Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission Meeting - January 15 - 16, 2020

[Outdoorayres]

Thank you for the updates. I could not listen to the whole thing.

 

[COEngineer]

Debrucing, refers to Doug Bruce that ass hat and felon, that gifted us TABOR.

It is unfortunate that Bruce is associated so closely with TABOR, the only thing keeping the urban Dems from turning CO into East CA (or Colofornia or Calirado) if you prefer.

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

the only thing keeping the urban Dems from turning CO into East CA (or Colofornia or Calirado) if you prefer.

Um... no, people who like TABOR like it because of the messaging. They actually haven't read it, discussed the implications of the bill with various stake holders or paid attention to the effects that it has had on the state.

The Colorado TABOR is horrific.

 

[COEngineer]

Um... no, people who like TABOR like it because of the messaging. They actually haven't read it, discussed the implications of the bill with various stake holders or paid attention to the effects that it has had on the state.

The Colorado TABOR is horrific.

Then start a new thread and explain it to me, please.

 

[Muley_Stalker]

TABOR: Restrictive Tax Policy Holds Colorado Back

TABOR hamstrings Colorado fiscal policy and its budget, keeping the state from realizing its full potential.

www.bellpolicy.org

 

[Mudranger1]

TABOR: Restrictive Tax Policy Holds Colorado Back

TABOR hamstrings Colorado fiscal policy and its budget, keeping the state from realizing its full potential.

www.bellpolicy.org

that article does nothing to convince me TABOR is the evil yall are making it out to be... again not agreeing or disagreeing that it is or is not. The first part says you need to tax people more for being for stable/successful financially then others which I will probably never be on board with and the rest is just how the government had to make cuts during a recession. no shit everyone does

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

that article does nothing to convince me TABOR is the evil yall are making it out to be... again not agreeing or disagreeing that it is or is not. The first part says you need to tax people more for being for stable/successful financially then others which I will probably never be on board with and the rest is just how the government had to make cuts during a recession. no shit everyone does

I'm writing a post to try and explain the effect on CPW. I would watch the video.

The thing to keep in mind about the Ratchet effect is that it's permanent. So lets say a school has 1 teacher per 20 students, the economy tanks and you have to cut positions and your ratio goes to 1 to 30. The law basically says well you proved you can do 1 to 30 so that's the new standard. So then if the economy improves it's actually against the law to hire a new teacher to get that class size down to 1 to 20 again. And if there is a huge influx of people, residential taxes are capped so you end up with a 1 to 40 student ratio.

That's not exactly how it works, but I think it accurately describes the net effect.

 

[Muley_Stalker]

Mud........I didn't offer an opinion. I just posted some info.

 

[rideold]

If you debruced CPW, a $12 license plate tax would cover the all the revenue lost by reducing CO elk tags down to WY levels, ostensibly giving you the ability to hunt archery and rifle season on the same tag like WY and MT.
Just saying

True but as I've seen things go in this state....and I've lived here for quite some time....the lineage would be, we repeal TABOR, move CPW funding to license plate fee, lower hunting tag fees and then CPW is told what to do by lots of other folks and they loose their ability to answer to the sportspeople who pay their way. Just sayin'. I'm in agreement that on paper repealing TABOR could help the CPW but someone would have to untangle the decades of funding model evolution that they currently have. I'm not convinced that the way CO is leaning politically that CPW would come out on top.

 

[Zach]

Debrucing, refers to Doug Bruce that ass hat and felon, that gifted us TABOR. What I described is actually what both MT and WY do to pay for parts of their wildlife budgets, Colorado cannot do the same because of stupid tax legislation.

Don’t worry I will find a way to wedge this argument into every thread even tangentially related to CO wildlife, it’s kinda my shtick... I’m not actually a pro-tax commie I just hate crappy legislation.

Language warning

Just for you....

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

True but as I've seen things go in this state....and I've lived here for quite some time....the lineage would be, we repeal TABOR, move CPW funding to license plate fee, lower hunting tag fees and then CPW is told what to do by lots of other folks and they loose their ability to answer to the sportspeople who pay their way. Just sayin'. I'm in agreement that on paper repealing TABOR could help the CPW but someone would have to untangle the decades of funding model evolution that they currently have. I'm not convinced that the way CO is leaning politically that CPW would come out on top.

100% agree.

 

[Mudranger1]

Language warning

Just for you....

this is old...where is JARED

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

I think the most important thing to understand about TABOR is that it was myopic, if Colorado had stated a small rural state, never had a massive population influx, and the economy had grown consistently every year there probably wouldn't have been a lot of problems. The issue is that reality is messy and we need flexibility to handle problems as they come. IE... wolves, Californian's etc. On the face of it the idea seems good, but it's the reality is problematic, the catch-22 below occurs in it's own way with regard to education, health care, infrastructure, prisons, etc etc

So how does this relate to Wildlife so CPW exploits a loophole, and basically runs as a business to avoid having to deal with TABOR. This essentially means that it can't using traditional methods of funding that most state agencies across the us employ and must solely on selling goods and service and through grants.

Meaning, the state to some extent must commodify wildlife. In Colorado NR elk tags are the largest single source of income for CPW. If we need to reduce tags for any reason, create better quality, in order to deal with a new predator on the landscape (wolves), because there is a drought, fire, etc that means CPW will take a hit to their budget. CPW also has to pay for livestock damage per the new ballot measures, so in the case of wolves, CPW would have to reduce elk tags (and their budget) to accommodate wolves, but then would also need to pay for the damage wolves cause out of that shrinking budget. Anything that the state tried to do to offset this would push CPW over the threshold of funding allowed for a business enterprise, meaning that it would be subject to TABOR and would mean that CPW would have to refund a huge portion of it’s budget to Tax payers and would leave the agencies with even less money.

Source.

https://docs.merid.org/SITECORE_DOCS/Colorado%20Parks%20and%20Wildlife%20Future%20Funding%20Study%20Dec2018.pdf

 

[Mudranger1]

I think the most important thing to understand about TABOR is that it was myopic, if Colorado had stated a small rural state, never had a massive population influx, and the economy had grown consistently every year there probably wouldn't have been a lot of problems. The issue is that reality is messy and we need flexibility to handle problems as they come. IE... wolves, Californian's etc. On the face of it the idea seems good, but it's the reality is problematic, the catch-22 below occurs in it's own way with regard to education, health care, infrastructure, prisons, etc etc

So how does this relate to Wildlife so CPW exploits a loophole, and basically runs as a business to avoid having to deal with TABOR. This essentially means that it can't using traditional methods of funding that most state agencies across the us employ and must solely on selling goods and service and through grants.

Meaning, the state to some extent must commodify wildlife. In Colorado NR elk tags are the largest single source of income for CPW. If we need to reduce tags for any reason, create better quality, in order to deal with a new predator on the landscape (wolves), because there is a drought, fire, etc that means CPW will take a hit to their budget. CPW also has to pay for livestock damage per the new ballot measures, so in the case of wolves, CPW would have to reduce elk tags (and their budget) to accommodate wolves, but then would also need to pay for the damage wolves cause out of that shrinking budget. Anything that the state tried to do to offset this would push CPW over the threshold of funding allowed for a business enterprise, meaning that it would be subject to TABOR and would mean that CPW would have to refund a huge portion of it’s budget to Tax payers and would leave the agencies with even less money.

Source.

https://docs.merid.org/SITECORE_DOCS/Colorado%20Parks%20and%20Wildlife%20Future%20Funding%20Study%20Dec2018.pdf

View attachment 127495

so am I'm reading that right in that CPW could still get 10 million in tax revenue before losing what it is now? sign me up for $12 license plate fee for extra hunting lol

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

so am I'm reading that right in that CPW could still get 10 million in tax revenue before losing what it is now? sign me up for $12 license plate fee for extra hunting lol

So say there are 300,000 elk in CO. In 15 years we have 1000 wolves, those wolves eat 22 elk per year.

We would need to cut elk tags in 1/2 to keep total elk killed in a year constant. Obviously residents would be pissed, so you would probably do it on the NR side... meaning a loss of say 30 million.

The current CPW budget is 230 million so state funding is capped at 23 million. With the elk tag loss the state budget would be 200 million so state funding capped at 20 million. Therefore CPW would not only have lost 30 million in license revenue, but they would lose an additional 3 million in potential state funding. Add to this any additional costs associate with managing another species.

Essentially TABOR compounds funding problems.

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

What's so frustrating about this conversation state wide.

Folks: "Why do our schools suck, roads suck, why do we over sell elk tags to an insane degree, why is health care on the western slope so insanely expensive?"

State Agencies: "Well TABOR greatly constrains the ways we can generate revenue and allocate funding"

Folks: "What's TABOR"

State Agencies : "Its a set of laws the keep the state from raising taxes, and..."

Folks: "NO MORE TAXES F- YEAH"

Folks:" You guys really need to fix those roads they are really terrible..."

 

[Mudranger1]

What's so frustrating about this conversation state wide.

Folks: "Why do our schools suck, roads suck, why do we oversell elk tags to an insane degree, why is health care on the western slope so insanely expensive?"

State Agencies: "Well TABOR greatly constrains the ways we can generate revenue and allocate funding"

Folks: "What's TABOR"

State Agencies : "Its a set of laws the keep the state from raising taxes, and..."

Folks: "NO MORE TAXES F- YEAH"

Folks:" You guys really need to fix those roads they are really terrible..."

drive thru Colorado Springs and tell me how more tax is going to improve my roads again? This failure of a tax cause is why people say F more taxes. the roads here are just as shitty as before

2C Road Improvements | City of Colorado Springs

coloradosprings.gov

 

[Zach]

What's so frustrating about this conversation state wide.

Folks: "Why do our schools suck, roads suck, why do we oversell elk tags to an insane degree, why is health care on the western slope so insanely expensive?"

State Agencies: "Well TABOR greatly constrains the ways we can generate revenue and allocate funding"

Folks: "What's TABOR"

State Agencies : "Its a set of laws the keep the state from raising taxes, and..."

Folks: "NO MORE TAXES F- YEAH"

Folks:" You guys really need to fix those roads they are really terrible..."

What's so frustrating about this conversation state wide.

Folks: "Why do our schools suck, roads suck, why do we oversell elk tags to an insane degree, why is health care on the western slope so insanely expensive?"

State Agencies: "Well TABOR greatly constrains the ways we can generate revenue and allocate funding"

Folks: "What's TABOR"

State Agencies : "Its a set of laws the keep the state from raising taxes, and..."

Folks: "NO MORE TAXES F- YEAH"

Folks:" You guys really need to fix those roads they are really terrible..."

Ryan Reynolds Lick GIF - Ryan Reynolds Lick Tongue - Discover & Share GIFs

Click to view the GIF

tenor.com

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

drive thru Colorado Springs and tell me how more tax is going to improve my roads again? This failure of a tax cause is why people say F more taxes. the roads here are just as shitty as before

2C Road Improvements | City of Colorado Springs

coloradosprings.gov

I'm not defending any particular project, or advocating for more taxes. My focus is on the mechanism by which funds are allocated and the restrictions placed on agencies for securing new funds.

 

[beginnerhunter]

I'm not defending any particular project, or advocating for more taxes. My focus is on the mechanism by which funds are allocated and the restrictions placed on agencies for securing new funds.

No, no. I pay property taxes and the public schools around me are subpar so obviously all taxation everywhere must be bad.

Nevermind that our state conservation sales tax allowed our game and fish commission to purchase over 45k acres for public use (among many other things).

And conservation taxes aren't popular at all!

Nevermind that 78% of Republicans surveyed in Arkansas approve of the conservation sales tax.

Sorry, wllm has his pet issues, I have mine.