From the Treasurer

He llo Jefferson County, Every tax year I receive a few calls from taxpayers asking the County Treasurer to lower or waive their property taxes for various reasons. The County Treasurer’s Office does not have the legal authority to lower property taxes or waive property taxes per state law.

The Treasurer’s Office and the state of Colorado do have programs available for seniors or people with disabilities. More information is available on these programs at the following link: https://www.jeffco.us/2416/Help-for-SeniorsPeople-with-Disabilitie

If you believe your property has been incorrectly valued or classified, you may can also file an appeal with the County Assessor. For information on this process, please view this link: https://www.jeffco.us/431/Appeals

The TABOR Value of Temporary Mill Levy Adjustment report for 2023 has been posted on the JeffCo Treasurer’s web page. This easy-toread report is crystal clear on the impacts of the TABOR revenue cap on the County’s budget and the ability to provide services/projects for County residents and businesses.

For example, in 2023 the County will not legally collect $5.1 million in revenue that could be used for a variety of services and projects in Jefferson County.

See Link: https://www.jeffco.us/DocumentCenter/View/37784/TABOR-Value-of-Tempo-

ERIN ADDENBROOKE Marketing Consultant eaddenbrooke@coloradocommunitymedia.com

AUDREY BROOKS Business Manager abrooks@coloradocommunitymedia.com rary-Mill-Levy-Adjustment-2019-2023-PDF

What is TABOR? See Link: https://www.jeffco.us/3994/What-is-TABOR

Jerry DiTullio, JeffCo Treasurer 303-271-8337 www.jeffco.us/Treasurer

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Editor kfiore@coloradocommunitymedia.com

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Email letters to kfiore@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Deadline Wed.

As housing prices and cost of rent continues to soar throughout Colorado, so does the strain on our small businesses. The consequences of the housing crisis we find ourselves in ripples throughout communities across Colorado: hurting families, businesses and our economy.

I’ve lived and worked in Jefferson County for the last 25 years as the CEO of a manufacturing small business and I’ve experienced firsthand the ramifications of the housing crisis. While Jeffco is a beautiful place to live with local shops and scenic views, its housing expenses have risen to be 62% higher than the national average and the average rent for a one bedroom apartment is $2,171 –making it hard for my employees to live in the same community where they work.

The lack of affordable options places a heavy burden on my employees. Like many Colorado

Letters To The Editor

The numbers behind electricity and gas

Take a look at your utility bill. You probably have a section for electricity and for gas. e electricity is measured in units of kilowatt hours — kWh — and the gas is measured in units of therms. Kilowatt hours and therms are both just units of energy, just like Fahrenheit and Celsius are both just units of temperature. Just as temperature units can be easily converted from C to F, conversion of therms to kilowatt hours is also easy. Roughly speaking, just multiply the number of therms by 30 (actually 29.33) and you will have the equivalent number of kilowatt hours.

If you are heating your house with gas and you do this conversion from therms to kilowatt hours, you will realize that you are consuming far more energy in the form of gas than in the form of electricity this time of year. Possibly ve to ten times more!

Now take the amount that you were charged for your electricity and divide by the number of kWh of electricity you used and you will have the cost per kilowatt hour of electricity you used. Similarly, divide the amount that you were charged for the gas by the number of kilowatt hours of gas you used (as calculated by multiplying the number of therms by 30) and you will have the cost per kilowatt hour of gas you used. You will see that the cost of electricity per kilowatt hour is three to four times more than the cost of gas per kilo-

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Guest Column

workers on the front range, my employees have to commute about an hour each way to get to work. Not only does that daily commute increase traffic on the highways during rush hour, it also forces my employees to absorb additional costs that hurt their ability to provide for themselves and their families. Our employees that live a distance from our headquarters and rely on child care are put in a difficult position. A long commute is just one example among many of how the lack of affordable options hurts my small business. I’ve adapted to the needs of my employees by making their work schedules more flexible, but there’s a limit to how much my small business can bear. It’s become nearly impossible to keep up with the cost of housing, and adjusting salaries to accommodate unreasonably high costs of living is unsustainable and unfair to small business owners.

Other businesses in the manufacturing industry based in Golden have encountered similar problems and many have explored moving out of Colorado to reduce their overhead costs. If costs of living don’t come down, this could eventually trickle down to small businesses and incentivize them to leave in order to save money, hurting Colorado’s economy.

Small businesses make up about 80% of Colorado’s economy, and losing small businesses because of high costs of living will have lasting consequences for decades to come. If we continue moving in this direction, communities will lose vital subsects of professions and families will end up decentralized.

Jefferson County has been slow