Just when a person thinks it can't get any worse, the Democrats pass another bill that goes against the Constitution.

On April 20, Colorado Sen. Mark Baisley discussed three areas of legislation that are being considered during the latest session in Denver. Those areas are school finance, gun control and property taxes.

“Let me talk about school finance for a moment. There's a new bill, a new way that has bipartisan sponsorship to (review) the school finance formula,” he said. “It is complex, the way it's done now. I've had it explained three times (and I still don't understand it). It's complex. It has to do with a property taxation. This is all being reworked right now in this bill that's making its way through the system now. I'll see it at the Senate education committee soon. There's some interesting pieces to that bill.”

In the past, charter school received some funding, but not to customize buildings for its schools.

“In this bill, it accommodates funding for buildings or money to follow the student,” Sen. Baisley said. “It's starting to lean toward (school choice). The controversy is two types of funding for students. There's additional (funds) for students with greater need. There's the student who lives in poverty, students with special needs then there's students who are learning English as a second language.”

Last year after Proposition HH failed, the Legislature met to discuss the property tax issue.

“We were all facing higher property taxes,” he said. “Proposition HH was addressing that, but in a very left manner way. Most of all, it (attempted to do away with TABOR). That would have happened in several years. I'm very appreciative Proposition HH failed, but that created the need for a special session.”

That took place in late November and early December, where the legislative met to address the individual components of Proposition HH.

“Most of the decisions passed were in addition and including reducing property valuation by $55,000,” Sen. Baisley said. “That continued for a while. Another thing was to form a task force to address property taxes. It's been a real disappointment to me. We're all subject to much higher taxes. The task force is not working on the disease. They're working on the symptoms. One of those symptoms is to drop the amount of valuation of our properties by $55,000. This task force is recommending some (changes) that will help give some relief for property taxes so we won't see the spike like we saw last year. The amount of increase could only average over five years and (it also) allows (taxpayers) to pay their property taxes over a period of time in order to ease the shock of their property tax statements.”

He said he also proposed an idea that was rejected, concerning how taxes are calculated.

“I surmised through all of this that there is an unnatural association between the value of our property and the calculation of property taxes,” Sen. Baisley said. “In other words, if our property values shoot up by 47 percent, that doesn't mean the water district suddenly needs 47 percent more revenue nor does it mean that we have 47 percent more income to pay for that increase. Likewise, if our property valuations had dropped by 20 percent, that does not mean the library district would suddenly need 20 percent less money. They have a very (close association), but they're very firmly attached to each other. My proposal was to disassociate those two and recommend to calculate our taxes based on the value of our property instead of the budgets to all these districts.”

With a single party rule, Democrats continue to push gun control bills in the legislation.

“There are multiple bills,” Sen. Baisley said. “There's one called 'sensitive spaces.' That is to prevent or ban firearms in public parks, community centers, parking areas adjacent to those and one that is not trivial is churches.”

He recalled an incident where an armed person came into a church on a Sunday morning with the intent of killing multiple people in Colorado Springs.

“The armed guards are looking for any signs of trouble,” Sen. Baisley said. “This was in Colorado Springs. It was those people who shot the intruder before he was able to (kill numerous people). This law, which has passed through the Senate will outlaw conceal carry in churches. This will certainly be challenged in court.”

Another gun control bill is HB1174, which changes the requirements on all conceal carry authorizations.

“If you get a conceal carry permit from your local sheriff, this will require an eight-hour class,” Sen. Baisley added. “Typically right now, it's a two-hour class that one needs to take to quality to get their conceal carry permit. This will require an eight-hour class to qualify and 50 rounds of ammunition. This will force more cost to people to attain their conceal carry permit.”

The biggest bill is HB1292, which bans semi-automatics.

“This is the semi-automatic, the AR15. It's the big one everyone talks about coming every year,” said Sen. Baisley. “As has happened, one member, said it, Sen. Tom Sullivan. This is his whole life. He'll tell you that. He stands up at the podium and reminds us his son was killed in the Aurora Theater shooting. His mission is gun control and so he initiates most of these bills. This bill started in the House. For the longest time, it didn't have a Senate sponsor. You need a sponsor in both chambers of the House for bills to make it through the cycle. No one in the Senate was setting up to sponsor that bill. That just made it through the House.”

He said he believes this bill has stalled because the governor probably does not want to see that bill come across his desk.

“This bill will come to a committee that I'm on and Sen. Sullivan is also on,” Sen. Baisley said. “This bill was presented by two very well-known hardcore people. I suspect it will not make it to the governor.”

After answering several more questions from the public, the forum ended. Unfortunately, Rep. Stephanie Luck was unable to attend the forum because she was in a special session in Denver.

The next Legislative Forum will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 18 in the Commissioners Board Room at the Fremont County Administration Building at 615 Macon Ave.