After months of discussion, three bipartisan legislative task forces have finalized their recommendations for how Colorado should spend $2.6 billion in American Rescue Plan Act dollars to increase affordable housing, improve Coloradans’ mental health and boost the state’s economic recovery from the pandemic.
Now, it’s time for state lawmakers to figure out how they will actually divvy up the money, a process that may be even more complex.
It’s important to note that the task force recommendations are just that, and that they are likely to change.
Over the next few months, lawmakers will run bills and submit proposals for how exactly they want the stimulus funds to be spent. Last year, Gov. Jared Polis also released a proposal for how some of the money should be allocated.
The dollars must be allocated by the end of 2024 and spent entirely by 2026.
Here’s a summary of the big takeaways from each report.
An estimated 315,000 Colorado households spent more than half their income in 2019 on housing, according to a report from the Affordable Housing Transformational Task Force, which was comprised of lawmakers, Polis administration officials and community experts.
As people pay more for housing, there’s also been a growing shortage of places to live. Another 250,000 housing units would need to be built in the next few years to accommodate current Colorado residents, plus another 100,000 units for new people moving to the state.
The report also points to other trends:
The task force issued recommendations for up to $568 million in federal stimulus spending. Ultimately, lawmakers could choose to mix and match dollars from different funds. For example, initiatives to provide housing to people experiencing homelessness could be funded with money from a separate pool of ARPA dollars dedicated to economic recovery and relief.
Here are some of the panel’s key spending recommendations:
More than a quarter of Colorado’s population, 27.5% or 1.6 million adults and youth, struggle with mental illness or substance use disorder, according to the Behavioral Health Transformational Task Force’s report. Colorado also ranks at the very bottom of Mental Health America’s 2022 survey of how U.S. states are addressing mental health issues.
“We have far too many instances where Coloradans attempt to seek care, but are met with a system too complex and with too many challenges for meaningful engagement,” according to the report.
The report also raised specific concerns about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on youth – suicide rates have increased by 51% over the past decade – and the number of people with serious mental health conditions who end up in jails.
The task force has about $450 million in remaining federal funds to consider. Here are some of their spending recommendations:
While there are many signs that Colorado’s economy has bounced back from the coronavirus pandemic, people who were already struggling before the pandemic continue to face challenges, according to a report by the Task Force on Economic Recovery and Relief.
The report, written by a subpanel of state economic experts, highlights a number of economic trends after nearly two years of coronavirus:
With a new surge in coronavirus cases fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant, and low vaccination rates in some parts of the state, it’s likely businesses will continue to deal with workforce shortages and Coloradans will have to contend with public health protocols and other disruptions through 2022.
“Colorado needs to remain committed to strengthening its public health response across the state … to ensure access to vaccines, testing, and specific treatments that aid in the mitigation and prevention of COVID-19,” according to the report.
The task force did not make specific recommendations for how lawmakers should spend the $697 million set aside for economic recovery efforts. Instead, lawmakers submitted their own proposals, which are not yet public, for how to spend the money.
Those proposals will be scored based on how much they help people and industries most impacted by the pandemic, whether the spending will have benefits over multiple years, how easily they can be implemented and other factors.
For example, a proposal to provide one-time “hero pay” of $1,500 to essential workers received a high rating for helping workers who have been working through the pandemic, plus it would be relatively easy to implement. But it’s not clear if the money would be enough to keep burned-out workers from quitting their jobs, the report notes.
A fourth task force, overseen by the Colorado Department of Higher Education, has also issued a report looking at how stimulus dollars can fund investments into the state’s workforce.