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.
May 2, 2025
…access to emergency services has dwindled?
In 2023, the state’s Emergency Medical Services Sustainability Task Force released a report documenting the challenges our state faces with access to emergency medical services. These challenges are “most pronounced in rural and frontier communities” and are driven primarily by inadequate revenue and workforce shortages. Their No. 1 recommendation for better meeting emergency needs? More funding.
TABOR costs families when it comes to increased health care and property expenses due to lack of adequate emergency services, from the Front Range to the Western Slope. In Denver, only 71 percent of 911 calls were answered within 15 seconds — falling short of the national standard of 90 percent. The Denver Fire Department exceeded its own response time goal of 6 minutes and 30 seconds by almost four minutes. In Colorado Springs, police department response time increased from 12 minutes and 37 seconds in 2019 to 14 minutes and 21 seconds in 2023. They attributed the increase to being short by 80 officers due to budget constraints. Rural districts face even bigger challenges, as an aging population combined with lower volunteerism for EMT and firefighter positions creates the perfect storm of dwindling services. In Elbert County, for example, 80 percent of the call load for the Elizabeth Fire Protection District is for medical services — largely the result of a 75 percent increase in Medicare users in the town.
Cost to Families: Delayed emergency response can lead to worse outcomes for an individual’s survival, recovery, and health care costs due to the need for more intensive treatment and longer stays in the hospital. Delayed fire response can lead to worse property damage and huge costs for families, especially those families that are underinsured, as were 75 percent of the homeowners affected by the Marshall fire.
Long-Term Costs: TABOR creates a downward spiral of underfunding services and diminishing value for taxpayers. Chronically slow emergency response times increase costs for families and erode the public’s trust in services. Coloradans across the state deserve better. Voters are increasingly looking for change — not just to one or two revenue streams, but to the system as a whole.
