Senate Finance

Tuesday, February 17, 2026·47m·▶ Watch / Listen

The Senate Finance Committee unanimously advanced two sets of board confirmation appointments to the Senate consent calendar and passed SB 26-046, a property tax process modernization bill, to the Committee of the Whole — with a floor amendment on assessment appeals still to come at second reading.

Key Actions

·Financial Services Board — Confirmation HearingNo Vote

+ 2 more actions

Controversies

Citizen appeal window — whether moving the property tax appeal deadline from June 8 back to June 1 harms taxpayers

Natalie Menton opposed the provision, arguing citizens need more time to gather documentation such as contractor repair estimates, and stated 'the citizens need more time.' Senator Luis Frizell acknowledged the concern but argued 'the statistics have just not borne out that that has reduced the number of appeals or had any other effect except for that assessors have much less time to actually process those appeals.' Brenda Donas further contested the premise by citing data that '50% of taxpayer appeals are received in the last week, regardless of what the deadline is' and '85% of agent appeals are filed in the last week, regardless of when the deadline occurs.'

+ 2 more controversies

Notable Quotes

“I think the name of the game here is good government. This is about small incremental changes that will make our assessors more effective which will help the citizens of this state.”
Senator Matt Ball — Ball, co-prime sponsor of SB 26-046, offered this as his rationale for a bill that adjusts property tax deadlines, increases the abatement review threshold, and modernizes paper-based processes.

+ 4 more quotes

Votes

Vice Chair Janice Marchman moved to send to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation the reappointments of Sean Davis and MC Freeman to the Financial Services BoardNo Vote

Vice Chair Janice Marchman moved to send to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation the appointments of Cynthia Braddock and Mark Rober and the reappointments of Jodi Amato and Rogelio Rodriguez to the advisory committee to the Property Tax AdministrationNo Vote

Senator Lisa Frizell moved Amendment L001 to Senate Bill 46Passed

Senator Lisa Frizell moved Amendment L002 to Senate Bill 46Passed

Senator Lisa Frizell moved Senate Bill 46, as amended, to the Committee of the Whole with a request for a favorable recommendationNo Vote

Absent (1)Senator Janice Marchman (excused)

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TranscriptPreview

Good afternoon. Welcome to Senate Finance. Ms. Riedebush, will you please take the roll? Senators Ball. Here. Wright. Here. Frazelle. President Gonzalez. Present. Mullica. Here. Simpson. President Snyder. Here. Marchman. Here. Madam Chair. Here. Everybody, welcome to Senate Finance. This morning or this afternoon because it's been a long day. So we are going to start by confirmation hearing for this Financial Services Board. If Mark Valente, Mickey Freeman and Shawn Davis will please come forward. And I do believe that Shaun Davis is remote. So we will start with Mr. Valente to introduce. And I will just tell you, we sort of have this really annoying hazing ritual that we set everybody through. It's a little gray button that there's hopefully an arrow next to that will make your microphone go on. Okay, Please proceed. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair. My name is Mark Valente. I'm the Commissioner of the Division of Financial Services as part of the Department of Regulatory Agencies. We at the Division of Financial Services were the primary regulator for Colorado State chartered credit unions and savings and loan institutions. And first of all, I'd like to introduce one of our board members for the…

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