{"id":64824,"date":"2020-05-12T19:53:44","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T01:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-faces-6-8-billion-coronavirus-hit-to-state-budget\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:14:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:14:35","slug":"colorado-faces-6-8-billion-coronavirus-hit-to-state-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-faces-6-8-billion-coronavirus-hit-to-state-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado faces $6.8 billion coronavirus hit to state budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=1b2e3960-1ab8-4a5a-9f9a-7bc58ae8be1f&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1188\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">File photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The decline in tax revenue \u2014 compared to the December forecast from legislative economists \u2014 is driven by decreases in income and sales tax collections as the pandemic spikes unemployment and suppresses the retail and tourism economy.<\/p>\n<p>The negative number reverses a decade of growth in Colorado and is the first decline since the start of the Great Recession hit in the 2008-09 fiscal year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat has transpired over the last two months has been, in many ways, unimaginable,\u201d said Kate Watkins, the chief legislative economist, in a presentation to state lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>The immediate focus is the $3.3 billion shortfall for the next year \u2014 which includes an $896 million deficit in the current budget. The shortfall will force lawmakers to cut 25% from how much they spent in the current year. The actual shortfall is slightly less because the numbers don\u2019t include the $229 million reduction in state spending from governor\u2019s action April 30.<\/p>\n<p>The Polis administration presented a more optimistic economic outlook but still showed a $6.6 billion impact in the next three years. In the near term, the revenue is projected to fall $3.4 billion short from what Gov. Jared Polis proposed in November, or a $2.7 billion cut from the current year spending.<\/p>\n<p>The financial landscape is worse than Colorado lawmakers expected after preliminary estimates suggested an immediate budget shortfall between $2 billion and $3 billion.<\/p>\n<p>So far, lawmakers approved about $700 million in cuts, according to a tally from the governor\u2019s office, but deferred action on another $800 million. To balance the budget, lawmakers will need to go even deeper.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>photo The decline in tax revenue \u2014 compared to the December forecast from legislative economists \u2014 is driven by decreases in income and sales tax collections as the pandemic spikes unemployment and suppresses the retail and tourism economy. The negative number reverses a decade of growth in Colorado and is the first decline since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,233,685,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-64824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64824","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=64824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88532,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64824\/revisions\/88532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64824"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=64824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}