Counties seek authority to recover treasurer administrative costs; special districts and service providers oppose bill

House Finance received extensive testimony Feb. 13 on House Bill 10-42, which would allow county treasurers to charge local taxing districts a cost‑recovery fee for the administrative costs of billing, collecting and distributing property taxes.

Committee staff (Tracy Taylor) described the proposal’s parameters: the fee is based on allowable actual costs from the prior 12 months; the first $50,000 of a taxing district’s aggregate collections is excluded; counties with population over 250,000 may charge up to 1% of a district’s tax roll and smaller counties up to 2%; the county must furnish the fee to affected taxing districts by Sept. 1 of the current year; and recovered costs would be credited to a county treasurer’s cost‑recovery account. Staff also explained districts…