AURORA | A majority of Aurora lawmakers voted to eliminate the city sales tax on diapers and other incontinence products on Monday, delivering what supporters described as a tax cut for working families.
The proposal by councilmember Curtis Gardner to exempt diapers from the city’s 3.75% sales tax earned “yes” votes from Gardner, progressive councilmembers Alison Coombs, Juan Marcano, Ruben Medina and Crystal Murillo, and conservative Steve Sundberg.
Sundberg said he opposed the proposal moving forward from a March 7 study session, but he likely cast the deciding vote in favor Monday night. Proposals need six votes to be approved.
Gardner promoted his proposal as a way of cutting taxes for families, but he and other council members pointed out that it would also help elderly and disabled adults who use diapers.
“This seems to me like such a simple step that we can take that is not going to impact our ability as our city to continue to undertake our operations,” Coombs said. “It really does provide a benefit to our residents and to many of our residents, not only folks with small children.”
According to information included in the council’s agenda packet, the city will forfeit an estimated $575,000 in sales tax collections per year with the waiver.
Gardner pointed out Monday that a proposal to waive state sales tax on diapers and menstrual products has passed the Colorado House of Representatives. Aurora’s council voted unanimously last year to stop collecting sales tax on menstrual products.
Opponents of Gardner’s proposal said it didn’t go far enough to cut taxes.
“There are still so many people in the city that probably don’t buy any of the aforementioned items,” councilmember Danielle Jurinsky said. “I would like to see a broad-based tax cut for the City of Aurora, rather than just going item by item and deciding what are necessary products, because what are necessary products to some may not be to others.”
Dustin Zvonek moved to instead direct the city manager to identify nonprofits that distribute free diapers in the community and contribute $100,000 in federal aid money over the next two years to those organizations.
Zvonek said he believed inflation would “outpace” the tax cut and that he was willing to work with Gardner on a tax cut with a larger scope.
“We’re really playing politics with our tax code,” Zvonek said.
Gardner pointed out Zvonek’s motion would also only impact residents and families that use incontinence products. He also said it was “unprofessional” and “frustrating” that Zvonek did not give him a heads-up about the substitute motion.
“Why do we need to have more government involvement? I am a small government person, and I think we need to reduce taxes, reduce the burden on families in our city and this is a way to do that, and not be involved, and let them decide the best way to spend their money,” Gardner said.
Zvonek eventually withdrew his substitute motion.
The council voted 6-4 on Monday to pass Gardner’s ordinance. It will have to pass a second round of voting before it is finalized, after which it will take effect around one to two months later.
I am glad to hear this item passed on Monday. Hopefully the votes will still be there in two weeks. I generally lean towards the progressive side of things, but Council Member Gardner has impressed me with some interesting policy proposals. Council Member Sundberg also comes across as fair, polite, and well-meaning. I hope to continue to be impressed by their governing decisions and it is encouraging to finally see something pass to help everyday people, and with bipartisan support.
I wonder with rampant inflation whether the revenue will be missed come budget time. I note that City employee salaries have lagged to inflation over the past decade and that will only get worse this year. True, city jobs will likely continue to get filled, but with what quality of employee. This move will exacerbate that problem and several others as council tries to catch up on deferred maintenance of roads and fleet vehicles. Was there consideration of the ramifications on this well-meant relief to one sector of the population on the overall ability of the city to deliver services? Will compassion today cause problems tomorrow? For now I will side with compassion while keeping an eye on prudence.
The annual budget is very close to a billion dollars per year. It may even reach that next year, not sure yet. So that’s about half of one percent of the budget. You are right that money will come from somewhere, so hopefully staff and council members are prudent. I also agree that the annual raises are not keeping pace with inflation. I believe it was a 3% raise last year. However last fall the city’s hr department did complete a pay assessment and adjustment for every single city position. I saw a 19% increase for my position (I had expected none). So I will say the city as a whole is taking steps to try to offer truly competitive pay. Compensation is now very much guided by hr. At the same time, we are definitely losing people to retirement, job changes, and some of our jobs still pay less than food service positions. So there is a ton of room for improvement. Not to mention the stress of covid and just stress in general from working in public service. On top of all that, the increased turnover has caused a lot of internal movement (lots of people moving up into new positions). While this is exciting, it also means we have a lot of people still very new in their roles. Not sure about things like road maintenance and fleet but I am sure there are tons of unfunded needs still. Hopefully we as a city can be prudent and forward-thinking. Great comment btw!
Wanted to correct myself- if the budget is 1 billion, one percent of that is 10 million. The $575,000 impact this proposal would have is roughly 1/17th of 1 percent of the annual budget.
I think this picking and choosing is just silly. I also think there are a lot of other things that shouldn’t be taxed. How about birth-control products, for one? And non-prescription medications?
Love it! Personally I would love to see universal healthcare implemented and the end of health insurance. So I would love to see birth control be provided for free as a health service. Medications I think should be provided close to cost, perhaps a limit of a 10% profit margin? It was nice to see that the state government took some steps to limit the cost of insulin but it could go so much farther and save so many lives. I do believe in taxes because that money then can go to provide so many services. But there is no doubt there are some areas where tax cuts could bring relief. It’s just refreshing to not see the tax breaks go to big business and “job creators” for once!
What was the final price tag for bribing police officers to keep doing their jobs, however poorly?
Roughly 6 million, or about 10x the amount of this proposal…