Taxation committee hears bill to let voters curb property tax increases and create $60 million Astra Fund

The Committee on Taxation heard testimony on House Bill 2,396, which would allow voters in taxing jurisdictions to file a protest petition to cap property tax revenue increases and would create a new state fund to make annual transfers intended to offset property tax growth.

A reviser’s summary presented to the committee said, "House Bill 2,396 would authorize the use of a protest petition to limit funding of a taxing jurisdiction, by property tax revenues above a certain amount ... and it would authorize transfers from the state general fund to be debited up between qualified cities and counties, and it would eliminate the revenue neutral rate requirements and the taxpayer notification cost fund." The summary said the bill would create an "Astra Fund" funded initially by a $60,000,000 transfer from the State General Fund (SGF) and that the transfer would increase by 2 percent after the first year.

Supporters and witnesses framed the bill as an attempt to give taxpayers a stronger check on local tax increases while pairing that check with a state-funded payment to jurisdictions that keep their property tax revenues to a defined threshold. Representative Adam Smith, who explained the bill’s origins to the committee, said the measure grew out of conversations about prior demand-transfer programs and the revenue neutral rate, and was intended to "enhance the idea behind truth in taxation" by giving citizens stronger remedies when a local government adopts a budget that increases property tax revenues above an inflation-and-growth…