{"id":24646,"date":"2024-12-01T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/with-budget-cuts-looming-colorado-governor-and-lawmakers-are-far-apart-on-fix\/"},"modified":"2024-12-01T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-01T14:00:00","slug":"with-budget-cuts-looming-colorado-governor-and-lawmakers-are-far-apart-on-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/with-budget-cuts-looming-colorado-governor-and-lawmakers-are-far-apart-on-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"With budget cuts looming, Colorado governor and lawmakers are far apart on fix"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gov.
Gov. Jared Polis presented his ideas for state budget cuts in November, but they were met with a cold reception from both Republicans and Democrats on the powerful Joint Budget Committee who said they still have lots of questions. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski, File)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cutting close to 700 million dollars out of next year’s state budget means tough choices for Colorado lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session that begins in January.<\/p>\n

Gov. Jared Polis presented his ideas for cuts last month, but they were met with a cold reception from both Republicans and Democrats on the powerful Joint Budget Committee who said they still have lots of questions.<\/p>\n

One of the Governor\u2019s most controversial proposals is to privatize Pinnacol Assurance, the quasi-governmental agency that is the insurer of last resort for worker\u2019s compensation in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere will those employers and workers go?\u201d asked Democratic Rep. Emily Sirota. She also expressed concerns about the governor\u2019s suggestion that the state enact targeted rate cuts for some Medicaid providers.<\/p>\n

Polis said his office looked at anything and everything to balance the budget, with the main goal of driving more efficiency and providing the same service with lower costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are very few pots of money that are big that you can do anything with,\u201d Polis noted.<\/p>\n

He said the options include an across-the-board 1.5% Medicaid provider rate cut, or slashing state support for higher education by 40-50%. As an alternative, Polis said, he\u2019s proposing more targeted provider cuts in areas where his staff believes they would have the least impact, in addition to numerous other cost-saving proposals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re trying to go to $680 million, there\u2019s only a few areas of the budget that have that kind of money in them,\u201d he told lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Other cost-cutting measures in the governor\u2019s proposal include:<\/p>\n

Changing how the state calculates school enrollment in a way that will mean less funding for districts with shrinking student bodies.<\/div>\n
Slowing down changes to the overall equation for school funding, so new expenses are implemented more slowly.<\/div>\n
1% cuts to all departments\u2019 personnel and operating expenses.<\/div>\n
Using interest from cash funds \u2013 essentially bank accounts dedicated to specific state programs \u2013 to pay for general expenses.<\/div>\n

\u201cI appreciate all the work that has been done to get to balance,\u201d said Democratic Sen. Jeff Bridges, the budget committee\u2019s chair. But he also warned that the ways the governor got there may not align with the legislature’s priorities.<\/p>\n

Republican Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer told the governor she didn\u2019t take his budget proposal seriously, noting it appears to take $150 million from K-12 schools. She also warned the proposal would underfund higher education and require colleges and universities to raise tuition by 6-7%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is something this budget committee for the last few years has been pretty clear we\u2019re not in support of,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s constitution requires lawmakers to pass a balanced budget. In fact, it\u2019s their only mandate during the four-month-long legislative session that starts in January.<\/p>\n

Kirkmeyer later told CPR News the governor\u2019s proposal wasn\u2019t worth the paper it was written on: \u201cIt\u2019s going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirkmeyer said she\u2019d support things like a state hiring freeze and asking departments to find 10% to cut out of their budgets.<\/p>\n

In response, the governor\u2019s budget director, Mark Ferrandino, pushed back that cutting so much from a single department would require eliminating entire programs.<\/p>\n

Why the state is in this fix<\/div>\n

State budgets have grown at a solid clip for several years, after getting a huge boost from federal pandemic spending.<\/p>\n

But that has come to a dramatic end in the current fiscal year, with lawmakers looking to pare back approved spending and restrict increases in the next budget.<\/p>\n

For her part, Kirkmeyer blamed Democrats, who control the statehouse, for overspending, calling the current situation a self-imposed recession.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur revenues are coming in, they’re fine. We just flat out overextend it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But Democrats point to other factors, such as an unexpected increase in Medicaid costs and a drop in inflation. Under Colorado\u2019s TABOR amendment, state spending can only increase by population growth plus inflation each year.<\/p>\n

Lower inflation \u201cis very good news for people who won’t see costs going up as much, but is more challenging for the budget,\u201d said Polis.<\/p>\n

Despite the need for budget cuts, Colorado is still projected to pay out taxpayer refunds next year, as well as instituting a new tax credit for families.<\/p>\n

Democratic Rep. Shannon Bird said after the state\u2019s September economic forecast, which foretold a $900 million shortfall in the next budget, they all realized the task ahead was grave.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of money to cut while recognizing we have core priorities in the state that we honor,\u201d she said. \u201cHow do we do this in a way that doesn\u2019t hurt the people we intend to serve?\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Jared Polis presented his ideas for state budget cuts in November, but they were met with a cold reception from both Republicans and Democrats on the powerful Joint Budget Committee who said they still have lots of questions. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski, File)dur-i-syn Cutting close to 700 million dollars out of next year’s state budget […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1724,120,394,28,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-budgets-and-budgeting","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-headlines","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24646"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}