to set their mill levies to 27 mills. The St. Vrain Valley School District had to begin eliminating its total program mill levy credit of 2.005 by 1 mill per year until the district’s total program mill levy reaches 27 by 2023.
Tony Whiteley, executive director of budget and finance for the district board, said those increases won’t directly benefit the district.
“It goes into the overall pot statewide to help fund the total program formula,” Whiteley told the board.
The state’s legislation passed after a misinterpretation of the statute that reduced funding for public schools. After the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights passed in 1992 — which placed limits on government spending — school districts turned to voters to allow an exception to the TABOR property tax revenue limits. Voters approved the exceptions for many districts, which was supposed to allow the districts to keep property tax mill levies at the level established upon the approval.
But the Colorado Department of Education interpreted the law in a way that forced school districts to reduce their mill levies, which created an imbalance of funding between state and local taxes collected. Total property tax collection was reduced, which resulted in a larger burden on the state to fund education.
The department called the imbalance a “historical error,” and the legislature passed the bill that required school districts across the state to set their mill levies to 27 mills.
The St. Vrain Valley School District has to certify its mill levy rates to Weld, Boulder and Larimer counties, as well as the city and county of Broomfield.
Leader Editor Macie May contributed to this report.
