A part-private plan, in which students pay more for costlier degrees, would offset cuts.

By Jessica Fender
The Denver Post

As state funding cuts loom in 2011, leaders of the Colorado State University system have started considering an option unheard of in all but a handful of states: converting to a part-public, part-private structure in which students pay more for costlier degrees.

If implemented, the change could mean CSU's $4,800 annual in-state tuition jumps to about $13,500 for liberal-arts programs and as much as $20,000 for engineering degrees at the Fort Collins campus.

The university system also includes a campus in Pueblo, an online program and agricultural outreach offices in most Colorado counties.

CSU executives earlier this month raised partial privatization as a possible answer to the state's defunding or severely reducing its support for higher-education institutions. Also under CSU's consideration are plans to cap the number of Coloradans who can receive reduced, in-state tuition rates.

CSU chief financial officer Rich Schweigert cautioned that the suggestions are the start of a last-resort contingency plan, and their implementation depends on how the state handles higher-education funding. All of the suggestions would require legislative approval.
"If the sky does fall, we're going to have to do something different," Schweigert said.

Colorado institutions are scrambling to cut costs and find new revenue ahead of a funding crunch that will leave them a collective $230 million-plus short in 2011, when federal stimulus money runs dry.

That shortfall represents more than a third of the state's support for colleges and universities, and the shortfall is only expected to worsen with the state's budget crisis.

CSU's share of the cuts now in place represents about 4 percent of its budget. Officials declined to say how much more the system would have to lose to trigger privatization plans.

Privatization, eschewed by University of Colorado System president Bruce Benson earlier this month, could be problematic since campus buildings were paid for by taxpayers, said Sen. Moe Keller, D-Wheat Ridge, who heads the legislature's budgeting committee.

"I don't blame them for bringing them forward," Keller said of the CSU ideas. "I think it's a really bad idea. (Privatization) will change the nature of higher education and make it unaffordable for a large portion of our middle class."
The hybrid public-private model is extremely rare, according to Vincent Badolato, an education-policy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Only Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York have versions of it.

CSU looked to Cornell University in New York as its model, where three colleges and a graduate program are public and seven colleges are funded through endowments and other sources.

The setup results in a $21,000 difference for New York undergraduates between the more costly private programs and the cheaper public degrees.

The latter, says vice provost for Land Grant Affairs Ron Seeber, attract many of the school's less-affluent students.

Schweigert said the CSU programs most ripe for privatization are those that cost the most to provide, such as veterinary medicine.
At the same time, CSU could limit the number of students admitted at lower, in-state rates to the amount that state funding will pay for.

Both scenarios would mean tuition hikes for many students.

And both will be met with resistance from the legislature in 2010, when lawmakers expect CSU and other colleges to start pushing backup plans such as these.

Rep. Jack Pommer, incoming chair of the budgeting committee, said higher education's funding crisis has been a long time in the making as lawmakers for years have shied away from politically inexpedient proposals to allow tuition increases and other fixes.

"I'm very glad CSU is looking at these options. They really don't have a choice," said Pommer, D-Boulder. "If we're not going to plan ahead, at least the schools are."

Actually, the three research universities have been looking into options like this for some time. Even back in 2004, when Betsy Hoffman was president of CU, she was talking about partial privatization.

What we've talked about is usually a "high tuition, high aid" model, which lets schools charge much higher tuition, but also requires them to offer a substantial amount of financial aid to students who can't afford the tuition.

This idea, having some schools privatized, is interesting. One problem with the way we limit tuition increases the the cost differences between different majors. This could help with that.

Jessica Fender: 303-954-1244 or jfender@denverpost.com

Colorado casinos' next quest may be 24-hour alcohol

By Andy Vuong
The Denver Post

BLACK HAWK — Now that they can stay open 24 hours, Colorado's mountain casinos are eyeing a legislative push to allow them to serve alcohol around the clock.

Operators have found that, for the most part, the slot machines stop ringing and the dice stop rolling once the beer stops flowing.

State law doesn't let businesses serve alcoholic beverages between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. Gambling-industry officials say discussions to eliminate or amend that statute — or to create an exemption for casinos — are preliminary, and a proposal may not come until 2011. B

ut they have already raised the issue with some state legislators, and the Colorado Gaming Association is researching liquor laws in other states thathave casinos.

"It's something we're very interested in, but we also know it's a very complicated topic," said Troy Stremming, a senior vice president with Ameristar Casinos, which operates one of the largest casinos in the state and recently opened a $235 million, 33-story hotel in Black Hawk.

On a recent Friday night at the Lodge Casino in Black Hawk, Boulder resident Johnny Archibald sipped on a gin and tonic as he waited to play roulette at a jam-packed table.

"Gambling and alcohol go together," said the 22-year-old. About three hours later, roughly 30 minutes after last call, the same table was almost bare, with just one player. Across the street at the Ameristar casino, the crowd also promptly died down.

"It's so lame," said Sarah Clemmens, 29, while waiting with her friends at the valet at about 2:15 a.m. "I would stay longer if the serving time was extended."

Operators say they want to serve alcohol 24 hours to be on par with gambling destinations such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City, which have round-the-clock gambling and liquor service.

Remember when this was supposed to be "limited gaming," tailored to Colorado?

"Our interest is strictly to be able to provide our patrons something that they expect," said John Bohannon, general manager at the Isle Casino in Black Hawk. "Most jurisdictions where you have 24-hour gaming, you're going to have 24-hour liquor service as well."

Opponents say extending the hours could create more problems with public intoxication.

"I'd have to look into it more, but, off the bat, it doesn't seem like a very good idea," said Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, co-sponsor of a failed 2008 liquor bill that would have allowed convenience stores and supermarkets to sell wine and full-strength beer. "I would be especially concerned about all-night drinking at casinos."

The grocery store bill was really about competition and fairness -- I don't see why we grant liquor stores a monopoly on selling alcohol when it increases prices and reduces convenience for consumers.

I wasn't trying to increase the availability of liquor. In fact, I assume the liquor stores' vehement opposition came from their belief that adding retailers wouldn't increase overall sales much, it would mostly divide up existing sales over more retailers.

I assume the current 2 am closing time is more to protect neighborhoods from intoxicated patrons and to give legislators and other people a few hours to sober up before heading back to work.

I would be especially concerned about all-night drinking at casinos. The casinos already cause a considerable amount of trouble.

It's an issue right now because of the Governor's decision to balance the current year's budget partially by diverting money from the Local Government Limited Gaming Impact Program. We've been getting stiff opposition including a town that says it will fold if it's forced to handle the impacts of gambling without the state help. A lot of the problems are alcohol related.

Most nightclubs and bars have last call at about 1:30 a.m., and patrons stream out shortly thereafter.

It's not much different at the casinos, and that doesn't bode well for them because they no longer close at 2 a.m. The industry recently spent more than $7 million on a ballot initiative to allow them to stay open 24 hours. The measure, approved by voters in November, also allowed casinos in Black Hawk, Cripple Creek and Central City to raise the maximum bet from $5 to $100 and to offer craps and roulette.

The changes took effect in July. Operators haven't decided whether to seek an exemption or to work with other businesses to eliminate the no-alcohol-service window altogether.

"The key difference is the gaming industry is offering 24-hour entertainment where the stand-alone hotel or restaurant really doesn't do that," said Lois Rice, executive director of the Colorado Gaming Association.

Casinos won an exemption from the statewide smoking ban in 2006, but it was short-lived. Lawmakers killed the exemption in 2007, and the smoking ban took effect at casinos in 2008. Another option under consideration is to extend the service hours, perhaps to 3 or 4 a.m., said Ameristar's Stremming.

"We've heard some legislators say, 'I think that that law is ridiculous, and we ought to get rid of it anyway,' " Stremming said. "But we've also heard others say, 'It's been there, it's always been there and it should stay.' "

In St. Charles, Mo., where Ameristar operates a casino, the company won approval a couple of years ago to extend the end of liquor service from 1:30 a.m. to 3 a.m. in nongaming areas, such as its restaurants.

The casino already was allowed to serve alcohol until 3 a.m. on the gaming floor.

Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com

Colorado Supreme Court gives go-ahead to schools funding trial

The justices rule, 4-3, that courts can decide whether state funding is sufficient.
By Tim Hoover
The Denver Post

In an opinion that could eventually have profound implications for the state budget, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that a challenge to whether the state spends enough on public schools can go forward.

In a 4-3 decision, the state's high court overturned the ruling of two lower courts that said the question of how much school funding is enough is one for lawmakers to decide, not the courts.

The ruling Monday means the plaintiffs, who include parents from eight school districts across the state and 14 school districts from the San Luis Valley, can now go to Denver District Court and try to prove the state does not provide enough money for education.

"The state has never figured out how much it costs to provide an education that meets the constitution," said Alex Halpern, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

This is one of the key points in the lawsuit and education in Colorado. The Constitution says "thorough," but we've never looked at what it would take to give every student in Colorado a thorough education.

Halpern said he expected a trial on the question of funding adequacy could go to court in about a year.

Attorney General John Suthers, who defended the state in the case, said the decision is not good news for Colorado taxpayers.

"The majority opinion suggests the plaintiffs, who are seeking additional tax funding that could potentially involve billions of dollars, might find relief from the courts even though the legislature and the voters have determined current educational funding is adequate," Suthers, a Republican, said in a statement.

This isn't quite true. The voters haven't ever said whether or not we put enough money into education. The last time they were asked, in 2000, the passed Amendment 23 which required the legislature to increase the amount of money that's going to schools. And they were pretty specific that Amendment 23 set a minimum amount of money, not necessarily a sufficient amount.

Legislators have varying views on how well we fund schools. I don't think are funding is adequate and I know there are a lot of legislators who agree. Just because we vote for the School Finance Act, or for the budget, doesn't mean we believe it's spending enough on education -- we make do with what we have and what we can get.

Potential impact is huge Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, a member of the legislature's Joint Budget Committee and a key lawmaker involved in school finance issues, also said the ultimate impact of the ruling could be huge.

"I think it's good for education but bad for the budget," Pommer said. "If they find that our education funding is not thorough, it puts the onus on us to fix that, and I don't see how we could fix it without more money."

We've taken the view that without enough tests, enough commissions, enough requirements on schools and enough talk, education in Colorado will improve. It hasn't worked and it won't in the future. A lot of legislators say more money won't help. Oddly, they never apply that view to highway construction and maintenance.

Sen. Keith King, R-Colorado Springs, another lawmaker involved in school finance issues, said any challenge to school-funding adequacy would take years to resolve. He doubted a challenge would be successful.

"I think the judiciary would have a very challenging row to hoe to say what we are funding in Colorado is not adequate," King said, "but I've been surprised by courts in Colorado before."

Plaintiffs originally filed the case in 2005, arguing that the state was not spending enough to meet the requirement in the state constitution to provide a "thorough and uniform" system of school funding.

The group of parents and school districts argued that the school-funding system did not adequately provide for disabled, poor or minority students and those who don't speak English and come from low property-value districts.

But Denver District Judge Michael Martinez in 2006 threw out the case, ruling that because the current funding system complied with Amendment 23, the voter-approved measure that requires education funding to increase every year by at least the rate of inflation, the system complied with the constitution and the courts had no say in the matter.

Requiring school funding to go up with inflation just means it stays the same from year to year after you figure in costs. It's hardly a definition of a thorough education. Or uniform, for that matter.

A Colorado Court of Appeals panel upheld the decision in 2008.

But the state's high court Monday overturned both lower courts, declaring that Amendment 23 "neither relates to nor concerns the 'thorough and uniform' mandate" in the state constitution.

Ruling that courts could not decide what is a proper level of education funding "would give the legislative branch unchecked power, potentially allowing it to ignore its constitutional responsibility to fashion and to fund a 'thorough and uniform' system of public education," the Supreme Court said in its opinion.

Dissent: "Thorough" not defined
In a dissent, Justice Nancy Rice said the constitution places the issue "squarely and solely in the legislative ambit."

Sure, but what if the legislature doesn't obey the constitution?

She was joined in the dissent by Justices Nathan Coats and Allison Eid.

"There is no national standard from which this court could adopt a definition of 'thorough,' and more importantly, the varying definitions other states ascribe to the term illustrate no consensus on what 'thorough' means," Rice wrote. "As such, any definition we might construe would necessarily constitute a policy determination. "

Odd how some people who believe in states rights suddenly need a national standard when it's convenient. The Colorado Constitution doesn't call for meeting national standards, it sets its own standard.

It's not hard to construe a definition; the legislature has put plenty of them into law already. Just defer to the legislature, pick a legislatively-approved definition, and apply it. Of course, the we put education standards in law assuming only other people will have to measure up to them, like teaches and school boards, but laws sometimes boomerang on the people who write them.

And, of course, once courts begin to make policy, it is difficult to stop."

The state is facing its worst budget crisis since the Great Depression and has already filled a $1.8 billion shortfall over the past two budget cycles. In September, lawmakers learned revenues likely would be another $240 million short in the current 2009-10 budget year that ends in June.

Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, is considering a cut to public-school funding for the next fiscal year that would result in at least a $170 million net reduction over the current year. Some education groups say that cut could violate Amendment 23.

And this decision won't make "reinterpreting" Amendment 23 any easier."

Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com

Loophole costing Colorado millions in payments to legal immigrants

By Tim Hoover
The Denver Post

A loophole in state law allows elderly legal immigrants to receive the same pension poor, older Colorado residents get, regardless of whether the immigrants' families can provide for them.

Lawmakers this year resisted eliminating the loophole in the state's Old Age Pension program because doing so would have prevented the state from receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds for Medicaid programs.

But with the state set to be free of the federal stimulus requirements in 2011, there is talk of reviving legislation next year to tighten requirements for the pension program and cut off what could be thousands of elderly legal immigrants who have relatives that sponsored their immigration and agreed to care for them.

"It's just kind of odd the way it's in law right now," said Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, who co-sponsored a bill last year that would have closed the loophole.

The pension program made headlines last week after it was announced that a Lakewood man bilked the state out of $1 million by signing up elderly Vietnamese immigrants for the program and keeping most of the pension benefits for himself.

But state officials, lawmakers and a former Denver caseworker say the program has a bigger problem than occasional fraud. The way state law is written, thousands of legal immigrants whose families said they would take care of them are instead receiving help from Colorado taxpayers.

Under federal law, family members who sponsor relatives as immigrants must agree to be financially responsible for them until they become a citizen, have worked for 10 years or have become self-sufficient. The immigrants cannot receive federal benefits for at least five years or until they have received citizenship.

Pension program created in 1936

However, Colorado law, which allows legal immigrants to receive the Old Age Pension, also says that a relative's income can't be counted against the eligibility of someone applying for the pension. Taken together, this means that the income of a legal immigrant's family sponsor isn't counted in getting the state pension, state officials said.

It's especially odd because the standard is stricter for sponsors who aren't relatives; they income can be counted against eligibility.

Voters added the Old Age Pension program to the state constitution in 1936. Originally, recipients had to have lived in Colorado for 35 years before getting the pension, but courts struck down the requirement.

Today, the program provides nearly 24,000 low-income Colorado residents who are at least 60 with cash benefits of up to $699 per month, and in some cases, medical benefits. In a majority of cases, people who qualify for the pension also automatically qualify for Medicaid benefits.

The cash-assistance portion of the pension program alone costs the state just over $80 million, of which about $53 million goes to nearly 8,700 legal permanent residents, which includes family-sponsored immigrants and those sponsored by churches and nonprofits, refugees and people granted asylum.

Department of Human Services officials say elderly immigrants typically qualify for larger cash benefits because they have no demonstrable income.

The department last year pushed the legislation to tighten eligibility, and the bill essentially would have aligned state rules with federal law.

The bill would have saved an estimated $31 million per year when fully phased in by fiscal year 2012, human-services officials said, eliminating the benefit for an estimated 4,000 legal immigrants whose families sponsored their immigration.

Shifting burden to taxpayers

Michael Whalen, a former Spanish-speaking caseworker for the Denver Department of Human Services, said that while a number of legal immigrants are legitimately in need of the benefit, it's clear the sponsoring relatives of others are shifting their responsibility to taxpayers.

Whalen said that during his three years as a caseworker, it was not uncommon to see elderly immigrants who had arrived in the country only weeks earlier applying for the pension despite having sponsoring relatives who had agreed to care for them.

Whalen said he and other Denver caseworkers observed a high concentration of applicants all from the same region in the north-central Mexican state of Zacatecas.

"Clearly, the message has gotten out," he said. "People know that you can do this. And who can blame them? No one's minding the store."

Loophole not a big issue, group says

Chandra Russo, spokeswoman for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said the loophole was not a "big issue" because it likely applies to so few legal immigrants.

"I guess I'm not so concerned about a small group of people who have played by the rules and who have waited to get in the country getting some help if they need some help," Russo said.

Well, they're not really playing by the rules. They came here on the condition that the relative who sponsored them would support them if they needed help. Now their relatives have enough money to help them, but prefer to push the cost onto the state. That cost is significant and we're cutting other parts of the budget to get the money.

Pommer and Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, sponsored the legislation to close the loophole. They quickly found out they would have to scuttle the bill.

Under state law, Old Age Pension eligibility is also a category of eligibility for Medicaid, the state and federally funded program that provides health care to the poor and disabled.

Colorado, like many states, was set to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds to help shore up its Medicaid program. But any reduction to existing Medicaid eligibility levels would have disqualified the state from receiving stimulus funds to help with its Medicaid costs.

"We needed to do it last year, but we ran into a conflict with federal law," Pommer said. "I think we should do it again. It's outrageous. We should have tougher regulations on this."

Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com

Re-Bruce, Part II

By The Daily Sentinel
Wednesday, April 01, 2009

The Mesa County commissioners apparently spooked Democrats in the Legislature when they talked of school districts “re-Brucing” to make up for the mill-levy freeze.

The Mesa County commissioners alerted us to the fact that they had a plan to get taxpayers in the rest of the state to subsidize their schools. We're not spooked, in fact we expect politicians from Mesa County to look for new ways of getting the rest of the state to subsidize them.

The School Finance Act, introduced in the Legislature this week, includes a provision to penalize school districts that re-Bruce in an attempt to reduce their property taxes. The legislation also includes new student-monitoring requirements for school districts that approve changes related to the mill-levy freeze.

It doesn't penalize the school districts, it just says we won't make everybody else in the state pay more to make up the difference. If people in Grand Junction want to pay less for their schools why should everyone else in the state have to pay more for their schools? If we reward that kind of thing, they'll decide not to pay anything for their schools and we'll have to pay all of it.

It was Colorado Attorney General John Suthers who noticed the measures, buried within the lengthy school finance bill, and alerted the public and GOP lawmakers to them.

Interesting. Colorado's Attorney General sees his jobs as supporting Republican legislators rather than upholding the laws of the state.

Now, Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry is hoping he can strike a compromise with Democrats about the provision.

We hope he’s successful. Voters in school districts around the state should have the option — without penalizing their school districts — of making it clear they never intended to raise property taxes when they approved overrides to TABOR revenue limits.

And there's nothing in the school finance act that would increase their property taxes. This is about what happens when they lower their property taxes. If people in the school district lower the property taxes they pay for their schools, does everyone else in the state have to pay more to make up the difference.

That was the case for years, until the Legislature passed the mill-levy freeze in 2007. It prevented school districts’ mill levies from dropping as their assessed valuations increased. That effectively raised taxes in 174 school districts statewide. The Supreme Court ruled last month that the mill-levy freeze didn’t violate TABOR.

The reasoning here is that not letting people in Grand Junction lower their property tax rates is actually a property tax increase. They say it's an increase because if the value of a person's home goes up, the amount of tax they pay goes up.

Oddly, the Mesa County Commissioners think that's just fine when it comes to paying property taxes to support their county. They just don't like it when it applies to paying property taxes to support their schools. What's the difference? A subsidy. If the Mesa County Commissioners cut their own property taxes, they lose money.

But they were hoping that if they cut their property taxes for schools, we'd force taxpayers in the rest of the state to increase their subsidy of the Grand Junction schools to make up the difference.

In response, the Mesa County commissioners suggested School District 51 should “re-Bruce” — reinstate the provisions that allow the mill levy to drop as the district’s assessed valuation increases.

We argued last week that putting such a question to voters should be a decision of the District 51 School Board, not the county commissioners. And, even though members of the School Board don’t seem inclined to push such an approach, we believe they ought to have the option.

But with language included in the School Finance Act, they would be penalized for doing so.

School funding comes from both local property taxes and the state general fund. The school-finace language says if school districts vote to re-Bruce, they won’t get any additional state funding. Whatever money they cut in local property taxes will be deducted from the school district’s budget.

Is that a radical concept. You cut the taxes you pay so your school district has less money to spend?

Additionally, any school district that votes to re-Bruce would face new requirements for reporting to the state and for boosting student achievement, mandates that other school districts wouldn’t have to meet.

This is something the Senate put into the bill and it does seem unfair. We might take it out in the House.

We’re all for doing things to improve student achievement, but these requirements are clearly punitive, designed to treat school districts differently if they try to overcome the mill-levy freeze.

We don’t think many school districts will try to do that in the current economic crisis. But, with the School Finance Act, the Legislature is telling voters in 174 school districts, “We raised your property taxes without your permission, and we’re going to do everything we can to prevent you from reducing them.”

Not really. The provision they're talking about said that if the voters in a school district voted to let the district keep the money it gets from the existing property tax rate, the district can keep it.

The provision in this year's bill just says that if you lower your property taxes we won't force everyone else in the state to pay more to make up the difference.

That’s not exactly the way to promote trust in government.

Actually, it's exactly the way to promote trust in government.

Bill would keep extra state money from re-Bruced districts

By GARY HARMON/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
Tuesday, March 31, 2009

A new school-finance measure before the Legislature would prevent school districts from getting more state dollars by reinstating revenue limits.

Mesa County commissioners discussed the idea of reinstating revenue limits for School District 51 in the wake of a court decision upholding the so-called mill-levy freeze, a legislative device intended to put more weight on local taxpayers in most school districts and freeing up state general-fund money for other purposes.

Since when to county commissioners set revenue limits for school districts. In most places school boards run school districts and county commissioners run counties.

“It’s disappointing that this provision got snuck in,” said state Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction.

"Snuck in?" The provision was in the bill when it was introduced. How does that quality as sneaking it in?

It’s possible, though, disagreements about the provision can be resolved, Penry said.

The school-finance measure, S.B. 256, includes provisions that will reward schools for improving the test performance of at-risk children and would discourage dropouts by requiring every ninth grader in the state to establish an account with College in Colorado to help them plan for education after high school.

Attorney General John Suthers said he was troubled by the punitive nature of the provision.

“Now that the voters have a chance to cast an informed vote about whether they want to see their property taxes increase, the Legislature wants to punish them if they vote in favor of lower taxes,” Suthers said.

Suthers' legal opinions are truly bizarre -- and get rejected regularly by both the Colorado Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. His comments on the budget are equally strange.

Here he's saying that if people in Mesa County decide to pay less for their schools, everyone else in the state has to pay more to make up the difference for the schools in Mesa. If we don't, the legislature is "punishing" the people in Mesa for just wanting to reduce their own taxes.

A severance tax retreat

Editorial

By The Daily Sentinel

Monday, March 30, 2009

It seems like only yesterday that state and local elected officials of both parties were trying to determine how best to divide up the embarrassment of riches that was coming from the state’s severance tax which was projected to grow enormously over the coming decade.

That game, too, has changed.

According to financial analysts for the state Legislature, severance taxes on oil and gas production will plummet 80 percent in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Instead of the $250 million collected this year, only $40 million is predicted for next year.

A significant reduction in severance taxes was anticipated, given the dramatic decrease in gas prices nationwide. But few people expected such a precipitous decline.

And, because the severance tax is shared with local governments that are effected by energy development, it won’t be just the state budget that feels the brunt of the tax drop. Communities in Mesa, Garfield and Rio Blanco counties will see a significant drop in revenue from the tax.

Additionally, half of the revenue from severance taxes goes to the Colorado Department of Natural Resources for water conservation and wildlife programs. They, also, will be hurt by the steep drop in revenue.

Severance taxes are paid as oil and gas are produced from wells, so a reduction in the number of drill rigs operating isn’t responsible for an immediate drop in severance taxes. But as fewer wells are drilled, it means less production for the future. That, combined with the steep drop in oil and gas prices, spell long-term problems for Colorado’s severance tax revenues.

There has been considerable debate about the reasons for the drop in drilling in Colorado. We won’t reiterate those arguments here.

But the substantial drop in revenue, the communities and state programs that will be affected by it, show how important the oil and gas industry have become to Colorado.

Hospital fee draws some GOP support

But one Republican calls it "immoral," saying if Dems want it, they must raise taxes.

By Lynn Bartels
The Denver Post

State Rep. Spencer Swalm hammered a bill Wednesday that expands health coverage by imposing a fee on hospitals, calling it "irresponsible and immoral" and a "house of cards."

"We're shifting the costs of our health care problems onto our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren because we're not willing to man up and raise the taxes that are required to do a pay-as-you-go kind of system," Swalm, R-Centennial, said.

OK, so I know it's wimpy to oppose war. Last year we learned from the Senate that real men cut school funding to pay for more highways (that's when I first heard the term "man up", but this is new: tough guys, and gals I guess, raise taxes?

Several Democrats looked at one another, stunned. Did a Republican just say the "t" word?

"He didn't just say 'taxes'; he said 'man up and raise taxes,' " said Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder.

"I vowed to spend the weekend pumping iron and come in on Monday with a tax increase."

Both Pommer and Rep. Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, said they were shocked to hear Swalm mention taxes.

"I'm not advocating increased taxes. But if we want a program, we need to pay for it now instead of doing deficit spending," Swalm said afterward, noting that the bill relies on matching funds from the federal government, which is running a deficit.

Apparently there's a distinction here. It's manly to borrow money and run a deficit to pay for war, but girly-manish to use federal deficit spending to pay for health care.

House Bill 1293 would generate an estimated $600 million from hospital fees. The money would draw an equal amount in federal matching funds, and the $1.2 billion total could be used to expand the reach of Medicaid, the Child Health Plan Plus, or CHP+, and indigent-care programs to at least 100,000 more Coloradans.

Not exactly. $600 million of the total goes back to the hospitals to reimburse them for the fee. (You didn't think they were doing this out of compassion, di you?). Another $200 million goes back to hospitals by increasing the amount Medicaid pays them for treating people. The last $300 million will expand the number of people eligible for Medicaid.

The bill passed on a 40-23 vote, with three Republicans — Laura Bradford of Collbran, Don Marostica of Loveland and Tom Massey of Pagosa Springs — joining with Democrats in passing the measure.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

Sometimes the comments are better than the article. These are some of the comments from an article in the Camera about a new robotic device that helps perform surgery at Boulder Community Hospital.

Posted by Jesus_was_a_socialist on March 21, 2009 at 11:04 p.m.

I, for one, welcome our new robotic doctor overlords.

Posted by meatpieandtatters on March 22, 2009 at 7:31 a.m.

The robotic doctor is also well-versed in over-prescribing pharmaceuticals and ordering needless billable procedures.

Over-billing Medicare is an optional program.

Posted by dludler on March 22, 2009 at 9:36 a.m.

Finally, they've been able to create a surgeon with personality!

Posted by boulderpersonage1 on March 22, 2009 at 11:21 a.m.

Gosh, if the CEO of Boulder Community Hospital would forgo a piece of his $1.2 million dollar salary, the hospital could buy all sorts of new technology and charge less for it.

Posted by ThatCertainWoman on March 22, 2009 at 7:42 p.m.

What's the robot doing in that first picture? Smurf liposuction?

One budget hole closed; next is bigger

By Tim Hoover
The Denver Post

Posted: 03/26/2009 12:30:00 AM MDT

Lawmakers on Wednesday finished filling a nearly $160 million hole in the current year's spending plan, relying heavily on cash funds to close the gap.

The accomplishment for the Joint Budget Committee, the six-member panel that annually crafts the state's budget, was relatively easy compared with the task it will face starting today: filling a $766.4 million hole in the next budget year, which begins in July.

Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, said lawmakers won't be able to rely much on cash funds to deal with next year's budget problems.

"I really think when the new revenue forecast came out (last week), it was a reality slap in the face that we need to start making some cuts," he said.

Some of the cuts JBC members approved to close the final gap in the current year's budget include reclaiming $2.3 million in funds that school districts had not yet used to expand full-day kindergarten programs. The panel also cut $1.8 million in funding that goes primarily to Colorado Springs-area schools to help accommodate enrollment of children in military families.

The panel eliminated any increase in construction funding for charter schools and cut $1.1 million in payments to private hospitals to compensate for care to the uninsured.

Also cut was $1.7 million in grant funding for innovative health care programs.

Colorado House roll call on oil, gas rules

Here's a misleading story from the Associated Press. This version is from KJCT8 in Grand Junction.

The 50-13 roll call by which the Colorado House adopted a measure (House Bill 1292) to regulate the oil and gas industry on Friday.

Voting yes were 36 Democrats and 14 Republicans.

Voting no were 1 Democrat and 12 Republicans.

Democrats voting yes: Dennis Apuan, Colorado Springs; Debbie Benefield, Arvada; Terrance Carroll, Denver; Edward Casso, Thornton; Lois Court, Denver; Kathleen Curry, Gunnison; Mark Ferrandino, Denver; Randy Fischer, Fort Collins; Jerry Frangas, Denver; Sara Gagliardi, Arvada; Gwyn Green, Golden; Dicky Lee Hullinghorst, Longmont; Joel Judd, Denver; John Kefalas, Fort Collins; Andrew Kerr, Lakewood; Jeanne Labuda, Denver; Claire Levy, Boulder; Elizabeth McCann, Denver; Buffie McFadyen, Pueblo West; Anne McGihon, Denver; Michael Merrifield, Manitou Springs; Karen Middleton, Aurora; Joe Miklosi, Denver; Sal Pace, Pueblo; Cherylin Peniston, Westminster; Jack Pommer, Boulder; Dianne Primavera, Broomfield; Joe Rice, Littleton; James Riesberg, Greeley; Sue Ryden, Aurora; Christine Scanlan, Silverthorne; Sue Schafer, Wheat Ridge; John Soper, Thornton; Nancy Todd, Aurora; Edward Vigil, Fort Garland; Paul Weissmann, Louisville.

Democrats voting no: Wes McKinley, Walsh.

Republicans voting yes: David Balmer, Centennial; Bob Gardner, Colorado Springs; Cheri Gerou, Evergreen; Jim Kerr, Littleton; Marsha Looper, Calhan; Don Marostica, Loveland; Mike May, Parker; Frank McNulty, Highlands Ranch; Kevin Priola, Henderson; Ellen Roberts, Durango; Amy Stephens, Monument; Ken Summers, Lakewood; Spencer Swalm, Centennial; Glenn Vaad, Mead.

Republicans voting no: Cindy Acree, Aurora; Randy Baumgardner, Hot Sulphur Springs; Laura Bradford, Collbran; Cory Gardner, Yuma; Steve King, Grand Junction; Kent Lambert, Colorado Springs; Larry Liston, Colorado Springs; Carole Murray, Castle Rock; B.J. Nikkel, Loveland; Jerry Sonnenberg, Sterling; Scott Tipton, Cortez; Mark Waller, Colorado Springs.

The story is of interest in Grand Junction because some people there, and the local newspaper, erroneously blame the rules for the loss of oil and gas jobs.

The story is misleading because HB09-1292 isn't a bill about regulating the oil and gas industry. It's the annual Rule Review bill.

The legislature passes laws, then the state departments write more detailed rules to implement the laws. The rules have to be both constitutional and within the scope of the authority the legislature gave to the agency to make rules.

Each year we run a bill that's essentially our review of all of the rules that changed during the previous year. We can add or delete a rule if we believe it goes beyond what we intended in the law.

The Rule Review bill is rarely controversial. This year it is because, among the new rules, are those that implement a couple of bills we passed to protect people, property, wildlife and the environment from oil and gas operations. The oil and gas industry hates the rules and wants us to wipe out some of them.

Among those listed as voting for the bill are Reps. Bob Gardner and Ellen Roberts, who led the thoughtful, intelligent and reasonable effort to eliminate a few of the rules. Ellen is from the West Slope.

They made a specific point of saying that most of the rules in the Rule Review bill are appropriate and that many are necessary. Although they disagree with a few of the oil and gas rules, they didn't let that keep them from supporting the the bill and all of the other rules.

Words can't bury budget woes Senate, house meet on fiscal plan

By Tim Hoover
The Denver Post
Posted: 02/16/2009 12:30:00 AM MST
Updated: 02/16/2009 12:36:05 AM MST

An oxymoron has been in wide use this year at the Capitol: "negative supplemental."

That's the term budget officials use when they make a midyear cut to a program. In a good year, there are mostly "supplementals," meaning upward, but usually small, adjustments to programs based on unexpected costs.

But in the current budget year, which ends in June, the state's revenue is expected to be more than $600 million below original projections. The "negative supplementals" have been plentiful and deep.

Lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee last week finished their plan to balance the current year's budget. Their staff will make a presentation of the plan today to the full legislature in a rare joint session of the House and Senate.

Rep. Jack Pommer, a member of the JBC, said the joint session is meant to bring other lawmakers up to speed on what has happened to the current year's budget.

"This year we have an extraordinary number of bills and supplementals cutting a huge amount of money," Pommer, D-Boulder, said. "In some ways, it's like redoing the budget."

The Joint Budget Committee followed, or came close to, many of the recommendations Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, made last month to balance the budget in the current year.

For example, the six-member panel agreed that colleges and universities should be cut $30 million in appropriations from the state's general fund and Ritter's office should take a $2.6 million cut.

Meanwhile, the panel rejected the governor's supplemental request for $26 million in additional funding for schools.

The JBC's balancing plan rests on the assumption, also used by Ritter's office, that the state would get an estimated $107 million in federal stimulus package funding just to help offset the costs of Medicaid in the current year.

Pommer said that with changes to the stimulus package last week, the state could get an additional $100 million for Medicaid in the current year.


While the governor's office called for using $207 million in cash funds — pots of money financed from fees in exchange for goods and services — the JBC recommended using $230.9 million.

The panel approved a recommendation to limit the amount of sales tax revenue that businesses can keep as compensation for collecting the tax for the state. That change would save the state $12.8 million in the current year.

But the panel nixed a proposed $250,000 cut to veterans' programs.

The panel also reversed a recommendation that would have cut $2 million from a senior assistance program that funds services like Meals on Wheels.

"We got a surge of lobbying from senior citizens' groups," Pommer said.

House OKs vehicle fee-hikes

By John Ingold The Denver Post
Posted: 02/24/2009 07:48:32 PM MST

I think we were hoping for a headline more along the lines of "Disaster Averted! House Rescues Failing Bridges."  Oh, well. 

A major bill to raise annual vehicle registration fees to pay for road and bridge improvements squeaked through another vote today at the state Capitol.

Senate Bill 108, known as FASTER, won initial approval in the House, over the objections of every House Republican and four Democrats, including the House majority leader. It must still receive another vote in the House.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, urged his colleagues to pass the bill, saying it is critical the state invest money to repair its aging infrastructure. He said the work generated by the bill would preserve as many as 8,000 jobs in Colorado and generate new ones.

"The cost to doing nothing is much greater than the cost of this bill," Rice said. " Things wear out. The infrastructure wears out. This is an important part of the solution. It's something we can do now."

Republicans, meanwhile, continued to blast at the bill's registration fee increases and complained that their suggestions to fix the bill went unheard.

Unheard?  We listened to them ranting about the bill for hours.  Personally I think it's an awful bill, but not for the reason most Republicans opposed it.  They seem to think we can maintain the transportation system for free.  We can't.  But we should do a better job of managing it before we impose a regressive fee to repair it.

"We have a fundamental difference that this is a fee bill instead of a broader bill," House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, said. " We don't have a solution together for Colorado. We have a bill that we feel like we have had minimal input on the process."
 

They wanted to spend General Fund money on transportation.  That would mean cutting higher ed, K-12, Judiciary, or some other service.  And they would oppose those cuts, I assume, since they opposed a lot of the cuts this year.

State representatives Tuesday argued into the evening over the bill, and the vote on the bill followed a by now familiar pattern for FASTER, which sponsors once hoped would be a bi-partisan effort but has seen a string of largely party-line votes since it was introduced.

Lawmakers from the two parties squabbled over registration fees, rental car fees, mass transit funding, eminent domain, tolling and just about any other issue the bill potentially touches in an exhaustive debate that lasted several hours.

Things got so contentious that Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, offered an amendment out of frustration that "no one shall have any power to charge anybody anything to support the transportation system."

"Let's vote yes and go home," Pommer joked.

I don't like the bill and initially wanted to vote against it.  Not because we don't need the money, but because I think we should be doing more to manage the demand for transportation. 

During the debate, reps from both parties ran amendments to take away options that could pay for transportation.  They opposed a fee based on the amount you drive, tolls and, of course, the registration fee that's the point of the bill.  Most legislators oppose a tax increase.  Yet everybody agrees the transportation system is falling apart. 

FASTER would ultimately raise vehicle registration fees by $41 for the average car — an amendment Tuesday phases in the fee increase over three years instead of two — generating more than $250 million a year for road and bridge fixes. The bill would also charge a $2-a-day fee on rental cars and would give local governments the authority to put tolls on existing roads if the governments get the buy-in of all communities that would be impacted by the tolls.

In one of the more bi-partisan moments of the debate, a group of Democrats and Republicans fought unsuccessfully to take the tolling provision out of the bill. Rep. Edward Casso, D-Thornton, said Colorado residents shouldn't have to pay to use roads they've already paid for with taxes.

But Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, said the debate over FASTER shows the state has not adequately paid for its existing roads and bridges.

"We've got to be creative with how we fund our transportation system," she said.

Democratic dozen desert Ritter's tax credit bill

By: Tim Hoover
2/25/2009

They called it bad policy and said it was a government giveaway to businesses.

The way a group of House Democrats angrily talked about House Bill 1001 on Wednesday, you would have thought it was a Republican bill instead of the top economic development effort being pushed by their own governor.

What the bill does makes it seem more like a Republican bill -- a special interest tax break that will cut state revenue at the same time we're slashing budgets.  If we were the federal government and we could borrow money we'd be cutting taxes and increasing the deficit.  Sound familiar?

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, would award tax credits to companies that create 20 or more jobs and to companies in rural areas that create at least 10 positions.
  
The tax credit is for up to 50 percent of the amount the employer pays in federal Social Security and Medicare taxes on the new jobs. An employer could claim the tax credit for up to five years. 

Ritter, a Democrat, had touted the proposal in December as one his key efforts to create jobs in Colorado.

Critics said studies have shown such incentives only reward companies for doing what they'd already planned to do anyway. Opponents said it would further strain the state's budget in a year when pennies are hard to find.

"How big should this deficit get?" asked Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder. "This makes no economic sense. Vote no on this bill. Do not dig our deficit hole deeper."

Estimates say the bill would cost the state nearly $3 million next year.

Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, supported the bill and was amused by the Democratic defections.

"This is the governor's No. 1 economic proposal this year," Gardner said. "I challenge you to join with us and your governor, the governor of all of Colorado, and support House Bill 1001."

The House approved the bill on a 52-13 vote, with 12 Democrats and one Republican voting against it. It now goes to the Senate.

Those 52 votes came from the same people who have been complaining about the budget cuts and the cash fund transfers we're using to prop up revenue.  Imagine spending three days listening to people complain about your recommendations for balancing the budget (without offering any suggestions), then listening to them talk about how great it is to cut taxes.

A spokesman for Ritter was unfazed by the Democratic opposition, instead focusing on the yes votes from both sides of the aisle.

"The bipartisan nature of this bill is a testament to the fact that creating jobs is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue – it's a Colorado issue," said Evan Dreyer, Ritter's top spokesman.

The bill doesn't create jobs, it cuts taxes for a few businesses.  The bipartisan nature of the bill is a testament to the fact that members of both parties get a kick out of giving away money to special interests.

Governor recommends deep cuts to Colorado budget

By STEVEN K. PAULSON, AP

DENVER (Map, News) - Warning that Colorado faces a $1 billion budget shortfall through next year, Gov. Bill Ritter recommended that the state close two prisons, cut education funding, impose an unpaid furlough for most state workers and slash more than 540 state jobs.

Todd Saliman, Ritter's budget director, told lawmakers Tuesday that Colorado cannot rely on a federal stimulus package.

"It's a dramatic situation we're faced with, and this package proposes some dramatic action. There will be pain and it will be felt by many citizens of the state who rely on state services. There is just no way to avoid that," Saliman told the Joint Budget Committee, which sets state spending priorities.

Ritter recommended that the state close the Colorado Women's Correctional Facility in Canon City and the Rifle Correctional Center in Rifle and move the 400 inmates to other prisons.
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Ritter wants to close a mental health clinic affiliated with the state mental hospital in Pueblo, but not the main hospital itself. He also wants to close a small child-care residence hospital at Fort Logan.

Ritter proposed keeping vacant or eliminating more than 540 full-time state jobs, imposing unpaid furlough days for most state workers and withholding salary increases for 26,000 state employees.

Other major cuts include a three-year suspension of the homestead exemption for seniors and deep reductions in higher education and public education.

Saliman said the state no longer has large cash funds that helped it get through the last recession. Many programs that were cut seven years ago have never been restored, he said.

According to budget projections, the state will be forced to cut $696 million from the general fund and find another $127 million in reduced obligations - a 10 percent cut from Ritter's original estimated general fund budget of $8.2 billion in November.

The state also is counting on $259 million from the federal government for health care services.

Department of Corrections Executive Director Ari Zavaras said the prison closures won't compromise public safety. He said the women's prison had lower than expected growth and staff can be reassigned to other prisons. He said the Rifle facility is on valuable property that can be sold.

Rep. Jack Pommer, a Democrat from Boulder, said lawmakers may ask voters for another time-out from the state's tough tax limits - something similar to Referendum C, in which voters gave up their tax surplus refunds to help the state recover from the last recession.

Not true.  Didn't say it.  I said it was wrong to call these cuts temporary, for instance saying the Homestead Exemption is only going away for three years, because the state won't have the money in three years to restore the funding.  I pointed out that during the last recession a lot of the cuts were called temporary, but the state would never have been able to undo them if Ref C hadn't passed.

Ref C, however, didn't reverse all of the cuts.  It just allowed us to avoid the most serious ones, like shutting down colleges and universities.  We've never dealt with the rest of them.  They've become kind of a permanent deficit.

If we pass another Ref C, it won't fix the continuing problems from the last recession or the new ones from this one.  We either have to cut out a huge part of state government so we can do the rest properly, or we have to raise taxes.

He said many cuts this time could be permanent.

"This is not something where we tighten our belt and relax it two years from now," Pommer said.

Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, said it's only prudent for the state not to count on federal help.

"I'm going to wait until the check comes before I get too excited," he said.

Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Fruita, said Ritter had a chance to cut spending last year and didn't.

"The budget news from the governor was sobering, but it was not a surprise," Penry said. "The dark clouds of recession have been gathering for more than a year, and the leaders of this state have done very little to position us to weather the storm.

Colorado colleges must slash $30 million

We've been working for a while on a way to save higher education in Colorado.  It's a complicated process and it's hard to explain in a news story.  That's apparent by the comments after the article.

Presidents want say on setting tuition
By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published January 16, 2009 at 9:12 p.m.

College students could see deep changes in the way tuition is formulated as a result of the looming budget cuts announced Friday, some key lawmakers believe.

A new strategy would mean higher tuition for some students to offset the budget cuts. But some of the additional money would go to financial aid to keep college affordable for disadvantaged students.

Trying to keep tuition down while repeatedly chopping state aid to the schools can only erode the quality of education, Rep. Jack Pommer, D- Boulder, vice chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said Friday.

"We're essentially consuming these universities," Pommer said of the state's four research institutions.

He added: "We can probably get another 20 years out of them before they're essentially worthless."

Higher education must cut $30 million from the budget for the current school year, with more proposed cuts to be released next Friday.

Higher education was slashed during the last recession, at the beginning of this decade. Funding still has not climbed back to 2002 levels when amounts are adjusted for inflation, according to the governor's budget office.

For years, Colorado's college presidents have been seeking more management flexibility, including more leeway in setting tuition, which is capped annually in the state spending bill. Lawmakers, including budget committee members such as Pommer, have been saying for several weeks that they're open to more flexibility for the colleges.

University of Colorado President Bruce Benson said Friday, "Give us some freedom. We will be responsible. We will be accountable, and we will damn sure keep it affordable for our citizens."

CU will absorb nearly $8 million of the $30 million cut to higher education, under the proposal that went from the governor's office to the budget committee Friday.

Benson said CU started looking at savings last March, when businesses began reporting financial problems. Some CU jobs have gone unfilled since last summer.

Gov. Bill Ritter said he's not ready to endorse a flexibility plan until he sees details.

Even the $30 million cut protects most of the gains that have been made in higher education funding over the last two years, Ritter said.

College tuition increased 9 percent this year at the state's four research schools - CU, Colorado State University, University of Northern Colorado and the Colorado School of Mines. Other four-year schools and community colleges saw lesser increases.

Budget committee members, who draft the annual state spending bill, had been looking at similar increases for next year.



      windbourne writes:

      If you dems ARE going to cut their budget, then give them freedom to figure things out.


      farsidefan writes:

      Windbourne,
      Why should the Dems do that when the Repubs never did it when they slashed Higher Ed budgets the last 15 years ?


      SL10 writes:

      Voting NO to the amendments hurt Colorado.

      Hey, the people of Colorado had a chance to vote for a change to improve school funding.

      But, now this is the price of stupidity at the polls.

      Enjoy higher price schools all.


      freefall writes:

      I moved here for the great affordable schools and would love to stay here. But the rate hikes are above and beyond other states so I am looking at transferring. Hell, there's even a couple of schools I could go to that out of state (tuition) would be lower than Colorado's in- state and get the same respect.

This is just plain wrong.  The in-state tuition at CU and CSU are about average for similar schools around the country.  We've had some significant increases in tuition, but so have a lot of other state Universities.  Out-of-state tuition is certainly high, but we can't subsidize students who aren't from Colorado.

      Sundog writes:

      Yep, just keep jacking up the tuition to close the shortfall. Surely $30k isn't too much for one semester. After graduation they can quickly jump to assistant manager at Sonic...if anyone can still afford a hamburger by then.


      Mile_Hi_Dave writes:

      Hmmmmmmmmmm...didn't all the casino towns just vote to raise the limts and stay open longer? Doesn't that mean more revenue for those towns? Even if it increases the taxes only by 50%, I am sure, with a 2000% increase in the limits, I am being conservative using 50% as the value for the increase in tax revenue generated up there. Back to my point...why not use this money to increase, not decrease educational spending? Obviously, these towns of less than 200 people can't use all that revenue, at least not for the purposes they are supposed to....Heck, in a town of 110 people, the board is running out of ways to spend those tax dollars, so they are fixing up their own homes, LOL, and illegally moving money for services that are not provided for by their agreement for the use of these tax $$. I see no reason to be buying doggie doors when a student can't go to school because of a lack of funds! Just my 2 cents...

This is a good idea.  Unfortunately, the casino can do pretty much anything they want.  They authorized themselves by sponsoring an amendment to the state constitution.  Last November, they ran another amendment to increase the amounts people can bet and to increase the hours that they're open.  The proposal went right to the voters who approved it.

The legislature can't change the constitution, so we don't have much control over the tax revenue the casinos generate.  Their latest change to the constitution directs some of the tax revenue to community colleges.  That's good for them, but it doesn't help the rest of higher education.  And it's not going to make the community colleges rich.  Since casinos in Colorado write their own laws, they keep a lot of the money for themselves.

      classiccoupe writes:

      Where are our values? Certainly not in education! Like everything else, one has to wonder where all the money involved is really going. Could there be greed and special interests involved? No wonder America is losing its academic standing in the world. As in the past, the nations with the most knowledge and wisdom will ultimately come out on top. It appears as though this nation is now on a losing path.

You don't have to wonder, you can just look through the budget.

      mytwosense writes:

      This is one reason why I voted against the amendment that, in theory, was supposed to raise gambling funds so that part of them could be diverted to education. I knew it was just going to remain a theory!

The casinos wrote the amendment and the money will go exactly where they wanted it to go.

      farmboy writes:

      Remember Referendum C? Money from that was supposed to fund colleges and universities.

      What happened to it?

Even some college presidents have asked this question.  Those of us who campaigned for Referendum C said it would raise enough revenue to keep the state from having to close the colleges and universities in 2006.  It did.  We tried to be clear about that.  Referendum C kept us from having to make even more cuts to the budget, it didn't restore all of the money lost during the 1999 and 2000 tax cuts and the recession that followed.

      Salchak_Toka writes:

      Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if Colorado won't support higher education (and yes, when all is said and onde, it WILL NOT support higher education), then it could at least craft an orderly dissolution of several state institutions in order to strengthen the rest.

      One four-year campus on the Western Slopes is plenty; one campus south of Denver; one campus in Denver; CU-Boulder, CSU, and Mines. That's it; even that's probably too many.

      Mesa State and Western State? Get rid of one, and merge its resources (and as much of its personnel as feasible) into the other. The result is one possibly viable campus instead of two on life support. Get rid of UNC; move its portable assets and best personnel to CSU. You get the idea. Some consolidation of the community colleges might be worthwhile too, but since they're funded differently, this probably can't be accomplished by some kind of statewide plan.

      Some folks will be hurt, but if we just wait for all the universities to wither and collapse, everyone will be hurt.

      Only problem with this scenario is that it requires some courage on the part of our "leaders." These are the last people to demonstrate courage. Too many legislators sitting in districts with colleges in them, and nobody wants to be the guy who sacrificed his college for the greater good. As a result, most of the colleges will fail.

Touche

Zap! State to take $632 million hit

Gov. Ritter announces across-the-board cuts, warns others may be on the way.
By CHARLES ASHBY
CHIEFTAIN DENVER BUREAU

DENVER - Gov. Bill Ritter's budget experts Friday proposed nearly $632 million in program cuts, cash fund transfers and dipping into the state's reserve account to balance this year's budget.

Virtually no part of the state's government was left uncut.

From K-12 education to transportation to public health programs, the governor's budget director, Todd Saliman, said that because of cuts made during the last recession earlier this decade, there's not much with which to play.

"What we focused on were efforts to ensure that we protected life, safety and public health," Saliman said. "The governor's plan on this entire thing was to try to fairly distribute the pain across the entire state government. The challenge here is that the shortfall is so dramatic that it's really going to be difficult to leave any part of state services unscathed." The cuts and fund transfers include about $43.4 million in capital construction projects, including several in Southern Colorado; $10 million, or half of the money the state spends on tourism promotion; $4.9 million from charter school capital construction projects; $45.8 million from all public schools from a reduction in the per pupil increase they received this year and $11.3 million in maintaining the governor's hiring freeze. A big chunk of the budget-balancing plan is coming from three funds designed to compensate workers for injuries. Saliman's office is projecting that taking $111 million out of the funds - major medical, subsequent injury and workers' compensation - won't have any long-term impacts because they will replenish themselves by the 2010-11 fiscal year.

The money his office is proposing to take doesn't deplete them entirely, but leaves enough for them to operate for the rest of this fiscal year, and next, Saliman wrote in his report to the Joint Budget Committee, which came in a 3-inch-thick loose leaf binder.

Saliman projects that the major medical fund, for example, will have rebuilt itself to have about $131 million in it by 2010.

While state lawmakers bemoaned the cuts as necessary, at least two of them questioned whether the state shouldn't rethink everything it does.

Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, and vice chairman of the JBC, said that because of budget constraints the state is facing - the revenue limits under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights and other constitutional provisions that require increased spending - Colorado's annual spending plan never recovers fully each time there is an economic downturn.

As a result, Pommer suggested the Legislature consider revamping everything the state pays for from the ground up.

"I believe we have at least an ongoing billion-dollar deficit, and it seems like we either can cut everything or as much as we can, to the point where we're doing a lousy job on everything, or we can say that Colorado no longer can afford the government that it has," Pommer said.

"This is a rare occasion when I am in agreement with Representative Pommer," added House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker.

Actually we agree more than rarely.  We even passed a bill together, the Colorado Indoor Clean Air Act, which banned smoking in most restaurants and offices. Before that we carried a bill opening up Colorado's phone system to more competition, but we got clobbered by both of our parties.

"As we're looking at where we're spending our money, we ought to evaluate what it is we can do very well, and what we can't do at all instead of, ‘Let's do everything mediocre, leaving a dollar here and a dollar there.’ ”

Regardless of that conservation, individual lawmakers and special interest groups already have started circling the wagons on their pet programs.

Rep. Al White, R-Hayden and another JBC member, is a longtime proponent of tourism promotion, saying it's an economic stimulus program that's proven to work.

White immediately criticized the governor's plan to cut $10 million out of that $19 million program.

"The governor's talked a lot about doing everything we can to enhance our economy and create jobs," White said. "When I look at our tourism program in the state of Colorado . . . I'm not sure I understand how the governor's consideration of economic enhancement and job creation really fit with this $10 million cut. I know that the governor is considering other programs, (but) this is one that we know works."

Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, who also sits on the six-member JBC, said White has a point, and expects the Legislature will reach a compromise on that part of the cuts.

Still, Tapia said he's girding himself to dealing with others who equally have good reasons not to see their programs get trimmed.

"When you make cuts, there's always fallout," Tapia said. "I know I'm going to get inundated by every special interest group that there is that they're going to be hurt by this. I'll sit and listen, but at the end of the day we've got to balance the budget. We don't have the money."

CUTTING THE BUDGET


DENVER - Here's a breakdown on the governor's proposed budget cuts and cash transfers:

- Reduce executive branch departments and programs, $166.3 million.

- Delay payment to Fire & Police Association pension, $34.8 million.

- Cash fund transfers, $207.1 million.

- Higher Education Maintenance and Reserve Fund transfer, $47.2 million.

- Vendor fee change, $12.8 million.

- Gaming revenue diversion, $11.9 million.

- Other revenue diversions, $10.7 million.

- Dip into Emergency Reserve Fund, $134.1 million.

- Unallocated, but authorized expenditures, $7 million.

TOTAL: $631.9 million

ON CHOPPING BLOCK


DENVER - Here's a list of capital construction projects in Southern Colorado that may get the budget ax:

- Suicide prevention programs at Colorado Mental Health Institutes at Pueblo and in Fort Logan, $3.3 million.

- Colorado State Fair infrastructure improvements, $2.3 million.

- Colorado State Penitentiary II expansion, $2 million.

- Homelake Veterans Nursing Home domicile renovation: $1.3 million.

- Buena Vista Correctional Facility repairs/replacements, $1.3 million.

- Alamosa State Patrol Troop office, $1.2 million.

- Lamar Community College upgrades, $677,467.

- Colorado State University-Pueblo upgrades, $669,689.

- Fort Lyon Correctional Facility wastewater work, $540,486.

- Colorado Women's Correctional Facility lock/door replacements, $466,167.

- Pueblo Community College electrical replacement, $370,000.

Governor proposes cutting $632 million from budget

DENVER (Map, News) - Gov. Bill Ritter recommended Friday that lawmakers cut $632 million from the current state budget, with major reductions for higher education, public education and health care. He also warned that more cuts are coming.

Ritter said his top priorities are public safety and public health, and despite his proposed cuts, he said he wants to protect higher education as much as he can.

Todd Saliman, Ritter's budget director, told lawmakers the state faces a $632 million shortfall in this year's $18.6 billion operating budget - and that that figure could soar to more than $1 billion over the next two years.

I guess this is technically accurate, but it doesn't describe the problem very well.  The $18.6 billion is Colorado's total budget.  The general fund is part of it, but is only about $7.5 billion.  The $632 million shortfall is in the general fund and $632 billion is a much bigger part of $7.5 billion than it is of $18.6 billion.

"The governor's plan is to try to fairly distribute the pain across the entire state government," Saliman told the Joint Budget Committee, which will have to vote on final cuts in coming weeks before working on more cuts for next year's budget.

Ritter recommended eliminating $20 million from state contributions to public schools, $5 million for charter school construction and $1.2 million set aside for teacher recruiting.

He called for cutting $30 million from higher education and $3.1 million from the children's basic health plan. Another $13 million could be saved by putting a cap of $5,000 for businesses that are allowed to keep sales taxes to cover expenses.

Ritter also wants to freeze 64 construction projects on top of 12 already frozen, saving $95 million.

Jane Urschel, deputy director of the Colorado Association of School Boards, said school boards don't want to get into a fight with higher education over which branch of education bears the brunt of the crisis. She said eliminating programs for early childhood education may just be the beginning.

"Promises can't be kept. There's no money," she said.

University of Colorado President Bruce Benson said the state needs to loosen the reins on colleges and universities to give them greater freedom. He said higher education never fully recovered from the last recession that began in 2002 and that it's again on the chopping block.

Benson said state laws that bar universities from entering multiyear contracts, for example, make it almost impossible to work with other schools on research grants. He said new construction has been put on hold, and only critical positions are being filled.

Rep. Jack Pommer, a member of the Joint Budget Committee, said it could take 10 years for higher education to recover under the budget proposal. He noted that many services, including prison guards and child welfare, are in jeopardy.

Actually, I was pointing out that some parts of state government still haven't recovered from our last round of budget cutting that lasted from 2001 through 2003.  The state contribution to higher ed would have gotten back up to it's 2001 level this year if we weren't cutting it again. 

We still have fewer correctional officers than we did in 2001.

Child welfare is a particularly horrible example.  Over the last few years a number of children have died in foster care in Colorado.  An investigation determined that a key reason for the deaths was our lack of training for child welfare case workers.  We cut the training during the last recession.  We're planning to reinstate it, but it's going to mean cutting some other critical area of the budget.

"It seems like we can either cut everything, or as much as we can, to a point where we're doing a lousy job on everything, or we can say that Colorado can no longer afford the government that it had before the tax cuts and the recession and all of that, get rid of some big things, and then do a good job on all of the rest," Pommer said.

Lawmakers expect education to take biggest budget hit

JOHN SCHROYER

THE GAZETTE

DENVER - Will it be higher education? What about the Department of Public Safety? Or K-12 programs? What if two dozen agencies will have their funding cut completely?

That's pretty extreme. No agency is going to get it's funding completely cut. And if "agencies" means departments, we don't even have two dozen of them.

Those were just some of the possibilities buzzing around the Capitol this past week as lawmakers debated where hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts will have to be made. The questions could be answered as soon as Friday morning, when Gov. Bill Ritter's director of the office of state planning will deliver a series of proposed rollbacks to the Joint Budget Committee.

Ritter, a Democrat, said in his State of the State address last week that he'll seek an across-the-board 10 percent budget cut from each state department, which would total roughly $800 million in cuts. The LegislaAs part of that process, the governor asked each state department to come up with cuts equal to 10% of their budgets. That gives him -- and us -- a range to pick from.ture is facing an estimated $631 million shortfall for the current fiscal year due to the economic downturn, but many lawmakers fear that the actual number will be much greater.

Not really. We've said over and over that there won't be across-the-board cuts. Those never work out well. It's a lot better to look at what can be cut, then pick the cuts that do the least damage to state services.

As part of that process, the governor asked each state department to come up with cuts equal to 10% of their budgets. That gives him -- and us -- a range to pick from.

Colorado's constitutional funding restrictions, however, have left many legislators pointing to a single target - higher education.

"We are completely boxed in. Higher education will be where the cuts will have to come," said Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, a former member of the JBC. "The people of this state have dictated where we have to go, (because of) TABOR. People say, well, we have limited options. That's not true. We have no options."

Morse pointed out that the top half-dozen departments funded by the state eat up 94 percent of the state's $18.6 billion budget, but all of those except for higher education are protected either by state or federal law.

The Taxpayers Bill of Rights, authored by Colorado Springs anti-tax crusader Douglas Bruce, prohibits the Legislature from raising taxes without a vote of the people, and a separate constitutional provision precludes state expenditures from growing by more than 6 percent each year.

JBC Vice Chairman Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, agreed with Morse that the state's colleges and universities are in the cross hairs.

"We're going to lose another generation of kids. Literally, we're going to cause dropouts over the next few years," he said.

Pommer estimated that in this fiscal year and the next one, the Legislature will have to figure out how to cut the budget by perhaps $1 billion, adding, "Literally everything we can think of is on the table."

Legislators said they aren't certain what the governor has in mind, and no one in his office would let loose any hints. Speculation was rife, though, that gains made last year in education could be rolled back.

Rep. Michael Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, said there's more than $100 million in K-12 education programs that are not shielded by Amendment 23, which safeguards most of public school funding.

Merrifield said the Legislature could decide to remove a portion of the $34.5 million it appropriated in last year's budget for full-day kindergarten.

Any school funding above the requirements of Amendment 23 could be on the table for cuts, said Glenn Gustafson, deputy superintendent and chief financial officer for Colorado Springs School District 11.

Every school district in the state received about $20 extra per pupil, in two payments, that could be cut, he said. For D-11, that would be about $600,000, he said.

Other at risk areas include the extra money provided to districts that receive the lowest per pupil allotment; extra money provided under a formula for districts with declining enrollment, and capital construction money for charter schools, he said.

"If they take it back right now, we would have to find those cuts," he said. "We would be in kind of pickle but they could retroactively take that away.

"While we're concerned about any reduction, we understand that the state has a problem and we do have reserves that can help us with some cuts Merrifield, who chairs the House Education Committee, said, "I'm going to try to protect as much as I can, but... I can see the writing on wall. We are just in deep, deep doo-doo."

Those cuts could also wind up hurting charter schools around the Colorado Springs area, said Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Monument.
She said she's heard rumors that a $10 million appropriation for charter school capital construction could be sliced in half.

"We have a lot of students affected by that," Stephens said.

She's another one who's also worried about higher education funding, especially for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, which she said "took a harder hit than some of our other universities" when a recession hit the state earlier this decade.

Stephens said she hopes the governor won't protect any sacred cows, but will demonstrate a willingness to withdraw many of the new state programs begun under his watch.

As long as we protect her sacred cows, like the additional $5 million earmarked just for charter schools last year, we can cut money for children in special education, preschool and anything else.

Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, linked much of the budget shortfall to illegal immigration. He referred to a recent
report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, which found that illegal immigrants cost Colorado roughly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars each year.

"Part of the solution to this budget problem is to deal with the illegal immigration problem, so that the people who are losing jobs have jobs to get," Schultheis said.

The bottom line for the JBC, however, is simple, said Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland.

"Anybody's ox could get gored. They have to just be prepared."

Gazette writer Sue McMillin contributed to this report

Tuition Caps May Go Away

Lawmakers Look For Higher Ed Alternatives

Steve Saunders, 7NEWS Anchor

DENVER -- Some Colorado lawmakers say it's time to scrap the formula for funding higher education and get rid of the caps on tuition. As an alternative, the state would provide more financial aid to needy students.

Members of the Joint Budget Committee briefed members of the Education Committee Thursday on how budget cuts are impacting higher education. The state is facing a $600 million shortfall. "The question becomes, do we hang on to them (colleges) and choke them until they are dead or do we look for an alternative?" asked Rep. Jack Pommer of Boulder.

He added, "We don't have any money." Currently, the state caps tuition increases at the major universities at 9 percent.

It would be a drastic change and some say a mistake.

Rep. Karen Middleton of Arapahoe County told lawmakers, "I wouldn't throw the whole thing out. I would be very cautious."

Throw what whole thing out? What we're suggesting is a funding system used in other states that lets tuition rise, but uses financial aid to make it affordable for everyone.

Under the plan, the state's three research universities -- CU, CSU and Mines, would accept every Colorado student who met the academic standards, regardless of ability to pay. The state and the universities would guarantee that every student accepted could go with some state contribution, financial aid and reasonable amounts of family contribution and/or debt.

The alternative is continuing the current trajectory of slowly eroding the quality of the schools while making them unaffordable for lots of Coloradans.

CU, as an example, was just about to get back to it's 2001 level of state support. It would have reached it this year, but instead of increasing the school's funding, we're cutting it.

Ritter outlines tough road ahead for state

By Michael Davidson (Contact)
Saturday, January 10, 2009

DENVER -- Colorado is facing tough times that will try residents and require painful cuts to the state budget, Gov. Bill Ritter told lawmakers Thursday in his annual State of the State address.


That means creating new jobs and making up a budget shortfall that could reach $630 million must be the state's top priorities, Ritter said.

"Over the next 120 days, our collective focus must be on protecting business, creating jobs and managing the budget. I will look at everything we work on this session through the lens of the economy -- of what's responsible and what's best for the long run," he said.

Broomfield's legislators had mixed reviews of the governor's speech, as could be expected by their party affiliations.

Ritter touted plans to create tax credits for businesses that hire new employees, extend loans to small businesses and nurture companies working on advances in renewable energy technology as ways to sustain the economy and keep the unemployment rate -- currently at 5.8 percent in Colorado -- from climbing.

Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, said Ritter's vision is flawed.

"Gov. Ritter is a decent guy with good intentions, but he's got the wrong idea about weathering a downturn if he thinks raising taxes on hard-working families is the ticket out of our problems," Mitchell said.

Ritter didn't propose a tax increases per se, but did criticize the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, which requires voter approval for tax increases and limits government spending.

Ritter blasted the law, part of the state Constitution, as a "straitjacket that makes modern, sensible and value-based budgeting an impossibility."

Republicans ardently defend the amendment, while Democrats criticize it, in part, because whenever the Legislature has to cut the budget during a recession it cannot later increase the budget without taxpayers' approval. That's a continuing problem, said Rep. Dianne Primavera, D-Broomfield.

"We're elected to do this job, but we're hamstrung sometimes because of the budgetary process," Primavera said.

Mitchell viewed Ritter's comment as irrelevant to the current budget shortfall.

"He made the tired attack on the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, which has nothing to do with our current crunch. The budget is down because the economy is down. When the economy comes back, state revenues will rise without a tax increase."

Actually it has everything to do with our current crunch. And state revenues will not rise enough without a tax increase.   Just like they didn't rise enough last time.

We're still dealing with a legacy deficit from tax cuts and lost revenues that happened between 1999 and 2005.  TABOR partially caused the deficit and partially compounded some bad decisions from the legislature. 

If we pretend TABOR doesn't cause a problem, we'll repeat the same mistakes we made last time.  During 2001-02 the state lost a billion dollars in revenue.  The legislature cut $15 million in spending.  That's the kind of absurd budget management you get when you ignore reality, and TABOR is part of our reality.

The governor also didn't go into detail about from where the budget cuts would come. Primavera said the heads of major state departments should be given time to figure it out.

One area sure to be hit hard is the budget for higher education, said Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder. Pommer is a member of the budget committee and chairs the House Appropriations Committee.

"Higher education is going to get killed," Pommer said.  Among the possible cuts is $210 million for the University of Colorado system.

This caused a bit of concern at CU. If you read it carefully, you'll see that it doesn't really say that I suggested the possible $210 million cut for CU.  The line about the cuts just follows a quote from me.  The juxtaposition combined with my injudicious use of the word "killed" caused some people to think I said we might cut $210 million from CU.  I think that's the total amount of money CU gets from the state, so cutting it would come pretty close to shutting down the entire CU system.

So far we've only discussed cutting the new money CU, and all of higher education, would get next year.  That pretty certain.  Higher ed won't be getting any increase next year.  As for cutting money they already get, we've only talked about it in general terms.  It's certainly a possibility.  We could cut some in the current year and we could cut some for next year -- it all depends on the economy and what other cuts we can make.  It won't be $210 million from CU.

The fate of 160 transportation projects with a price tag of $1.4 billion also wasn't clear on Thursday. Mitchell criticized the governor's hope that the incoming Obama administration would pass an economic stimulus plan that could be used to pay for the work.

"He seems to be leaning pretty heavily on a federal bailout check that may or may not come," Mitchell said.

But it may come.  And if it does come it won't make much difference for our state budget.  The money will put some people to work, and it will help us patch up the deteriorating transportation system, but it won't patch up our deteriorating finances.

Our economists calculate that if we were to get $1 billion from the federal government for transportation it would generate $33 million in state tax revenues.

That $33 million, of course, would be spread over the entire time we're spending the billion dollars, which is unlikely to be in a single year, let alone this one, or what's left of it.  (Our fiscal year ends in June).

And once we spend the billion dollars, it's gone.  The people who got jobs lose them, the parts of the transportation system that didn't get fixed stay broken and the tax revenue stops flowing into the state budget.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take the billion dollars.  It's  just not going to solve our problems.

The Republican did praise Ritter's support for a measure that would put the state budget online and make it easier for residents to access. He called that a step forward for more transparent government.

Oh boy.  I don't mean to be Johnny rain cloud here, but I spend every day accessing the state budget and it's not as exciting as you might think. 

Thursday's speech reordered some priorities Ritter emphasized when campaigning for office in 2006 and through his first two years in office. The governor still pushes "the New Energy Economy" -- one proposal this year will require all new single-family homes to have the capability to install solar panels -- but issues such as improving education and expanding health care coverage moved farther down the list of priorities.

Just last year, those two areas were the subjects of high profile special committees charged with completely overhauling teaching standards and curriculums and providing medical care to more than 700,000 uninsured Coloradans.

Primavera said the speech stayed true to Ritter's commitments to promoting renewable energy research and expanding access to health insurance. She also liked Ritter's comments about lawmakers' "sacred trust with the people who elect us."

"It gave me pause for thought again about the level of faith people put in you when they elect you to do this job," Primavera said.

She was unhappy with what she viewed as tepid Republican support.

"It was disappointing not to see the entire room erupt in applause when he talked about how important it would be to work in a bipartisan fashion," she said.