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A different kind of March madness
Time has passed quickly and the legislative session is now more than halfway over. The first half of session was already action-packed, but as we approach the end of March, the pace will become even crazier. We witnessed several big developments last week, so I'll jump right in with an update on a few key ones.
First, let's begin with the budget. After the Joint Budget Committee received the revenue forecast on March 15, we plugged in the new numbers and learned we were several hundreds of millions of dollars short--and this was before we had made some important spending decisions. The JBC immediately began reviewing our prior budget decisions to find places where we could reverse our decisions or scale back spending. We came up with several new revenue saving ideas as well, and when combined with the proposed cuts, we came very close to balancing. But on Wednesday, we learned of a calculation error that put us an additional $100 million in the hole. We continued winnowing down our priorities and making additional cuts for the next two days, and at 2 am Thursday night (or Friday morning, rather), we closed out the budget!
Despite the many challenges and the disappointment of having to reverse some of our desired spending decisions, we believe this year's balanced budget still accomplishes an enormous amount of good for our state. We finally closed the K-12 education funding gap and funded our schools without the reduction from the budget stabilization factor. We made significant investments in higher education and early childhood initiatives, including universal preschool. We increased the number of slots for comprehensive services for the intellectually and develomentally disabled community, and we increased wages for home health workers. The budget proposal will be introduced in the House this coming week for our colleagues to review and amend. To learn more about what was included in this year's budget so far, click HERE.
Next up, construction defects litigation reform. Also on Thursday last week, Senate Bill 106 was picked back up in the Senate Local Government and Housing Committee for action only. The original bill was presented to the committee several weeks ago and received wide support from key industries, local governments, and many area leaders. After three hours of discussion, and several amendments later, the committee passed the bill on a 4-3 vote. There is no fiscal note attached to the bill, so the next stop will be the Senate floor for debate. To read more about it, click HERE.
And finally, Senate Bill 24-188 on Public School Finance was finalized and introduced on Friday. The bill is fairly short this year. With the elimination of the budget stabilization factor, it simply funds our schools. We are increasing the per pupil funding amount by approximately $419.97 per pupil, which brings the total base amount up to $8,496.38 per pupil. We propose a series of small technical corrections requested by the Colorado Department of Education, and we made the temporary one-time funding for rural schools permanent. The bill does not contemplate any major changes to the formula or take up any recommendations by the School Finance Taskforce that was assembled via last year's School Finance Act. Any major changes to the formula will likely be taken up in a separate bill. SB24-188 will be heard in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, March 27 at 1:30 pm. To read the bill's summary, click HERE.
I'll end by mentioning one more highlight: I had the good fortune of being able to sit next to Senator Cory Booker at the annual Obama Gala on Saturday. He was smart and funny, and I enjoyed listening to his stories. It was a delightful evening after a week of a different kind of March madness.
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