EN
TABOR might promise a government on a diet and fatter refund checks, but Colorado’s wallet feels the pinch. It’s one of the tightest tax laws in the country, quietly deciding what our state can and can’t afford. If this makes you scratch your head or mutter, “Wait, that’s fishy…” you’re in good company.
Oct. 31, 2025
…Colorado has had to keep asking voters for permission to spend money they already approved, turning routine budgeting into recurring ballot measures?
This year, Colorado’s 2025 ballot includes two statewide measures, Proposition LL and Proposition MM.
Proposition LL
Proposition LL asks voters to allow the state to keep and spend $12.4 million from a tax code change that voters already approved in 2022, Proposition FF, for the Healthy School Meals for All program. This tax code change only affects households earning $300,000 or more a year, and the $12.4 million is revenue the state collected above the initial first-year estimate in Proposition FF. The state must return to voters to ask to keep money already collected on a voter-approved tax change because TABOR mandates that when revenue is collected above the first-year estimate, voters must decide whether the state can keep and spend the money above the estimate.
This is just one reason TABOR makes elections more complicated and costly in Colorado. Instead of refunding that money to taxpayers who make more than $300,000 a year, the state can keep it to help fund school meals. Proposition LL does not raise taxes. It allows the state to keep money it already collected.
Proposition MM
Proposition MM would raise money to fully fund the Healthy School Meals for All program by limiting how much people who make more than $300,000 a year can deduct from their state income taxes. This means high-income earners would pay a little more, and the revenue would fully pay for healthy, locally sourced school meals for Colorado students. A “yes” vote on Proposition MM would also mean that once the Healthy School Meals for All program is fully funded, any additional money collected would support SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps about 300,000 Colorado families buy groceries each month.
This is the third consecutive year Colorado has had a retain-and-spend issue on the ballot, a measure that asks voters whether the state can keep and spend revenue above the first-year collection estimate. In 2024, Proposition JJ asked voters whether the state could keep and spend revenue collected above the first-year estimate for a sports betting tax voters approved in 2019 through Proposition DD. In 2023, Proposition II asked voters whether the state could keep and spend funds collected above the first-year estimate for a nicotine and tobacco tax voters approved in 2020 through Proposition EE.
Estimates are best guesses of how much revenue a tax will raise based on projected trends. In 2019 and 2020, the pandemic severely affected economic conditions and consumer behavior, which affected how much money was actually collected. Proposition FF was estimated to collect more than $100 million, so considering the relative scale, $12.4 million is not far off. The requirement that a voter-approved tax return to the ballot if revenue is collected above an estimate is a clear example of how TABOR makes elections in Colorado more complicated and costly.
