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October 12, 2015 12:07 PM UTC

Blowhards: Springs Road Tax Haters Make Fools Of Selves

  • 16 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Pothole.
Pothole.

As the Colorado Springs Gazette’s Billie Stanton reports, Republican Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers’ campaign to pass the city Ballot Issue 2C, a modest increase in the city’s sales tax rate to fund desperately-needed street repair projects, is meeting fierce opposition from national conservative group Americans for Prosperity–and also from the ubiquitous Laura Carno, a Springs-based conservative paid political activist with ties to former gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez.

As Stanton reports, the opposition is fierce, but unexpectedly shallow:

“Any politicians raising taxes anywhere – prove to me that that is the only way,” Carno said. “It is our money. When voters say no, government tightens their belts like we have to.”

She points to a report by a certified public accountant, hired by AFP, who said the city budget has enough money to rebuild roads without raising the sales tax.

“I don’t think I need to have any financial acumen to be a taxpayer saying they have not proven to me that they need to do this,” Carno said…

Laura Carno.
Laura Carno.

Followed by this frank admission:

“I am not a CPA. I am not an expert. My big fear is that they haven’t proven it to us.” [Pols emphasis]

For many Springs residents, the “proof” Carno is looking for can be found in a ten-minute drive on the city’s crumbling streets. But Carno also relies on a report commissioned by Americans for Prosperity from a certified public accountant named Jay Anderson, whose past includes a stint as budget director for Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas. The major fiscal problems in Kansas caused by large tax cuts recommended Anderson under Brownback are a matter of record, and the state passed a budget this year that was forced to raise some taxes again to close a massive “unexpected” deficit.

You have to wonder how much of Anderson’s “creative” math from Kansas went into his report on how easily Colorado Springs can fix the roads :

His 23-page report reflects several basic misunderstandings of the city budget.

For example, he urged the city to recover more than $20 million in property taxes lost through exclusions. But only churches, nonprofits and the military are excluded. If they were taxed, it would add only $4.3 million to the city’s $20 million in property taxes this year, Mayor John Suthers said.

“Do you think the citizens of Colorado Springs would vote to tax churches and nonprofits? We’d be the only jurisdiction in Colorado that did that,” he said.

In addition, Anderson “recommended” the city slash its funding reserves far below the level considered prudent. Given Anderson’s recent experience in Kansas, and the obvious damage done by that state’s irresponsible fiscal decisions, he’s probably the last person anyone should be taking fiscal advice from. But not only are we being asked to do that, you have Carno backing him up with what’s become her trademark nasal-voiced snarky catchphrase presumptuousness–never mind the fact that she’s, in her own words, “not an expert.” In fact, as Stanton reports in this story, Carno spent 14 years at a credit card issuer that was forced to pay almost half a billion dollars in fines over its predatory lending practices.

All of this adds up to make the opposition to Colorado Springs Ballot Issue 2C look not just rationally unsound, but also fairly…well, contemptible. Unfortunately, however, this is Colorado Springs–so none of these facts may matter to the outcome.

But folks down there deserve to know the whole story of what they’re being told, and by who.

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16 thoughts on “Blowhards: Springs Road Tax Haters Make Fools Of Selves”

  1. Do the opponents of 2C hope to somehow force the state or federal government to pick up the tab for these repairs? After all, it would be perfectly consistent with the "Infrastructure is free" ethic of conservatives. It also goes along with the "all government is theft" and "it's not my fault" conservative memes.

    One thing that is guaranteed, however, if 2C passes. The opponents will be crying the very next day if they find even one pothole.

  2. More on the "brilliant' Steve Anderson and his troubled tenure as a CPA serving as state budget director, in today's Topeka paper  (http://cjonline.com/news/2015-10-11/inner-circle-longtime-associates-and-opposing-personalities-tasked-carrying-out?utm_source=cjonline.com&utm_medium=link&utm_content=homepage&utm_campaign=latest-news-widget)

    See lines in bold:

    "Anderson, who continued to live in Oklahoma and commute on weekends while serving as budget director, set out to make government more efficient and to cut out what he viewed as excesses….

    “Anderson, though willing to sacrifice his public image to protect Brownback, still ran into roadblocks.

    Dennis Taylor, who served as secretary of administration early on, said CPAs didn’t know about state government budgeting and that Anderson thought he knew more than he did.

    “He thought we can cut spending,” Taylor said. “I remember the first meeting I had with him, he wanted to cut $120 million. That was his goal. Where are you going to get that money, Steve? Well, he didn’t have a plan for that.”

    Without about 20,000 nonuniversity employees at the time, that would have meant cutting about 2,000 workers, Taylor said.

    Another time, Taylor was in a meeting with Anderson and other agency heads. Anderson wanted to eliminate all positions in state government making more than $60,000 a year.

    Taylor asked Anderson how many people he thought in government made more than that.

    Anderson replied 5,000. The actual number was closer to 900. Taylor said he pointed out that half of those were political appointees.

    “Everybody sitting at this table makes over 60. We’re counted in that 912. Seriously?” Taylor recalled saying."

  5. R's here have achieved a very high level of stoopid after so many years in the majority. Even the Gazette has endorsed the tax, which will doom it to years of criticism as somehow being "liberal", just as the Denver Post is criticized..

    1. Indeed. I work with some serious right wing nut-jobs, who at the very mention of this tax, go absolutely apeshit! Yet, they still complain about the potholes. These same people were all gung-ho for Suthers, saying he'd be a boon for our city. Yeah right, get your head out of your right-wing rage bubble.

      Now, because of these tea-tards, all residents of Co. Springs will suffer again because nobody wants to pay for anything. Let's hope the majority has more than half a brain and votes for the increase, because I'm tired of my jarring drive to and from work each day. Even the highway lanes are pulling apart… big gashes in the road.

    1. Moddy,

      Your AFP CPA is as clueless as the mayor.  Except the mayor should be clueless as he's not claiming to be an accountant.  Should he have asked what the line is?  Sure.  Should your CPA KNOW what the line is for?  Absolutely.

      Unfortunately, rather than the benign explanation I'm about to give, the Koch Bros' shill makes it sound all mysterious and evil and shit.

      Deferred inflows of property taxes noted in the CAFR are very simply, the taxes to be collected in the following year.  Property taxes in Colorado are collected a year in arrears (you paid 2014 taxes this year).  But the city is owed those taxes as of the certification of its tax levy (commonly in December).  Some special assessments due in future years might be sprinkled in.  That line in the CAFR?  Just an accountant's way of recognizing that the money is due.  It's a part of modified accrual accounting and shows up in every goddamned CAFR in Colorado.  There's even a note in the Springs' CAFR explaining it (page 68):

      If applicable to liabilities, the statement of net position and balance sheet will report a separate section for deferred inflows of resources. This separate financial statement element, deferred inflows of resources, represents an acquisition of net position that applies to a future period(s) and so will not be recognized as an inflow of resources (revenue) until that time. The City has three types of items that qualify for reporting in this category. The first item, unavailable revenue – property taxes, is reported in the governmental funds balance sheets and government-wide statement of net position. The governmental funds report unavailable revenues from two sources: property taxes and special assessments. These amounts are deferred and recognized as an inflow of resources in the period that the amounts become available.  The statement of net position reports property tax revenues in the year in which the taxes are levied as an enforceable lien on the property. [emphasis mine]

      Your accountant isn't much of one, or he's a liar, at least that's my opinion. Tell him to read GASB 63

        1. Too much?

          I don't know why nobody down there brought this up.  They could have made this accountant look incompetent quickly and easily.  An accountant who has his CP up his A so far that he can't understand this doesn't understand local government accounting.  Hopefully someone down there will bring it up and shame the everloving crap out of the TABORites.

  7. “I am not a CPA. I am not an expert. My big fear is that they haven’t proven it to us.”

    This is one of the righties’ most successful ploys, used by the tobacco industry for many years, and now on the issue of climate change and a host of other issues for which they want to block progress. See Merchants of Doubt.

     

  8. The sad thing is it is a lot cheaper to maintain deteriorating roads than to fix failed roads.   The idiots in Samalia Springs will end up paying twice as much as they would have, had they maintained them properly.

    1. Hooboy, now THAT's a slippery slope. Next you'll be expecting them to provide preventative health care, house the homeless, and inspect restaurants!

      Look, the good citizens of Colorado Springs have a long and proud record of cutting off their noses to spite their faces. No commie like Suthers will ever change that. 

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