Employees walk towards AT&T’s Whitacre Tower in downtown Dallas, Texas. (AT&T)
A trio of publicly traded utility companies are asking a trio of judges in Denver to overturn recent state valuations of their property, which range from eight figures to nine figures.
If successful, their lawsuits would shrink the amount of money reaching government coffers and benefit the three corporations at a time when one says that its business is declining in Colorado and another complains that it recently lost $10 billion and most of its stock value.
Unlike other property in Colorado, which is assessed at the county level, utilities’ property is assessed by a state agency: the Department of Local Affairs. Three hundred utilities — airlines, water and power companies, pipelines, railroads and telecoms — were assessed by the state last year before their property was taxed at a rate of 28 percent, according to DOLA.
The fourth most valuable was Lumen Technologies, which changed its name from CenturyLink in 2020. It has disagreements with JoAnn Groff, the state’s property tax administrator.
“The administrator has treated Lumen differently than other state-assessed taxpayers, to Lumen’s detriment,” the company claimed in an Aug. 30 lawsuit filed in Denver.
As the company readily admits in its lawsuit, Lumen has struggled mightily in recent years. In 2023, its stock price fell from $5.22 to $1.83, it had net losses of $10 billion, “its credit rating was downgraded several times,” it sold off $1.8 billion in assets, and it laid off workers.
So, Lumen was surprised when its assessed value in Colorado increased 28 percent between the 2023 and 2024 tax years, to $612 million. Lumen claims that DOLA changed how it values Lumen’s assets, wrongly pivoting away from an income-focused valuation.
“The administrator’s value is illegal, erroneous and not uniform,” it alleges in its lawsuit.
Chynna Cowart, a DOLA spokeswoman, said the agency does not comment on litigation.
Lumen isn’t alone in questioning Groff and DOLA’s judgment. The Grand Mesa Pipeline, which moves crude oil from Weld County to Oklahoma, claimed in an Aug. 29 lawsuit that it “has never operated at full capacity and has seen its transportation volumes fall each year since 2019.” Yet its assessed value jumped up 80 percent between 2023 and 2024, GMP says.
And AT&T, which sued DOLA and Groff on the same day as the pipeline company, claims that its $13.1 million worth of property here was erroneously valued at $37 million. Then, when the company protested in July, DOLA bumped up the value 25 percent, to $46 million.
“The defendants’ overvaluation is illegal, erroneous and/or not uniform with the actual value of other similarly situated properties,” the multinational telecom company alleges.
Employees walk towards AT&T’s Whitacre Tower in downtown Dallas, Texas. (AT&T)
A trio of publicly traded utility companies are asking a trio of judges in Denver to overturn recent state valuations of their property, which range from eight figures to nine figures.
If successful, their lawsuits would shrink the amount of money reaching government coffers and benefit the three corporations at a time when one says that its business is declining in Colorado and another complains that it recently lost $10 billion and most of its stock value.
Unlike other property in Colorado, which is assessed at the county level, utilities’ property is assessed by a state agency: the Department of Local Affairs. Three hundred utilities — airlines, water and power companies, pipelines, railroads and telecoms — were assessed by the state last year before their property was taxed at a rate of 28 percent, according to DOLA.
The fourth most valuable was Lumen Technologies, which changed its name from CenturyLink in 2020. It has disagreements with JoAnn Groff, the state’s property tax administrator.
“The administrator has treated Lumen differently than other state-assessed taxpayers, to Lumen’s detriment,” the company claimed in an Aug. 30 lawsuit filed in Denver.
As the company readily admits in its lawsuit, Lumen has struggled mightily in recent years. In 2023, its stock price fell from $5.22 to $1.83, it had net losses of $10 billion, “its credit rating was downgraded several times,” it sold off $1.8 billion in assets, and it laid off workers.
So, Lumen was surprised when its assessed value in Colorado increased 28 percent between the 2023 and 2024 tax years, to $612 million. Lumen claims that DOLA changed how it values Lumen’s assets, wrongly pivoting away from an income-focused valuation.
“The administrator’s value is illegal, erroneous and not uniform,” it alleges in its lawsuit.
Chynna Cowart, a DOLA spokeswoman, said the agency does not comment on litigation.
Lumen isn’t alone in questioning Groff and DOLA’s judgment. The Grand Mesa Pipeline, which moves crude oil from Weld County to Oklahoma, claimed in an Aug. 29 lawsuit that it “has never operated at full capacity and has seen its transportation volumes fall each year since 2019.” Yet its assessed value jumped up 80 percent between 2023 and 2024, GMP says.
And AT&T, which sued DOLA and Groff on the same day as the pipeline company, claims that its $13.1 million worth of property here was erroneously valued at $37 million. Then, when the company protested in July, DOLA bumped up the value 25 percent, to $46 million.
“The defendants’ overvaluation is illegal, erroneous and/or not uniform with the actual value of other similarly situated properties,” the multinational telecom company alleges.
