Tax committee members agree to continue negotiations on SB 35, property-tax changes and scheduling

Members of the Committee on Taxation discussed outstanding differences in several tax measures and set a time to reconvene to run "agree-to-disagree" items, but no final votes were recorded at the meeting.

The chair of the Committee on Taxation said the committee would "run those agree to disagrees" at a later session on bills referenced as 02/2025 and 05/2011 and that the group would reconvene at 2:30 p.m. to complete that work. The chair added, "Go ahead and we'll stand by," when asked to wait while no final actions were taken.

The committee discussed Senate Bill 35, with one committee member saying the Senate's original language reducing or eliminating a statewide 1.5-mill levy was acceptable to the House side and that the Senate version had advanced without amendments. "We actually passed that out, a committee, without any amendment, and it was on the general orders," the chair said when describing the Senate action.

A committee member asked that the wording for an ASTRA fund provision be changed from "acknowledging" to "advancing," calling it "a very, very minor change." The chair said the House would accept that change.

Committee members also discussed a requested change to the effective date for a constitutional amendment tied to item 05/2011. One member asked the committee to consider changing the date from Nov. 25 to Aug. 26; the chair noted that changing the date would affect the implementation date and said the group would revisit the request during follow-up negotiations after the agree-to-disagree exchange.

Members raised fiscal-note concerns about bill 02/1931, which proposes expanded changes to a property tax-freeze program. The chair warned that increasing benefits for some lower-income programs quickly enlarges the fiscal note; the chair summarized the view as: "as soon as we start increasing the benefits for that, the fiscal note gets large rather quick." Another member said the committee was "not really comfortable at this time moving forward with those provisions."

The committee also confirmed that Senate Bill 10 was placed in 02/2025 and that the House's current priority remained the single-factor provision in 02/1936, though members acknowledged timing and continued negotiations.

No formal motions or recorded votes on the bills were taken during this meeting. Committee members arranged to reconvene at 2:30 p.m. to run the outstanding agree-to-disagree items in hopes of completing votes after both chambers have acted on related items.