As a 20-year Chaffee County resident, I have watched as our mountain community turned from a place families could afford into one where property tax bills are forcing people to the edge. Right now, 2026 tax notices are landing in mailboxes, and my neighbors are stunned: property tax increases of 20–30%. Homeowners are hurting, and renters will get hit too as landlords pass the costs straight into higher rents. Despite all of this monetary pain squeezed from residents, property taxes only cover about 10% of the county’s massive $84 million 2026 budget. That’s right: the skyrocketing taxes we’re paying finance just a tiny slice of county spending, while the rest comes from sales taxes, fees, grants, and reserves. But this property tax mess didn’t happen by accident. It’s the direct result of the 2020 repeal of the Gallagher Amendment, a decision sold to voters with promises of “stability” but delivering nothing but higher bills and bloated government budgets.
What Was the Gallagher Amendment, and Why Did It Matter?
In 1982, Colorado voters passed the Gallagher Amendment to fix a growing problem: skyrocketing home values were driving up property taxes, making it hard for regular people to stay in their homes. Named after its sponsor, Dennis Gallagher, it was simple and smart. It split property taxes into two buckets. residential (homes) and non-residential (businesses, farms, factories), and locked in a ratio: homes would cover 45% of the total tax pie, while businesses picked up 55%. To make this work, business properties were taxed at a fixed 29% of their value, but home rates could drop as needed when home prices rose faster than business properties.
Over the years, the home rate fell from 21% to about 7.15% by 2020. The goal? Protect homeowners from tax shocks while keeping government funded. And it mostly worked, for homeowners, anyway. It saved us billions in taxes over four decades, keeping Colorado affordable during booms. But it wasn’t perfect. As home values exploded (especially in urban areas), the system shifted more burden to businesses and rural properties, leading to funding shortfalls for schools, fire departments, and counties, up to $700 million a year in projected cuts by 2020.
Critics called it outdated, and during the COVID panic, politicians like Governor Jared Polis seized the moment to push for repeal.
The Repeal: Promises vs. Painful Reality
In 2020, amid the pandemic recession, Polis and a bipartisan group of lawmakers put Amendment B on the ballot to scrap Gallagher. They sold it hard: “No tax rate increases,” the ballot language promised. Polis warned that without repeal, we’d face massive cuts to schools and services—$490 million gone—and businesses would get slammed with $300 million in hikes, hurting recovery. “This will help us bounce back,” he said, framing it as a lifeline, not a burden.
Voters bought it: 57% approved. But here’s the catch: while rates froze (no official hikes), the repeal removed Gallagher’s automatic shield. Without it, when home values surged 30-40% post-COVID, tax bills exploded anyway. Statewide, residential taxes jumped 30-40% in some years, sparking a “property tax panic” that forced multiple special legislative sessions and billions in temporary relief. Polis signed bills like SB24-233 to cut rates a bit (to around 6.7-7%) and add deductions, but it’s patchwork, many of those breaks expired, leading to the shocks we’re seeing now.
Was Polis lying?
Maybe not outright, but he sure downplayed the risks. He focused on avoiding cuts (which repeal did) but ignored how frozen rates plus booming values would hit homeowners. Critics like me call it a “tax increase in disguise”, and guess what? Overall tax revenue ballooned $2 billion above trends by 2024, funding bigger government while we foot the bill. COVID was a convenient excuse to ram it through. Never let a crisis go to waste!
The Real Impact on Chaffee County Residents
Here in Chaffee, the Gallagher repeal has been a gut punch. Our county budget has tripled in just 10 years. from about $25 million in 2016 to $84 million in 2026. That’s not all from property taxes (they’re only about 10% of the pie), but the hikes helped fuel it. For 2026 bills, residential taxes are up 20-30% on average, $400-800 more for a typical $600k-800k home. Commercial properties see smaller net increases (5-15%) thanks to rate cuts to 25-27%, but that’s cold comfort when everyone’s hurting. It’s not just numbers, it’s lives.
Fixed-income seniors and working families are staring at bills they can’t pay, risking foreclosure or forced sales. Renters: think you’re safe? Think again. Landlords pass on every penny through higher rents, worsening our housing crunch where 91% of locals can’t afford the median home. This could drive people out, turning Chaffee into even more of a playground for wealthy outsiders while even the poorest residents subsidize the county’s growing payroll and programs.
And that budget growth? It’s partly from necessary stuff like child welfare, but also from state mandates and regulations that balloon costs. Colorado’s regs have spiked—think energy rules, wage mandates, environmental requirements—creating a cycle where government adds rules, then hires more employees to enforce them, then needs more taxes to pay for it all. Rinse and repeat. In Chaffee, we’re “tightening belts,” but the spending keeps climbing.
What Could Have Been Done to Keep Things Affordable?
We didn’t have to end up here. Keeping Gallagher would have meant automatic rate drops (to ~5-6%), saving homeowners hundreds yearly and avoiding the panic. Sure, it might have cut services, but that’s where smarter fixes come in:
- Cut Waste and Simplify Government: Instead of tripling budgets, prioritize essentials. Freeze hiring, trim regs that add enforcement costs, and repeal unfunded mandates. Other states have boosted growth by cutting red tape, Colorado could save millions without hurting services.
- Targeted Relief Without Repeal: Lawmakers could have tweaked Gallagher (e.g., adjust the 45/55 ratio gradually) or used TABOR refunds for permanent homeowner breaks, not one-off patches.
- Voter Protections and Transparency: Require clear warnings on ballots about bill impacts, not just deceptive promises of “no rate hikes.” And empower locals to cap spending growth.
This quote from the Chaffee County 2026 budget reveals the attitude of our government officials:
“The TABOR Amendment continues to hamper our ability to raise property taxes and sustain the service levels currently in place.” Get that? Despite the budget more than tripling over 10 years, it’s never enough to satisfy government’s appetite for your money. Has triple the budget delivered triple the services? Where does all the money go? The answer is obvious: into more bureaucracy, not better lives or increased affordability for residents. The Gallagher repeal was a raw deal for Chaffee. It shielded big government and businesses while we pay the price. So tell me again how taxing people out of their homes makes housing more affordable? It’s time to demand accountability.
Vince Phillips
Salida
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