First Step Towards Metro District Reform

Senate Bill 21-262 easily passed the Senate on May 19th to “reform” metro districts. However, this bill is the bill written by the developers and home builders through their Metro District Education Coalition, thus “reform” is possibly too strong of a word. Here is what this bill requires—
· Requires home builders to disclose their property tax bills for new homebuyers.
· Requires metro districts to post their annual reports, budgets, construction updates on their own special website.
· This bill only affects metro districts with more than 1,000 voters.
· Requires notices of board elections by mail or email, which may be the biggest “win” in this bill that I have been abdicating for.
· This bill requires an independent engineer to certify a developer’s expenses before a metro district reimburses them. But, I am concerned if this engineer will truly be independent of the developer or home builder. Second, a CPA/Auditor should be involved as well in my opinion.

Longmont City Councilmember Tim Waters said this bill is a positive step, but that the bill is also insufficient.

Colorado State Rep. Mike Weissman is still working on his own “true” reform bill of metro districts. But, developers and builders don’t want this bill introduced in the House.