Colorado ballot · November 3, 2026
They're at it again.Vote No on NN.
Proposition NN doesn't trim your TABOR refund for a few years. It raises the TABOR cap permanently, hands the legislature a blank check, and leaves room for billions of dollars in new fees. Colorado already said no twice.
NOV 3 2026
Prop NN raises the TABOR cap by the full amount the state spends on K–12 — roughly $4.6 billion this year, and more every year after.
Refunds, forever
The school funding runs ten years. The cap increase never expires.
A blank check
Money left after the school formula "may be spent for any purpose."
Billions in fees
A higher ceiling means room underneath it for about $4 billion in new fees.
Chip in · Vote No on NN
Help us beat Prop NN.
Colorado said no in 2019. Colorado said no in 2023. Saying it a third time takes mail, doorsteps and airtime — and the other side has the teachers' union behind it.
Help us reach Colorado voters before ballots land in October.
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You'll finish your gift on our secure donation page. Contributions to Brighter Colorado are not tax‑deductible as charitable contributions.
Ten years of promises, a permanent loss
The schools get a decade. You lose your refund for good.
Proposition NN is sold as a ten‑year boost for K‑12 schools. Read past the ballot title and the arithmetic changes: the ten‑year school formula ends, and the higher TABOR cap does not. Once voters hand over the cap, there is no year in which refunds come back.
Nonpartisan Legislative Council Staff ran the numbers out to FY 2036‑37. Under their expansion scenario, the refund cut starts at $167 million and climbs every single year until the state is keeping $7.6 billion a year that would otherwise come back to Colorado households.
Over that window, the average Colorado taxpayer gives up roughly $7,300 in refunds.
The promise has an expiration date. The loss doesn't.
Source: Legislative Council Staff memorandum, April 20, 2026, "SB 26‑135 Fiscal Impacts — Simulation Through FY 2036‑37," Table 1 (Scenario 1). LCS presents these as simulations, not forecasts. Their slower‑growth Scenario 2 still totals $37.0 billion in lost refunds.
Third verse, same as the first
Prop CC. Prop HH. Now Prop NN.
Every few years the same idea comes back wearing a new letter and a new sales pitch — roads one time, property taxes the next, schools this time. The ask underneath never changes: let us keep your refund. Voters have answered twice, and not narrowly.
A blank check for politicians
After the schools are paid, the rest is theirs.
Here is the part the ballot title leaves out. Prop NN funds a new K‑12 "positive factor" first. Whatever is left over goes into a newly created Children's Account — and the bill's own fiscal note says the remaining revenue may be spent for any purpose.
The measure lists childcare, full‑day preschool and school success as priorities. It does not require them. Nearly any line in the state budget can be described as helping children if the legislature says so.
And because NN is a statute rather than a constitutional amendment, a future legislature can rewrite where that money goes with a simple majority vote and no trip back to the voters.
Roughly $4 billion in new “fees”
NN doesn't just take the surplus. It builds room for more.
TABOR's cap is what forces refunds in the first place. Prop NN lifts that cap by an amount equal to the state's annual K‑12 spending — about $4.6 billion today, and higher every year that education spending grows.
That is roughly $4 billion of new headroom the legislature can fill with fees, surcharges and other revenue before one dollar is required to come back to you. Fees don't require a vote of the people. The cap was the only thing standing in the way.
Coloradans have watched this play out already: retail delivery fees, rideshare fees and road usage fees all grew in the space TABOR's cap left open. NN makes that space several billion dollars wider — permanently.
The cap isn't a technicality. It's the reason you get a check.
Promises it can't keep
We've seen what happens to "dedicated" money.
In 2012, Coloradans were told marijuana tax revenue would build and fund schools. Lawmakers steadily broadened where those dollars could go, and today the second‑largest share flows into the General Fund. During the 2026 session, legislators moved to pull more of it to patch a budget shortfall.
Nothing in Prop NN prevents the same drift. It is statutory, not constitutional. A constitutional protection would take 55% of voters to change. This one takes 51 lawmakers.
The sponsors' own record on this bill is instructive: on first reading, supporters rejected amendments that would have directed all of the retained revenue to education. The language tightened only after the pushback — and only for the first ten years.
Colorado's problem isn't revenue
The money went up. The results didn't.
The state budget grew from $28.8 billion to $44 billion over eight years while Colorado's population grew about 6%. Education wasn't starved in that stretch — total public education revenue rose 21% since 2020, and spending rose 24%, to $18.1 billion.
Over the same period, public school enrollment declined for a fifth consecutive year and student performance slipped in 2025. Common Sense Institute's data shows administrative headcount growing far faster than teaching staff.
Before anyone asks taxpayers to surrender their refunds permanently, they should be able to show that the dollars already collected are reaching classrooms.
Chip in · Vote No on NN
Help us beat Prop NN.
Colorado said no in 2019. Colorado said no in 2023. Saying it a third time takes mail, doorsteps and airtime — and the other side has the teachers' union behind it.
Help us reach Colorado voters before ballots land in October.
Choose an amount
You'll finish your gift on our secure donation page. Contributions to Brighter Colorado are not tax‑deductible as charitable contributions.