Denver is Colorado’s capital and its most populous city. With the largest municipal budget in the state, it also spends the most. It is, hands down, the state’s premier sanctuary city for illegal immigration, and it is an epicenter of auto theft.
In addition to those debatable and, in some cases, dubious distinctions, Denver now might join the ranks of Colorado cities that tax the most.
As reported in The Gazette last week, Denver’s City Council is considering whether to ask voters for a sales tax hike to help fund Denver Health. The city-county’s “safety net” hospital of last resort — which takes all patients regardless of ability to pay or lack of health coverage — has been reeling from the soaring cost of skyrocketing indigent care.
If the council proceeds and voters go along, it would make Denver the highest-taxed major city in the metro area. Denver also would have one of the highest tax rates in the state.
The proposed 0.34-percentage point hike would push Denver’s total sales tax rate to 9.15%.
But wait — there’s more.
As District 2 council veteran Kevin Flynn pointed out in The Gazette’s report, another couple of pending tax measures — one of them, a sales-tax hike for affordable housing — also could be headed for this fall’s municipal ballot. That could push Denver’s total sales tax to 9.61%.
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All of which is atop a couple of other developments — over which the City and County of Denver has no direct control, but which would compound the average Denverite’s tax bill.
One is a proposed, nearly $1 billion bond issue for Denver Public Schools, pending before the DPS board. The other is of course the elephant in the room — the explosive growth of most Coloradans’ property taxes over the past few years. Many tax bills that arrived this spring posted upwards of 25% increases.
Point is, Denver voters are painfully aware of it all. They also are aware of a big reason they might be asked to bail out Denver Health — illegal immigration. As The Gazette’s report noted, the hospital saw $10 million in additional “uncompensated care” in the last year alone. The health system attributes that budget hit largely to tens of thousands of visits from immigrant patients from South and Central America who entered the U.S. illegally and arrived in Denver.
Said Dr. Taylor McCormick, associate director of Pediatrics Emergency Medicine at Denver Health, “Denver Health is eating the cost for many of these visits.”
And now, the city’s taxpayers might be asked to eat some of those costs, as well. That’s in addition to slashed city services Denverites have endured — like reduced hours at parks and rec centers and DMV branches and, above all, cuts to the public safety budget. It’s all part of the tab handed to taxpayers, like it or not, for the city’s sanctuary status.
You can bet Denverites are fed up.
Flynn, who expressed, “a serious concern about burdening Denver taxpayers,” seems to get it. He noted Denver citizens already have been generous with Denver Health: “Every time I pay my mortgage, and my property taxes are in that, it goes to pay off bonds that have built capital construction at Denver Health.”
Flynn also raised concerns about the bigger fiscal picture.
“Our sales tax revenues are already falling short of our projections, and that has me concerned for our general fund,” he said. “It might be time to look at putting a ceiling on our sales tax rates.”
A sales-tax ceiling? Now there’s a proposal we’d like to see the council refer to the ballot.
Denver Gazette Editorial Board