April 28, 2026 · Budget Committee · 2,172 words · 5 speakers · 22 segments
The rest of them were all reductions, but the net result there with 14 bills hitting the general fund is a reduction of about $100,000 in 2526 and a net increase of general fund in 2627 of 2.6 million. That was closer to zero prior to those adjustments to 1411. Table 2B at the bottom of page 3 shows the changes to the placeholders for other legislation, and there are three changes that I'd point to here, some of which we've already discussed briefly today. The first one is that you adjusted the placeholders for Senate Bill 26-149. The numbers you're seeing here, 4.1 million in the current year and 25.9 in the out year or in the budget year, reflect the fiscal note as it stood or as we were as legislative staff as a whole was estimating on April 23rd. They reduced the appropriation in the current year by 5.4 million below what we expected when we put out the long bill narrative and then increased the appropriation in 2627 by 2.6. So you had a bit more general fund on net available over the two-year period. Next the committee approved a new placeholder the one we already talked about for Senate Bill 2642. That's the revenue reclassification. The initial fiscal note hadn't anticipated an appropriation, but the revised note requires $2.3 million of general fund, and you've place held that. And then again, with the offsetting change in the general fund available because of the nature of the bill. And third, as I noted before, budget amendment eight, that's the large competency budget amendment was in this table previously because of uncertainty about where it was going to go in terms of long bill or separate legislation, but it's moved out of this category entirely. So you end up with placeholders equating to about $42 million of general fund in 2627. That takes us through the changes in appropriations. The last one is the change in the Tabor refund obligation, which you can see that table on page four. two highlighted cells here that would provide a fairly detailed, just showing that the General Assembly is in fact tracking these things at a pretty fine level of detail. Line two is a long bill amendment that was adopted in both chambers and retained by the conference committee. That added about $250,000 of general fund in the Department of Treasury to fund the three unclaimed property FTE. There is a $200,000 impact, or it's equal to the cost of that. I think it's $239,000. There is an increase to the TABOR refund as a result of that because it's paid for out of the unclaimed property trust fund. So when they pull it into Treasury to pay for those positions, it becomes TABOR revenue, and it would, as long as we're above the cap, it will push out that amount of general fund as part of the refund. obviously that's 200,000 and change out of an initial forecast amount of 711 million line five is the change to the revenue reclassification placeholder and that's the number that went from 30 to 44.7 based on your change to the placeholder you can see here that it's about the overall the changes that you've made equate to a reduction in the 2627 refund of about $308 million. So in total, the refund would drop from 711 million to 402.9. I think, again, just as a key point to note as we look towards the June forecast and the profound level of uncertainty that has come up in the last several revenue forecasts with both forecast entities in the last one being fairly far apart but both of them saying that the other one could easily be accurate We are looking at a lot of uncertainty This particular category of balancing actions, again, only helps you if you're above the cap. And really, you need to be far enough above the cap to cover homestead. So it's kind of referendum C plus homestead is your threshold before this becomes helpful for balancing purposes. Under the OSPB forecast, you're still in solid shape with their March forecast estimating the $711 million refund. We'll know a lot more in June about where you are for the current year, and at least we'll have a bit more information for where they expect to be next year. But when you take all those changes and layer them on top of all of the other pieces that were included in the long bill package, the end result with all of the placeholders that you've set is that there's about $2 million that is currently expected to be above the reserve requirement and outside of the placeholders that you've set.
Wow. Did anyone think we'd get there?
Thank you, Director Harper. Senator Mobley.
So we've been also, though, running bills, and there are some tax credit bills and, you know, various other things. So how do those impact this, especially, and maybe that's, maybe somebody else can just tell me that because everybody else already knows, but, like, I'm not sure what the impact of those, all those tax credit bills is going to be.
Are you inquiring about the appropriations required for the bills that you're passing in appropriations or the impact of tax expenditures?
Well, I mean, I guess I'm mostly wondering how, so we have this $2 million and that is then going to fund all the stuff that we've been, because we have been passing some bills through both chambers, and there are other things that are still sitting out there that I think there's some conversation about passing. And then there are some things that will impact these things, too, I think. But if we don't want to talk about it because everybody else gets it already, that's fine. We can take that offline.
Senator Kirkmayer.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So the question is how do tax credits impact this bottom line?
Yes.
Senator Mobley.
Yes, because we have a whole bunch of bills that are tax credits or tax deductions. They'll bring down revenues.
First of all, it depends if they're a tax deduction or a tax credit, right? Tax deduction will just bring down the revenues and will impact if we're above the cap or below the cap. end up in the next year.
I'm just wondering if this work takes any of that into account or how we, you know, do we come back again after the session is over and talk about all the things that happened during session? I don't remember how that worked last year. I don't think I was on the committee right at the end. Yes, I was.
Yes, you were.
Yes, I was. Well, they'll produce an approves report for us that we do sometime in the interim. I don't know when.
Director Harper.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The expectation would be for the appropriate report to be available in early July. We had some systemic delays last year, but I think this year we would expect it to be on the normal time frame. I would caution to Senator Amabile's specific question. I think there this all I give it a shot The appropriations report is not going to be informative to Senator Ramabile specific question because we balancing the budget against the March forecast The March forecast is not accounting for those revenue pieces. And so you will have appropriations reflected all the way through the session. but the starting point for revenues that we use for the appropriations report is the March forecast for revenues. So if you have tax credits that are pulling revenues down, then that's not going to show up there. The place to see the impact of those would be the collaboration between our office and Mr. Sebecki's team for the June forecast would be the first bite to see that. As you know from previous years, we do our best to track these things in real time, particularly the appropriations. And now that we're beyond the long bill and into sort of the more frantic appropriations process, although probably based on the subset of meetings that I've been to, a less frantic general fund appropriations process than in recent years, we will be tracking those and tracking the revenues to the best of our ability, but the tax credits get beyond the expertise of our office and kind of require the bridge between us and the economists. But the June forecast is going to be the best place to revisit those, and I would encourage conversations with both our staff and with the economists staff. If you're looking at general fund tax credits that are largely offsetting and kind of just changing the tax expenditure, then that would be policy decisions that are not going to affect us. If you're looking at large or potentially large revenue reductions as a result of the tax credits that could pull you closer to the TABOR cap or below it, again, noting my note before that some of the actions that you've taken are only going to help with balancing if you're above the cap, then you end up with a different scenario. And we have both of those tax bills. So I'm sure that Chief Sabetsky and Director Firandino can be helpful to Chair Amable and Chair Brown as you're trying to decide what does or doesn't move.
Okay. All right. Any other questions for Director Harper? Well, I will just say thank you so very much, Director Harper, and all of our JBC staff and our staff here in the room who have done such an incredible job to get us here. And every year that I have been on this committee, I've said I have no idea how we are going to do this and then we always do. But it is pretty remarkable and only possible because of the incredible work that everyone here did. And I should extend my gratitude as well to the folks at OSPB and the folks in the departments. AND I DO THINK, IN FACT, THE RELATIONSHIP HAS IMPROVED OVER THE LAST COUPLE YEARS AS PEOPLE HAVE WORKED MORE COLLABORATIVELY TO TRY AND MAKE SURE THAT EVERYBODY IS GETTING THE INFORMATION THAT THEY NEED SO THAT WE CAN BALANCE OUR BUDGET ACCORDINGLY. SO THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. MUCH APPRECIATED.
DIRECTOR HARPER.
Madam Chair I would like to first of all thank our staff and I think this team has done an absolutely remarkable job the last two years putting a lot of unpalatable options in front of you trying to give you the best information that they can Some of those were difficult for the staff to bring in and difficult for the committee to consider. I think they've done, I think this team has done an absolutely remarkable job. And frankly, I would say that's on both sides of this table. This, this is, it's been a, I can't say that this has always been a pleasure from the staff side, but it's been a pleasure doing this process with you all, even though the process has been rough. But the reason that I raised my hand specifically is I want to extend on behalf of the JBC staff. It's relatively recent for both caucuses in both chambers to have dedicated partisan staff that support the JBC and work directly with us. And they, both caucuses, both chambers have done an absolutely remarkable job. Carl Taylor, Mark and Colin have been, it's been, I think it's been game changing for the support that the JBC members are getting, that the members of your caucus are getting. And for our purposes, given that obviously most of the amendments tend to come from the minority side just because of the nature of this process, having the ‑‑ having seen party control flip back and forth, it's just how it is. I mean, that's the nature of it. But having the dedicated staff and the work that those four have put in, but again, specifically because of the nature of the task that the minority staff have put in and having that direct liaison with our staff to consult about amendments and provide that information, it's been really helpful and just very much appreciated on our part. I'm assuming that it's been very helpful on the member side as well, but having that focused point of contact for amendments has been a significant improvement to our process, and frankly, I think to the product that we're putting in front of your colleagues in terms of the amendment packet. So our gratitude to all four of those folks as well.
ALL RIGHT. WE STILL HAVE A COUPLE BILL DRAFTS TO LOOK AT, BUT I THINK THEY'RE NOT READY UNTIL TOMORROW. SO I THINK UNLESS ANYBODY'S GOT ANYTHING ELSE, THE JOINT BUDGET COMMITTEE WILL STAND IN RECESS. ALL RIGHT.
Thank you. Thank you.