SB26-135 advances through Colorado legislature as opponents call ballot language ‘dishonest and deceptive’

DENVER — Senate Bill 26-135, a ballot referral that would redirect an estimated $817 million in annual TABOR refunds to state coffers, cleared the Senate Finance Committee on a 6-3 party-line vote on March 12 and advanced to Senate Appropriations, according to Colorado Politics. The measure is widely expected to reach the November 2026 ballot, where it will ask voters whether to increase K-12 education investment “for the next ten years.”

What the ballot language does not say is that the TABOR spending cap increase is permanent. The education earmark sunsets after 10 years; the cap raise does not.

Kim Monson, who said she testified before the committee when the bill was first heard, called the measure “dishonest” and “deceptive” on The Kim Monson Show.

“They say it’s for education funding, but excess revenue collected will go into the general fund,” Monson said. “They imply there will be a 10-year sunset. After that 10 years, all of the money will go to the general fund. This is an amazing, audacious grab at everyday people’s property.”

The permanent cap raise

The bill creates an Excess State Revenues Account within the general fund. For each fiscal year beginning July 1, 2027, the state may retain revenue it would otherwise have been required to refund under TABOR. The education component directs the legislature to fund a “Positive Factor” for school districts for 10 years, distributing approximately $200 million annually to increase teacher pay, improve retention, reduce class sizes, and expand career and technical courses.

After the education earmark expires in FY 2036-37, the cap raise remains in effect and the retained revenue becomes unrestricted. After that date, “the excess revenue would be unrestricted, meaning the General Assembly could spend it as it sees fit,” Colorado Politics reported.

The Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board called this the hidden core of the bill: “If voters agree to this deceptive pitch to keep excess revenue, it also would permanently lift the limit on government growth, even after the 10-year toll for schools is over. That amounts to an added, annual infusion of play money for lawmakers, for good. It would gut TABOR’s most important feature in reining in runaway government growth.”

The spending debate

Supporters argue Colorado schools are critically underfunded. Kevin Vick, president of the Colorado Education Association, told the Senate Finance Committee that “every public school student in Colorado is underfunded at $4,000 per student.” Benjamin Wells, a teacher at Stanley Lake High School, testified he works two part-time jobs and lives in public housing.

Critics counter that K-12 spending is already at an all-time high. A Common Sense Institute report from October 2025 found total K-12 spending rose to $18.12 billion in 2024, an increase of $4.2 billion (30%) since 2019. Per-student instruction and support expenditure grew 48% since 2018. Yet instruction’s share of total spending shrank from 45.9% in 2014 to 41.6% in 2024, while the number of administrators and non-teacher staff grew 31.4% and 33.9% respectively, compared with 9.3% growth in teaching positions from 2009 to 2025.

“It’s not a lack of resources; it’s a lack of political will,” Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Brighton, said when the bill was introduced.

The Colorado Accountability Project noted that the bill ignores a key recommendation from two state-commissioned adequacy studies: reforming the K-12 funding formula to target money toward lower-performing schools, English language learners, and special education. “It is a fiscal responsibility problem,” the analysis states. “Our state’s been great at expanding Medicaid and overpaying for it. … All the while the things you might traditionally think of the government doing with tax money, building/maintaining roads, building and operating functioning schools, has fallen by the wayside.”

The economic argument

Jay Davidson, CEO and founder of First American State Bank and a columnist at American Thinker, framed the bill as economic coercion on The Kim Monson Show.

“… When you take current income through taxes away from the people that earned it, then they can no longer spend that money as they see fit; rather, it goes into a bureaucracy, which is by definition the most inefficient thing in the world, and it gets wasted and spent on places that you don’t want,” Davidson said. “… You want to help the children? Leave the money in my pocket. I earned it.”

Davidson argued the bill circumvents the constitutional amendment process. “If they want to re-amend the Constitution of the state of Colorado, then send it to the people, not in some amendment form like they’re doing, but make it a constitutional amendment rather than trying to sneak it through behind the closed doors,” he said.

History of voter rejection

Colorado voters have repeatedly turned down efforts to modify TABOR refunds. Proposition CC in 2019 would have permanently ended refunds; voters rejected it. Proposition HH in 2023, which tied a temporary cap raise to property tax relief, failed by a wide margin. The last successful TABOR modification was Referendum C in 2005, which gave the state a five-year timeout from TABOR spending limits.

The bill is unlikely to receive a single Republican vote among the 34 GOP members in the legislature. Democrats hold large majorities in both chambers. Because the measure is a ballot referral rather than a constitutional amendment, it needs only a simple majority in both chambers to reach the November ballot.

Monson urged voters to examine the bill’s text beyond the ballot language. “Get up to speed because there’s going to be a lot of money that is coming at it, because those that will benefit from more and more of your tax dollars are willing to spend some money now for what they consider a big windfall if this would pass,” she said.