April 21, 2026 · Budget Committee · 21,760 words · 8 speakers · 429 segments
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The joint budget committee will come to order. Welcome back, friends and colleagues. We have a number of items on the docket today. Director Harper, it looks like we are starting with tab one, consideration of potential legislation. Mr. Dermody.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Tom Dermody, Joint Budget Committee staff. Starting off with potential legislation packet number 19. The first up is a bill draft we discussed, excuse me, or you had sent a draft on March 25th regarding the TANF program, also known as Colorado Works. There was substantial back and forth during figure setting between staff and the Department of Human Services on their proposal regarding TANF and TANF, addressing the sustainability of TANF. So just by way of background, the department did a comeback based off of the committee's action. Staff and the department worked together to pull together, essentially, the committee's wishes for this bill. Going into that comeback, you approved the comeback. This is the draft that results from that comeback. Long story short, there are four primary elements in this draft. It pauses the COLA adjustments for TANF basic cash assistance for two years, after which point those will be adjusted based off of the Social Security COLA. It removes the requirement for the general fund to backfill the state long-term reserve, as well as removing the requirements for minimum floors for both the state and county reserves. And then it makes optional the ability for counties to offer extensions beyond the 60-month federal maximum for provisions for good cause. There's one note in the memo that I gave you. It's that first real bolded section. I was able to get some comments from the department. They largely agree with this draft that's before you. The one area that we're looking to get permission to adjust in this draft is on page two of the bill. It's section one. That 4A subsection, the hardship, that list of things that could include but are not limited to for demonstrating good cause. The first, the child-only cases, those are exempt from the 60-month extension. The experiencing hardship, that's actually a separate provision in statute. It is under Section 26 to 715.5. That entire subsection defines hardship and domestic violence exemptions, which would then leave one single subsection. This has been in statute for several years now. The State Board of Human Services has developed rules around what is defined as good cause so those are in place and in force cleaning up that language of listing potential things that fall under good cause that just sort of made sense to staff. So I'm recommending that we essentially just have the subsection 4A from line 7 through line 9 allowing for the establishment of statewide standards without providing specific examples as they are inclusive rather than exclusive. It's not like you can only do these things. So it just cleans it up a little bit, makes it a little bit easier to read. Other than that, there are two additional RFIs that are a result of this.
Maybe before we get to the RFIs, I think a few of us have some questions on the bill draft. My question is on Section 2, because what I recall us agreeing to, or at least I did, was a pause of the basic cash assistance for two years. But this takes it a bit further, so it's not just a two-year pause, but there are actually changes to what the COLA is or looks like, how it is calculated starting in fiscal year 29. So I'm wondering where those changes came from, Mr. Dermany.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I got page three.
What line? Well, it basically is changing it so that when basic cash assistance starts back up,
It no longer, you know, if the General Assembly were to choose to let that cost of living adjustment begin again, it no longer is plus a 2% cost of living adjustment or a cost of living adjustment that is equal to the average of the Social Security Administration's COLA for that fiscal year. So just, Mr. Dermody, those changes, where did that come from? Thank you, Madam Chair. That was part of the department's comeback. Their proposition from the get-go was that they would pause for two years and then it would be pegged to the Social Security Administration, COLA, going forward after that pause.
Do you know why?
Madam Chair, I think it's for... I can't tell you exactly why. In my book, any of these sort of automatic adjustments to the basic cash assistance are highly problematic as it's increasing the cost of those basic cash assistance for a finite resource. My understanding of the why for going to just a straight whatever the Social Security COLA was is to sort of address that averaging over the three-year period. It caused some uncertainty as to what that adjustment would be in that coming year. It simplifies that calculus a little bit. Calculus is not really. That algebra a little bit. But that change was part of the department's proposal that was approved.
Senator Mobley.
I'm just wondering, does that result in the COLA being higher or lower? Or is there no way to tell?
Mr. Dermody.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Monbley, there's no way to tell because the COLA is not set by the Social Security Administration until October or November of any given year for the upcoming calendar year.
By taking out the averaging and the 2%, do we think? Like, I don't know, I'm just wondering if this is motivated by saying, well, if we do it this way, it'll be a smaller number or a bigger number, or is it literally just it's too tiresome to do the algebra?
Seems likely it would be a smaller number is my presumption, but potentially.
Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, looking at the algebra, it looks like what we have is a basic, always at least 2%. Or a cost of living adjustment that is equal to the average of the Federal Social Security. But it's like either 2% or this other one. And sometimes the other one will be greater, but sometimes it will be less than. And when it's less than 2%, we do 2%. So what this says is essentially don't have that 2% floor, just adjust by the federal stuff. Is that right?
Mr. Dermody.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Vice Chair, that is correct.
Representative Brown.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I wasn't expecting us to sort of rewrite this section of statute or really strike most of it, I should say. I was really just thinking we were just pausing the COLA. So I think I would be most comfortable if we just stuck with the pause. And I don't really think the rest of it is necessary. And I'd be happy to revisit this in two years after the COLA, after we hit the end of that COLA pause. But I think for now, this goes a little too far for me.
Rep Taggart.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe we just ran an orbital to be consistent, to use the same inflation factor, both from a revenue standpoint as well as a cost of living standpoint. And I'm fine if it's not in here, but I would like to reinforce that I'd always like to be consistent. I am uncomfortable when we pick a cola from one area and then we pick a cola, you know, that we vary it. And I know I was one that pressed for that. I believe it was an orbital that we'd be consistent at all times. So, or whatever that's worth.
Senator Kirkmeyer.
I can certainly appreciate that, and I appreciate the comments of my colleagues. I would just say my understanding was similar to what your understanding was. We were just going to pause it for two years, and then we'll have to come back and look at it. So, you know, I think to be consistent with where we said we were at, again, trying to make sure we're all being, you know, fair and working with integrity, is that that's what we do and move on. I mean, we're going to have to look at it in two years. It doesn't matter what it is, quite frankly, from my perspective. So, you know, we can leave it the way it was, and we just pause it for two years, like which I'm pretty sure you argued that. I don't know about strenuously, but you made those comments. So, and that's what we agreed to. So let's just do that and move on.
Thank you, Senator Kirkmeyer.
I agree with all of your assessment. So I have one more question.
Oh, yes.
I'M SORRY, I WAS TRYING TO FOLLOW, BUT I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE, IN SECTION ONE, ARE WE PUTTING A PERIOD AFTER CAUSE AND WE'RE NOT PUTTING THE REST OF THIS STUFF IN HERE? IS THAT WHAT WAS GOING ON I WAS TRYING TO FOLLOW BUT I WAS HAVING A LITTLE DIFFICULTY there On line 9 Yeah Thank you Madam Chair Senator Kirkmeyer that correct Line 9 page 2 line 9 there would be a period after a cause and then from which through line 15 would be strong Yes. I just want to make sure I was hearing it correctly. Thank you.
Okay. Rep Taggart.
I have the exact same concern.
Okay, so that change plus the committee's preference in section two, that that section only reflect a pause of the COLA for two years and then the General Assembly can revisit what that COLA ought to be at that time. Because I agree, I'm sure this isn't the last of the discussion. But I would prefer that we had a more engaged process for deciding that at that time. So is everyone comfortable with that, Senator Mobley?
I'm comfortable with that, but is that on line 20 on page 3 we start? It deals with the reserve stuff.
Yeah, and are we doing that or are we not doing that? I'm sorry, I was just talking about the basic cash assistance.
Right, and now I've moved on to this next section. Because if all we were doing was adjusting the COLA, but are we also doing this?
Does anyone have issue with the rest of the bill?
No, I don't.
Okay. All right.
And I would just say I think we have to get rid of that backfilling if we drop below 15% in the county's reserve.
Okay.
So, well, in here it is. That's what I'm saying. I think that absolutely needs to be in.
All right. Mr. Remedy.
DO YOU NEED ANOTHER MOTION FROM US?
MADAM CHAIR, I WOULD NEED A MOTION FOR INTRODUCTION. SO THE APPROVAL OF INTRODUCTION, IDENTIFICATION OF CHAMBERS, PRIME SPONSORS AND COSPONSORS, AND THEN STAFF PERMISSION.
One more question? Sure.
Yeah, thank you. Mr. Dermody, thank you. On page one in section one, can you tell me a little bit more about why we're striking that section from lines nine through 15 again?
I'm sorry. You may have said it and I just missed it.
Mr. Dermody.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Brown, so.
Page two, yeah.
Page two, yeah. Page two, we're essentially lines seven through 15 is what we're discussing. That list that you see from lines 11 through 15 are inclusive, so they're not exclusive. So it's these, but also whatever else the State Board of Human Services deems to be good cause. The first of those, the child-only cases, that was erroneously included in House Bill 22-1259. The 60-month limit does not apply to child-only cases. So that shouldn't be there in the first place. The third one, that experiencing hardship, there is a separate provision in statute, 26 to 715.5. That entire subsection, it's got like four or five different sub-subsections, defines pretty explicitly what the county's responsibilities are vis-a-vis hardship determinations, as well as domestic violence exclusions from that 60-day. So fairly repetitive and duplicative. these rules have been established and are in effect because this bill passed on well because of the dictate of the previous bill to have these going by July 1st of 2023 So the state board has responsibility and rulemaking authority to establish the definition of good cause They've always had that. We're not taking that from them. We're just cleaning up some extras that aren't really necessary for the definition of good cause.
So if we take this out of statute, they don't have to do these things anymore, but they will probably continue to do it. Is that the idea? I mean, I think in particular, Roman number two, the head of a single parent household unit, has a child under one year's age. Like, why are we striking that one, I guess? We're just striking everything and leaving it more to the discretion of the department. Is that the idea?
Are we striking it?
No, it's good.
Mr. Dermody.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Brown, yes, it would be the discretion of the State Board of Human Services. They have established these rules in reviewing them. They were very much inclusive of all of these elements. So that was.
Yeah. I mean, I guess the question is long term, how much does the legislature trust the State Board of Human Services? I have no indication that they are not great folks. but I guess that would be my only concern would be I think I'd really like to keep if other things are redundant, that's fine but I think I'd like to keep that number two.
What is Roman numeral four?
Does anyone have this? It says and so I assume there's just one more. I bet it's something to do with domestic violence. It's domestic violence.
Madam Vice Chair, that is when it says old semicola and that number, Roman number three, it's that third.
No, no, no. Oh, there's a section B that if I had my statute book on me, I would read it for you. But it goes A, these things, and then a B that is a reporting requirement, if I remember correctly, that the department reports on the application of these rules. Well, does everyone trust the board or no?
Are we just talking about the change from required of permit?
No, it's about not listing, well, the child-only case is separate because that doesn't apparently belong here. And then, so it's really only this head of a single-parent household who has a child under one-year age. One-year-old. And are we taking that out or we're just leaving that? Well, Mr. Dermody was suggesting that we would strike this part of statute because they're included in whatever the rule is that the state board has made about demonstrating good cause. Okay.
Looks like we're okay. No? Speak now.
I would like to keep that language in number two. The head of the single parent household. It may not matter that much.
How long is the list that the State Board has?
It's far more inclusive than this.
Yeah.
Madam Chair, the definition of good cause, I didn't want to copy and paste it because it would be like half a page.
All right.
But to Representative Brown point without this in particular that head of household or that head of a single parent household I would highly doubt that the good cause definition would be amended to strike that But if it makes the committee feel better to include that as a safety precaution, that's certainly there. It would be the General Assembly exercising its authority to provide direction to the State Board of Human Services. but I can say the definition as it says right now is very much more inclusive than the three here.
I think I would still. Oh, sorry.
Rep Taggart.
Thank you, Madam Chair. My concern about leaving it, if there is a fairly lengthy one, is we also may be communicating that the others are no longer good cause, and that worries me. when we call out just one of a list of many, could that be misinterpreted, that that's the only one we view as good cause? It does say includes but not limited to. Okay, but still.
Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not sure. I think what I hear is that there's at least one person on the committee that would like to make sure we include that language. So I think that you have a clear idea of where the committee is on this, which is to not limit, not eliminate that 2% floor and keep the head of a single-parent household unit as a child under one year old. I think the rest of the bill beyond that is good to go. Right?
Rep Brown, you do want to keep it in statute?
Yes.
All right. So we're just going to eliminate line 11 then, because we don't need a child-only case, and the other experiencing hardship was already eliminated. So. I think. Thank you. Rep Taggart.
If we're going to do that, then, because we had struck the, we had a period after good cause. I can put that in. So the remainder of that sentence needs to stay in place.
Okay. All right.
Well, does it hurt to leave the child-only case since it's, they're not subject to it? I don't know.
Madam Chair.
Vice Chair Bridges. I mean, I think, do we need to keep three so that they can keep their current definition? No. In other words, should we just not? No.
Okay. Then let's just keep the demonstrate good cause, which includes but is not limited to an applicant or participant who is the head of a single-parent household unit and has a child under one year old.
period. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Vice Chair, it would actually still be and.
Because we're going to section two. Clear? Okay. I just, I have one more question. Sorry.
It's about the change from required to permit. I mean. That's what we agreed to. Okay. Because that to me is the biggest change is that you used to have to do it and now they don't. Yes. Yes. Okay. Sharp as a tack over here. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to introduce along the lines that I just discussed.
Does that feel clear, Mr. Darmody?
Madam Chair, yes. I have been tracking.
Okay. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill could start in either chamber.
I'm willing to do it on my side.
All right. It will start in the Senate. And it will be sponsored by Kirkmeyer and Amal. And in the House, Taggart and Brown, co-sponsored by Bridges and Sirota. It will not run with the long bill. And I think you have our blanket permissions to make technical changes as needed. So, Director Harper, I assume that still stands. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Committee. What are we doing about the RFIs? Oh, right. Yes. Sorry, you didn't get to those, Mr. Dermody.
Tom Dermody, Joint Budget Committee staff. So there are also two additional RFIs. Oh, and it's Tom. It's Mr. Dermody again. Look. Whoa.
He's had it in Croster the whole rest of the time. I don't know who this Bracky guy is out there. That's right.
So there are, so on the front memo for this particular bill, there are two RFIs. The first on page two of the memo, that's the product of the department's request to gather administration cost information and data from the county. So in working with the department, that first RFI is that gathering of that information. And then the second RFI, it's on page three. Originally, the committee had discussed this as part of the legislative declaration. It felt more appropriate as an RFI so that the committee could actually see that information and get that best practices around TANF reserves from the department's research. So those are the two new RFIs.
Senator Kirkman.
Thank you, Madam Chair. With regard to RFI number 1, 1B, I don't understand why this is necessary and what's it for. I don't know where it's coming from, but I will just say this. Especially for balance of state counties, so the other 53 counties that are balanced of state, They have a lot of crossover in their programs. So you may have a supervisor who's supervising people who are involved in providing for TANF, for child welfare, for CCAP, for the fraud unit, all over the place. So, I mean, it seems like a lot of paperwork for them to have to go through. Also, I think the department can get all of that through CVMS. So I hope they're not thinking that the counties are going to sit there and spend a whole lot of time doing this because I'd rather have the county spending their time on reducing the error rate. But other than that, with regard to this one, I mean, I guess, I don't know. They can go pull most of this stuff from CBMS, so I don't know why they just wouldn't go do that. And the counties don't have to submit, but I'm sure they would try and help out, but they don't have to. But that's my comment on one, and then I have comments on two.
Any? Rep Haggard.
Thank you. I would add to that in my county, I have the same situation that the head of this particular division is also head of at least one other. And so it's not quite as easy as it is written. And it's all in an effort to be more efficient. What would make it clearer?
I don't know how you split somebody's salary, quite honestly.
Why are we doing this part? 1B. I think that there have been challenges in trying to understand what actually these costs represent. AND YOU KNOW WHEN ASKING THE DEPARTMENT THEY DIDN HAVE I THINK CLARITY IN THE You know when asked when asking the department they didn have I think clarity in these numbers and what this should all come out to So I think this is a, that it's not consistent across the state. And so I think a goal of reaching some consistency here and at least understanding what does it take and what does it cost.
Well, what's the harm getting the information?
Yeah, I mean, to me it seems like we should have eyes on what's being paid for here, and understanding indirect costs is an important part of understanding the cost of the program. So I'm struggling to understand. You know, I'm happy to have conversations about how to make this more workable for counties, but I also think we have to be mindful of our own resources here. Senator Kirkmeyer.
Sure. So is the state going to do this?
Because I don't know what their indirect cost allocation methodology is, and I don't know how many people that they have that are assigned to the TANF program either. So are they doing the same thing, or are we just pushing it off on the counties? because that's just as important. They come in every year and ask for more FTE based on what? So maybe we should find out what their cost allocation is and what their indirects are then. Let's put them in there.
Do you get that, Mr. Dermody, from the state?
Madam Chair, we can always add that. That is one of the wonderful things about the Department of Human Services is that their indirect cost allocation plan is largely set by the federal government because of the multitude of federal programs that they run, TANF being one of them. So there is a several hundred page document out there that I think I reviewed a couple years ago about the department's indirect cost plan, which is effectively their federal indirect cost plan. That is information that we can certainly ascertain. It's not something that I review particularly explicitly every year, But when we're talking about trying to get a sense of the administrative costs of TANF, both on the state and county level, that would be certainly someplace that I would look. Okay.
Senator Krookmeyer.
I'm just going to say, first of all, I find it amazing that the state said they couldn't get this information when almost all of this information is probably within CBMS. And they probably just didn't know either how to go pull it or didn't want to. But I think the state should have to fill out all the same information then. Because I don't know that we can pull that from CBMS and it would be good to know exactly. I mean, I understand we all understand what maybe a cost allocation is, but I don't know what all their contracted services are and what their vendor oversight is, so maybe we should find out from the state as well. So if we want to include the state, fine, because they can go pull this information from CBMS for the counties, which they could have done before, which I find amazing they said they couldn't.
Rep. Brown.
I was just going to say I'm okay. I think we should add the state portion as well and get all the information because that will help us to make better decisions.
Okay, perfect. Mr. Dermody?
Thank you, Madam Chair. I figure that's a fairly easy modification just to add the state to that first sentence as being required to provide all of that data for themselves as well.
All right. Senator Kirkmark?
Thank you, Madam Chair. And then with regard to number two, the RFI number two, where it says the department report detailing research of lessons learned from other states and establishing the use of TANF reserves fine using this information and the department requests to develop a plan I think they should have to develop that plan in coordination with their partner And I think part of this is even part of the statutory charge for the Works Allocation Committee But I think they should have to be working with the Works Allocation Committee on this to develop a plan to address the long-term sustainability and structure of Colorado's TANFs reserves. Because I think, quite frankly, the problem is sometimes they go off on their own, and instead of working with their partners, the counties, we don't necessarily get the best plan developed. So I'd like to insert the Works Allocation Committee there. Please. Other than that, I'm fine.
Okay. Okay. All right. Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Move to add those RFIs as modified by the committee just now.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. Thank you, Mr. Dermody.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Bracky. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Justin Bracky, Joint Budget Committee staff. I have a bill draft and a memo here for you for LLS 26-1007. It's about community corrections budgeting. This was approved near the end of the budget process. It was kind of an impromptu bill draft. So I wrote a memo here to give you a little bit of context and justification for it, kind of scratching the surface. I'm not planning to go through the memo exhaustively, but the summary here kind of tells you everything you need to know, which is that the Division of Criminal Justice, what the bill does is that it requires DCJ and the Department of Public Safety to actively manage the community corrections budget, which would in turn reduce the need for the JBC and JBC staff to do it through complicated long bill footnotes and requests for information. It does two main things. First, it defines terms that already exist in statute, which aims to facilitate some strategic planning between the department and the General Assembly. Those terms are distribution of offender populations program availability and projected need. And then the second big piece of this is that it requires the Division of Criminal Justice to submit annual budget requests with specific information about caseload and rates, which should allow the committee to remove footnotes from the FY27-28 budget. The context here is mostly for your edification. I'm happy to walk through it if you want me to, otherwise I can jump to the specifics of the bill. Specifics, I guess.
Oh, Rev Tyre.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to make sure, Mr. Brecky, that that also includes, because I was intrigued by your alternative.
So we're not jumping over that.
You're still going to get to that?
Yeah.
Okay. Mr. Brecky.
For clarity, just jump to the bill.
I think so.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we're going to jump to page 12 of your packet, which gets into section one of the bill, which talks about some definitions. So there a phrase already in statute and I won read it word for word but it basically provides some guidance to the Office of Community Corrections on how they ought to be allocating the appropriation The bill defines three terms in that statement distribution of offender populations means the total number of offenders in and the total number of offenders approved for placement in a program by a judicial district Basically, it tries to get at what's the total pool of people that are already approved for placement. It doesn't try to get at anything else. It's just under current law how many folks are already approved to go to community corrections. there's a separate conversation about the potential pool which is the number of folks that are going to the DOC from a given jurisdiction but this doesn't get into that it just gets into who's already approved replacement the second bullet there is program availability which means the number of available community corrections beds and a community corrections program's financial viability when considering the state's reimbursement rate and other sources of revenue the purpose of this definition is to make sure that the Office of Community Corrections takes some responsibility for figuring out the financial means needed to operate a community corrections program. What it doesn't do is require them to bail out filling providers. It just requires them to consider what it would take to actually run a program. And should a provider fail, which is okay in some cases, the DCJ should consider what it would take to get new beds up and running. And then the last piece here is projected need, which means division's best estimate to figure out what caseload is going to look like. Nobody can perfectly predict the future, but I think departments responsible for caseload should at least make some attempt to estimate it and plan for it and help you do that accordingly. So those are the definitions here. Are there any questions on the definitions?
Senator Mobley.
I guess I just have a question about there are placements that are not community corrections. Is that right? there are where you can go from DOC to some kind of a housing situation or some other thing that isn't community corrections and none of this has to do with any of that is that right Mr. Rickey Madam Chair Senator Mobley that's correct this is only community corrections I think you're talking about maybe sober living or wages or something like that DOC no this is just community corrections which deals with the boards and stuff like that community corrections boards Okay. I mean, separately, I think it would be useful for us to understand what is the pool of all of that, too, because if we can't get community corrections to take people, then maybe we don't fund community corrections so much, and we try to fund some of these other kinds of placements that are willing to take people. But I get that's a conversation for a different day.
Okay. Okay.
Next page, page 13 of the packet is a budget request requirement, which requires them to submit an annual budget request as part of their November 1 package, which mirrors kind of the prison and medical caseload adjustments that the DOC submits. And the adjustments in the budget request have to include certain information, which is based on former RFIs and the language DCJ uses in its contract with judicial districts. The reason I'm recommending this as a budget request is because you can't really ignore the request. It has to be submitted and acted upon. It also requires the division to make calculations and propose changes when appropriate, whereas an RFI still would require JVC staff to triangulate everything and make a bunch of calculations and do the calculations on behalf of the department, which I don't think is beneficial at this point. So the budget request requires them to submit some information and also do some calculations when appropriate. The budget request has to include certain things in the bullets there. You'll see kind of like a projected need for the next fiscal year, a summary of what's driving that need, an explanation of how they're going to allocate that money that they've requested, which should include kind of are there districts with wait lists? If so, how long are the wait lists, et cetera, et cetera. Planned or requested changes in the per diem reimbursement rate, and then how they're going to plan to divvy up that money between judicial districts is kind of the core of it. And then the last bullet there on page 13 is there is a requirement that they have to tell judiciary at least where they found differences between the distribution of offender populations program availability and projected needs during their SMART Act during that at least have to say Denver has 400 beds, but they have a wait list of 300. so maybe folks may want to consider ways to deal with that. So that's the sum of the bill. I'm happy to walk you through the specifics of the bill, but are there any questions on Section 2? If the administration is wondering if this will be useful given that the forecast happens in December, what do you think about that? There's a June interim supplemental forecast, and they're also welcome to submit a budget amendment just the way DOC does.
Seems reasonable. Senator Krook, Mayor.
Thank you. And somewhere in here, are we making sure that it's clear that they do this within existing resources? Because in my mind, they were supposed to be doing this anyways, and they haven't been doing it. And I can just see them trying to put a big, huge fiscal note on this. Mr. Brecky, do you think it should require additional resources? This does seem to be their job, I think. But they haven't been doing it. I do not. I think if JVC staff can do a lot of this for two decades, I think an office of 20 people can handle it.
Thank you. Thank you.
I will disagree.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I disagree. I think not even 20 people can do the work that Mr. Brecky does.
That is true.
I would move if I didn't put that in the legislature.
I agree.
That and they do with any existing resources. Right. Madam Chair?
Vice President. Senator Mobley.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
So on page 14 of the packet, the alternative to consider doing my due diligence here that rather than running the bill and including some other things, in the long bill, basically the alternative I would sum it up is eliminating the middleman, getting rid of both the boards and the Office of Community Corrections, striking that entire article from statute, and then just having the Office of Community Corrections do what it seems to be more comfortable with, which is regulate and do technical things like that as opposed to strategic planning and overall management of the system. SO YOU WOULD MOVE THE OFFICE OF COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS OVER TO DORA, LET THEM REGULATE, YOU KNOW, ESTABLISH AND ENFORCE REGULATORY STANDARDS, MAKE CONFORMING CHANGES AS NECESSARY TO DO THAT, AND THEN JUST GIVE THE DOC AND JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT THE AUTHORITY TO CONTACT DIRECTLY WITH PROVIDERS FOR SERVICES AND PROVIDERS IN THIS SCENARIO WOULD STILL RETAIN THE ABILITY TO REJECT BECAUSE THEY WOULD HAVE TO IF THEY GOT OFFERED SOMEBODY THAT and providers in this scenario would still retain the ability to reject because they would have to if they got offered somebody that wasn appropriate for their services But this would allow the General Assembly to reduce appropriations by a little over, I think, 3.6 million. That's 2.8 million for the boards, 400,000 for reducing FTE in the Office of Community Corrections, and then you would not need to do centralized community corrections referrals through the Office of Community Corrections, which is in this year's budget. And then you just redistribute the remaining amount to DOC and judicial for transition and diversion placements. And then you reallocate that $2.4 million and change to DORA from public safety.
Senator Mobley.
So I just want to go back to my previous question, because I guess in order to feel good about doing something like this, which I think would be probably, I mean, this strikes me as the right direction. How many, like maybe we need an RFI or something that tells us how many providers are there out there that would take people and what's the cost difference between sending them to community corrections versus sending them to some of these other types of providers. And I see, you know, I see we're saving money on the boards and all that, but would we spend more money with these private providers or would we spend less? And would it also, I guess, be as effective in terms of getting people ready for a full release back to the community? Mr. Bracke. Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Mobley. Yeah, those are fair questions. in terms of direct contracting through judicial and DOC, I'd imagine you would have a range of different services for different types of need, which would entail different costs for each, right? And I think the individual costs of those would have to be sorted out through the bidding and contracting process, as opposed to now where you have a set per diem rate in the long bill. So yeah, there would be a lot to sort out. In an alternative like this, I can't pretend to have thought through everything. But I thought it would be worth pitching the alternative for you to consider.
Senator Moply.
So I'd like to, if the committee wanted to, like to run this bill that you're proposing for now, but also to get some of this other information so we could start to see if this alternative is viable because it does seem a lot more straightforward. So I don't know if people would be interested in it. just an RFI or something where we gather up. Here's how many providers there are now. Here's what they charge for this. Here's what they charge for that. You know, I think we all toured the place with the apartments, and they take people from DOC directly. And so how many providers like that are there, and what are we spending on that now, and then how would they be able to absorb all of this?
Senator Kirkmeyer.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And so who would have to do that RFI? Are you looking at regulatory agencies who haven't been involved in this at all? Or Community Corrections has to put together the RFI? They should probably know where those. Yeah, they should because they're paying. Thank you, Madam Chair, because they're paying for people to be in these other placements besides Community Corrections. So I would think they would have that information. I would assume that DOC would have a role in that as well in terms of where people are going not just community corrections and so what that list would be Mr Bracke Yeah thank you Madam Chair It would be a combination of DOC DHS and judicial and it would be a question of on the judicial side who are they contracting with for services on the probation side? DOC is who you're contracting with for reentry services for at least parolees and intensive supervision placements, both residential and non-residential. And then you have DHS, which does, I think, community reentry through, like, the SBIRT program. I can't remember what the acronym stands for. I think it would be those three agencies, and I can tell you for community corrections, who would, in this other model, ostensibly be able to provide services as well, there's about 26 of those.
Rick Levert.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I was intrigued by this the first time I read it. That's why I was worried we might be skipping over it. But my worry, again, is how are we going to deal with moving departments? But one of the things we have heard by way of your presentations is that the local community, and I don't know if it stops at the board or at the provider level of pushing back and saying, I don't want that particular person or persons. And I'm just trying to figure out how do we get, because that's the hurdle that we keep hitting, or the barrier, I should say, that we keep hitting. And, you know, you are so good at this. I wonder how you thought about that in terms of how do we get over that barrier because it's significant or has been significant. I mean, I guess the way that I would interpret this proposal is that, the boards would no longer reject, right? And so the providers, I suppose, could. It would still require the DOC to directly contract with different providers, but presumably they could create contract terms or whatever it was that would require providers to take certain people, and I guess maybe that would give us more control and the ability to place people that we hadn't been able to place in a while. I think it's a very intriguing proposal. I really think it's very interesting.
Senator Mobley.
I mean, I think you motivate the providers to take the highest risk people by paying them more. And then, so, you know, I don't know. That's why I'm asking we should get some more information because does it save us money? Does it get more people out of DOC? Do we save money because we did that? like there's a lot of possibilities there. You'd also potentially be able to pay less for the lower risk people rather than whatever the set rate is, community correction. So I'm just saying let's get some more information and then we can pass this bill for this year and if we find out that this is a viable alternative then we can look at this for next year.
Okay.
Sure.
Senator Kirkway?
I want to know who going to do the RFI Is that the Department of Public Safety take the lead Mr Bracke Madam Chair Senator Kirkmeyer it be a multi RFI with DOC DHS judicial and maybe DPS as well just to get a landscape view of who's providing residential and non-residential reentry services. I think it's basically what the RFI, if I'm hearing correctly, is asking for. So it'd be at least four agencies.
Okay. Okay. You're nervous. Rep Taggart.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The only reason I'm nervous is I think this is a very worthy alternative, and I don't want to get stonewalled by multiple agencies in an RFI that just say, well, this is too difficult to do and we're back with this discussion again next year. But are you ready? There's been a common theme, at least in all the time that I've been on this committee, that this has been a problem and it hasn't gotten any better. And I agree the bill itself will help, but I'm a little, I gave you that look because I'm a little concerned about an RFI. Is that going to get their attention to get this thing moving?
I appreciate that.
But I think all that we're asking for in the RFI is not actually is this new process workable. I think what we're just asking them for is a list of their basically providers that they are contracting with and what is that landscape and like the cost. Those kinds of things that they should be able to tell us. The rest of it, I think Senator Mobley's suggestion is a good one, just to give us at least a starting point of understanding the landscape. Because I agree, I think the current system doesn't seem to be serving us that well, so this is a very interesting idea for a redesign, but certainly not one I think we could endeavor in the next 20 days or however many we have left.
So, Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It only takes three days to pass the bill. All right. I think Senator Burgess said he'd do that then. I think Senator Hanson certainly passed much more impactful legislation in just three days. But he had to have help. We should talk to the firefighters first, though, if we're going to do this. Some people remember what I'm talking about. I know exactly what you're talking about. Me too. So is Mr. Brackey. He was there. Yeah.
I think now we're at a, is it, we were ready to move to introduce just the bill as drafted and not the alternative?
Yeah. And move the RFI. And move the RFI.
Thank you.
Then I move the RFI and introduction of LLS 261007.
I will note, I think that we may, we should be open to, I'm moving this forward right now because I think something needs to move forward. This will be the vehicle. This is not necessarily the final form. I know that the GOVs team has some concerns around dates and implementation of how this all might work together. So just know that there may be further conversation, but I do think we need to get moving today if we're going to do anything along these lines. So with that, move to introduce. All right. Are there any objections to moving to introduce the bill AND THE RFI AS DESCRIBED. SEEING NONE, THAT PASSES ON A VOTE OF 6-0. This bill will start in the...
Might as well go in the House since we just did the last one.
Oh, fine. Okay. It will start in the House.
House sponsors will be Brown and Taggart.
Senate will be Amable and Bridges.
Sirota and Kerkmeyer will co-sponsor.
Thank you, Mr. Bracke. Ms. Bickel. Madam Chair. So Amanda Bickel, JBC staff.
The first thing I have for you today is quick, I hope,
which is to put to bed the original plan for doing a Senate Bill 25, 315 post-secondary workforce readiness cleanup bill.
The department had requested that you make some changes. Once we actually got into the drafting, it turned out to be messier than it had seemed originally. and at this point I think the department and I are in agreement that we should just leave it the way, the program the way it is for now.
Great. Senator Momley?
So it's too messy to clean up?
I mean, is that what you're saying? The issue, if you really want to know, is it the word of the day? I don't know. The issue is that the department had originally come in saying you were going to spread the money too thin for this post-secondary workforce startup funding. The problem, and so they proposed some changes to how they distribute the money. The problem is that there's not really agreement on what you would do for charter schools, period. Like, the charter schools would expect to get their share of the money regardless. And once you're doing that, there's not really much point in breaking this apart further. Like, the department, I thought it might be a matter of how many checks they were cutting, and that's not really the issue. They have to do a formula that includes everybody, and so really that's what's in the bill right now. So there's not really, or in the legislation right now, there's not much point in changing it. And I would say this is going to transition to a grant program for assisting institutions with, assisting school districts with starting up post-secondary workforce readiness. I was thinking possibly you could consider bringing next year. Like maybe you want to make that happen a little earlier, but I think there's some data issues. Right now, under current law, that starts in 28-29. And so this is kind of a temporary situation anyway with the startup funding.
Vice Chair Regis. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The question I've had about this from the beginning is how many of these textbooks written by professors are used by...
No, we're not on that one yet.
Oh, my God. Where did we get on that one? I scrolled way too far. Sorry. I didn't bring my paper, so I'm just trying to track. Thank you. It's in your office.
Any other questions on not doing a bill to clean up something that messy Okay So we can move on to Okay So do we need to Oh do we need to withdraw that draft Or just we not going to do it so it fine
Okay.
Great. Nope.
Ms. Bickle. So we're good?
Just pulling that? Okay, very good. Before I move on from K-12 education,
I just also wanted to give you an update on another bill that you are having drafted, which I will be bringing to you. I hope, you know, I should have a draft for you by the end of this week, hopefully for discussion early next week, and that is actually a bill that is just collecting some additional information about the part-time enrichment and online education. And the reason it needs to be a bill is because the department actually needs authority to collect information from the various entities involved.
So that's coming, but I don't have it for you today. And now on to the additional topic that Senator Bridges was jumping into, which is the higher education. Senator Kershaw. I don't understand why they need authority to collect information,
why they can't just go collect information.
And given all the emails we all received with regard to the enrichment program, and I thought that the State Board of Education was actually starting to maybe move and do something with regard to it.
Why are we jumping in?
Senator Kirkmeyer, it's interesting. In law, the Department of Education's ability to collect information from school districts and some other entities is quite constrained. and they often, because school districts don't want to be burdened with too much data collection, that they don't, you know, feel is as important. So when the General Assembly feels that something is important, they often have to give the department explicit authority to collect the related information and to make school districts and other entities respond to them.
And the State Board of Education doesn't have the authority to get that data?
Apparently not.
Well, I guess if they go change the program, I bet they give them all that data.
I mean, I can't imagine why they wouldn't share data unless they're hiding something.
I don't know. I'm not saying they are. I just can't imagine they wouldn't share the data.
My understanding is that it has been an issue, and that is indeed why the department was hoping you would sponsor a bill. Otherwise, you can do an RFI, but the department said, you know, you might not get a very good response from them because they might not be able to get the information needed from the various parties. Okay.
Okay. So now on to higher ed open ed resources.
So I am making a return appearance as your higher ed analyst, but with the full agreement of Mr. Kim, who agrees with me on this, but I'm the person who really has the history on this issue. For context, there is almost no item that I have brought to the committee in the past where I've said, do you spend more money? Like, it's really, really rare for me. And this is something that I brought to the committee, it's now nearly ten years ago, as something that I thought was an extremely good use of state funds. And I think it has been shown to be an extremely good use of state funds AND UNFORTUNATELY BASED ON HOW SOME PROCESSES WORK NO committee has not set aside money for this and I quite afraid that this program will lapse and I think it important
So I am recommending that you either set aside some money for House Bill 26-10-16,
which is an existing bill going through the process currently sponsored by Rep. Phillips.
or that you actually sort of take over the bill and make it a JVC bill.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I need to disclose that I'm also a co-prime on that bill because I believe so much in this program and teaching. I know how much textbooks cost my students. My two courses that I teach quite often, those books and simulation games combined together exceed $200. And you start multiplying that times four and a full load. Schools per semester, you're getting up to $2,000 a year easily just for books and any types of simulations you're doing. SO THAT'S ONE OF THE REASONS I GOT ON THIS BILL IS BECAUSE I KNOW HOW MUCH THEY COST AND I I KNOW HOW MUCH MY STUDENTS STRUGGLE WITH THESE COSTS.
SENATOR KIRKMANER. GREAT. MAYBE I'LL JUST FEEL LIKE I'M GOING TO BE AT THE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE THEN. WHERE'S THE MONEY COMING FROM? I MEAN, YOU KNOW, WE'VE BEEN, WELL, MAYBE NOT WE, BUT I CERTAINLY HAVE BEEN GRILLING EVERYONE THAT COMES THROUGH APPROPRIATIONS ASKING THEM WHERE THEIR MONEY IS AT. You know, we keep telling everybody there isn't any money, and then we keep having bills that say, well, we need more money. It's like, well, where is the money coming from? And if the governor put this in as a placeholder, is he hiding pockets of money? Because it was amazing to me how when we're going through the budget on the Senate floor, how all of a sudden we've got more money still left over from the electric buses. So is there more money over there? Because bring it on over, because I'd like to know where the money's coming from. And it looks really pretty bad when JBC members are, I literally, I feel like I grill everybody. Everybody's like, we hate going to appropriations. And I say, thank you. Don't come and don't put a fiscal note on your bill. We don't have to worry about it. So, right? I mean, I've been grilling people. So where's the money coming from?
I appreciate that. I think every single person on this committee wanted to know when that school bus contract didn't work out. When did they know that? Because that was a very frustrating thing. to find at a very convenient time. Yes. But I actually don't know the sum total of the school bus money. I think this is a worthy thing to fund if there is money, and I don't necessarily know that we can make that placeholder at this exact moment in time, but I think we do still have some conversations about additional needs and what our budget amendments will in fact be and if there is anywhere else to pull resources from, like OIT. Senator Mobley. Well, I wonder why the institutions can't participate in funding this. Or maybe they do. They do. Ms. Pickle. Okay so this is so just to back up on kind of what this thing is So this is promoting the use of what are called open educational resources in post institutions These are resources that are licensed for open access They're typically either developed by the faculty at the institution or they're adapted from existing openly licensed materials, which are high-quality materials. The program has been shown to provide really impressive savings. I mean, the department's estimating 11 times savings for the dollar you invested to students. And, I mean, the thing it does is it, if you can get a faculty member to convert their class to open ed, And instead of using a paid for textbook, it is dollars in a student's pocket. And so for community college students, we are talking about something that's about 20%. It can add 20% to their cost of tuition. So in a year when you are actually, you know, have to allow institutions to increase tuition, this is a way that you can actually really dramatically reduce the cost of education. So your question was why don't the institutions do that? Some institutions do. I mean, there was a few years back, CU was putting literally millions of its own money into helping develop open ed resources. And, but mostly what this does is it helps provide a catalyst. So particularly with the smallest institutions, they might have one librarian who might work on this issue. They might not know a whole lot about it. The fact that you've got a single person at the state who can help educate them, bring them to conferences, help educate them about how these things work so they can educate faculty, makes a really big difference. And I mean, yes, institutions could invest, but institutions have lots of demands on their money. I think the reason, I think a number of institutions sort of decided this year that their first priority was making sure that you didn't cut higher ed, right? So they didn't feel like they were going to focus on, In this case, this is within the scope of the hundreds of millions, indeed billions, you put into higher ed. It's a million dollars. Like, just to keep the program going at the level it's been for the last five years is 1.1 million. And you could even scale it down for this year, given that you need to balance. So, I mean, because it's the core piece of it that I hope that you can at least maintain for 26, 27, is a single staff person who has been excellent and this free counsel that in fact is doing most of the work for this program. You've got faculty and librarians and technologists from across the state who get together, give guidance, review grant applications, that kind of thing. The biggest cost is to do these grants, and they really focus the grants on things that will work across institutions where there's collaborative projects among institutions, programs that where there's a lot of students affected. So I would say, you know, whatever you can come up with to put in the grants would be great. I know as well as all of you how desperately short of money you are year, so, but that grant number could be scaled down. But I would be, it would be, to my mind, a great shame to let the whole program lapse, because you actually have something that's working really well, and it's serving across institutions. I mean, like, so for example, they're running a collaborative program to help across multiple institutions to help develop OER nursing materials, nursing instruction materials. Those will end up getting used by lots of different programs. And I know, like, there was a program that was, they helped support, developed actually at CU Anschutz of all places, but that is a very interesting, like, 3D imaging of bodies that gets, again, it's open, So now anybody can use it across the state. It can be used for any medical or other program that's happening in the state. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Bickle, thank you for this. The way this program is currently written is the, is it that we are required to make certain transfers, like there's a required appropriation every year, or is this, I guess my question is like, could we structure this, and maybe it's already structured this way, like we do in many other cases where we can sort of grow and shrink the program as we need to given the available appropriations for the committee. Does that make any sense?
It does, and no, there's nothing in statute that says you must appropriate a certain amount. The problem is that the program sunsets, repeals in 2026, and so if you don't reauthorize it, you sort of don't have any structure for doing any amount of money.
I guess, okay, that's helpful. So if we were to reauthorize the program as in Rep Taggart's bill, would we scale the program in that bill and then make it subject to annual appropriations after that? Or would we do something in the long bill? Or how exactly would that work?
It would be in that bill. So the bill needs to carry the appropriation because the program won't exist next year otherwise. And if you want to look at the different components of costs, it's on page 3 of the member, page 23. So you can see there's a bit for personal services, a bit for conferences and training, and then most of the money is the grant program, which, again, you can absolutely scale.
Senator Kirkmeyer. Well, I know everyone wants to try and advocate for this program. Well, not everyone. I don't. But if we're going to advocate for stuff, then I'm going to advocate for that we try to eliminate the wait list in CCAP. that we bring back the non-certified kinship care program and fund that, and we weren't even funding that at 100%. We never even got past 50. Or that we fund kids with disabilities, intellectually and developmentally disabled. I mean, those would be priorities to me. I appreciate that this was a program and it was working. That's great. There's a lot of programs out there that were working and that were fine, but I don't think they come anywhere near to this. I don't even think we've gotten to probably what we need to fund for that consent decree yet. I mean, we still have an issue there. So, I mean, seriously, I say this in appropriations every time. Where's the money coming from? And I haven't heard where the money's coming from. Director Ferrandino hasn't texted me yet either to say, well, he did say there isn't any more money in the school bus stuff. It doesn't appear. So I don't know where the money's coming from. And I don't know where this lines up with all of the other priorities that we actually should have. And for me, it doesn't. So I'm just a no all the way around. AND YOU KNOW AT SOME POINT WE HAVE TO SET THE BAR HERE AS A JOINT BUDGET COMMITTEE IN NOT SPENDING FUNDS WE DON HAVE TO SAKE SENATOR MOVELY I HATE TO EVEN MENTION THIS BUT in not spending funds we don have Just saying Senator Mobley I hate to even mention this but Rep Taggart had a solve for fully funding higher ed, and that was a little bit more money than we actually needed for that, and I don't remember what. We put that in balancing. It was $3 million. We did and also may need to have another conversation about it. So. Okay. I think the point is clearly we have a lot of questions to answer before. Maybe we can answer this one. But very much appreciate the information.
Entirely, I entirely understand. But I wanted to at least make sure you were aware of this and that it didn't disappear without consideration at least. And that's what I've got for you.
So, all right. Thank you, Ms. Bickle. I just want to say, I think this does seem like an incredibly worthy program, and I appreciate all the work that got into setting it up, and I agree, I don't think we should just let it go when everyone seems to be in agreement that it's doing a lot of good and saving, you know, in the most direct way possible, saving all these students a bunch of money and therefore making higher ed more affordable. And I don't know. It seems worth preserving. Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you. Director Harper, what next?
We have more tabs. Thank you, Madam Chair. Craig Harper, JBC staff. Up next will be Ms. Bova with a draft letter concerning you all's actions on cash fund waivers. And actually, I think the only one you have is from the only waiver that you have is from Ms. Pickle, who just left. But the letter is behind tab two. you can see there's a very brief memo from Ms. Bova who just came in and then the draft letter is just behind it.
All right, Ms. Bova, anything to share with us before I sign the letter? Does anybody have any questions for Ms. Bova? Senator Kirkmeyer. Yeah, could you explain to us why they need an exemption?
Ms. Bova. Thank you, Julia Bova, JVC staff. They are seeking an exemption because they had more than the statutorily allowed amount in excess reserves. And this was what the committee approved during the judicial department's figure setting. I don't have the details specifically on why this department was seeking the exemption.
Ms. Biffle? Ms. Pickle, why does judicial need more than the allowable reserve?
This is the judicial IT cash fund and this is what they are using to redo their case management system And so when you did figure setting you approved essentially allowing them to continue to store up more money because of the sort of lumpiness of needing to pay for a big new IT system. That's right, the lumpiness. I like that.
So we're letting them have a bigger reviewer, Mr. Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to have you sign.
Oh, more questions? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Given that we're doing this and I don't disagree, might it be good to have a couple of paragraphs that we're agreeing to this because we want you to be able to fund this particular IT project without putting a burden on the general fund in the future? Well, this is a letter to the controller. to just allow for it. True, true, true.
Ms. Bickle.
So, and Rep Taggart, the rationale and so forth was described in the figure-setting document, and you did vote on it at that time. So I think there is sort of documentation of, like, what was, why they asked for it and why you approved it.
Okay.
I'll move it.
All right.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I trust my past self. Move to have you sign this letter.
All right. Are there any objections? I'll pass it on to vote of 6-0. Thank you. All right. Mr. Kim, tab three.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Alfredo Kim, JVC staff. So what I have for you today is a revenue bond intercept request from Colorado Mesa University. This was an item approved by the Capital Development Committee back on March 5th. I'm looking at a...
I thought we were on the... Tuition flexibility request.
...in Northern Colorado. Okay, I didn't bring...
Right back. What was he talking about?
It's tab four.
Okay. No, we're in tab 3. He jumped in on the wrong tab. This? Yeah, I am.
Okay. Sorry about that. So what I have here is a request from the University of Northern Colorado for additional tuition flexibility. They are requesting a tuition cap for undergraduate resident tuition up to a maximum of 4% from the current approved 3.5%. They see I've included the letter that came from the UNC president and they identify an amount of up to about $300,000 more revenue for the university that they feel is necessary. My estimate is around $229,000 in additional tuition cash funds revenue. Nevertheless, I am recommending the committee consider approving this tuition flexibility request.
Thank you Madam Chair I had extensive conversations with folks about this This is in alignment with the more complex proposal that I made about 0.5% for institutions with less than 25% of their students coming in from out of state. So I already made a motion along these lines and moved to adopt a committee request for the flexibility for tuition at the University of Northern Colorado. Are there any objections? That passed down a vote of 6-0. Senator Kirkmeyer. We don't want Jeff to yell at us. No swear words today. Thank you. Senator Kirkmeyer. Yes, so I had a request from CMU. It's not to change the tuition stuff, 3% or the 3.5 or 4 or 5 or wherever we're at. They just want to make sure that, I don't know if it's a footnote or what it is, that CMU, that it's clear because they have basically a technical college or community college, THAT THAT PORTION OF THEIR COLLEGE GETS TO GO TO THE 5%. THE FOUR-YEAR PORTION OF THE UNIVERSITY IS AT THE PERCENTAGE. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT PERCENTAGE WE'RE AT AT THIS POINT. BUT THEY WOULD STAY AT THAT PERCENTAGE THAT YOU SAID. THEY JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY DON'T GET IN TROUBLE AGAIN FOR WHAT HAPPENED A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO. $50,000. YEAH. SO THEY JUST NEED THAT I THINK IN A FOOTNOTE. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? IS THAT OKAY WITH EVERYONE? VICE CHAIR BRIDGESS.
THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. Yes, I'd rather not get into a spat with the president over there and the Colorado Sun again, because they did something that went against a footnote. So, yes, I think some clarity for them would be helpful. They have a unique structure. They do. So that the community college portion can rise to the percentage that we set for community colleges, and the non-community college part is restricted by what we set for everybody else. I think that is the 3.5. I think that is perfectly acceptable. The one thing I will warn against, because this is what happened last time, is that the blended rate between the two cannot go above. That's not what we calculate. The last time they said, well, we may have increased it for four years by more than the amount, but we didn't do that for a community college. So the average, that's not what the footnote says. This is for students. No single student's tuition can go above that percentage increase relative to the part of the school that they are paying the tuition in.
Is CMU totally and completely unique, or is there anyone else who's going to say, oh, who did that for them, us two? I think they're unique in this.
Madam Chair, I have not gotten any other requests from institutions.
Okay. I think they're the only ones that are unique to both.
Rep Tiger. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would very much appreciate this footnote because they are unique. They have a technical college under the Colorado Mesa name, which, by the way, no, I won't tell you that. But it is, in fact, a technical college. It is not intended any longer to be a broad-based liberal arts community college. It is a technical college, and it's a one-year and two-year program. And if they can have a footnote that they are, in fact, grouped with whatever we do for community colleges as it relates to tuition, I think it's very helpful to them. I should also Point out, they have no intention of raising their rates 5%. They just want to be recognized that this is a distinctly one and two year technical college.
All right. Did you make a motion to that effect, Senator Kirkmeyer? Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't think there's a motion on this. I think they just wanted clarity from the committee that that is our intent. And I don't know that spelling it out in a footnote specifically. Okay. Okay, then I move to spell out in a footnote that specifically for Mesa, their community college students may go up 5% in tuition, and while the rest of their students are limited to 3.5. All right, are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And John Marshall, I get along great now. He's a tall guy. You just look like Mutt and Jeff. Thank you. You just look like Mutt and Jeff together. So you're Jeff.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So next up for you, I do have the revenue bond intercept request from Colorado Mesa University. What's he doing here? And this is an item that the Capital Development Committee approved on March 5th. and this requires additionally JBC approval in order for Colorado Mesa to use the state intercept program.
You're interrupting us. Mr. President, welcome. Thank you for gracing us. Have you ever been in here? With your presence. Come, come. Come and see what you're missing. Thank you. for the visit. Okay.
Sorry, Mr. Kem.
I'm good with it. Okay.
So this is a request for two projects, Colorado Mesa. One is a student housing project. The other is a parking structure. I've included in here their pro formas. They both look clean. This is all based on student enrollment growth, the need for additional residential facilities. Housing for students comes in at a lower cost on campus than in the community. So this is critical for the university in terms of their enrollment growth. They do like to have both freshmen and sophomores on campus. And so for a period there, they had to actually reduce that requirement. So they are trying to catch up. They have a new residential facility that's coming online this fall. This one would come online in fall of 2027, along with this parking structure. I am recommending that the committee approve this revenue bond intercept request.
Okay.
Mr. Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. move to approve the intercept request as described by Mr. Kem and his memo before us right now.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kem. All right, Mr. Thompson.
Thank you Madam Chair Scott Thompson Joint Budget Committee staff YOU SHOULD have a memo in your binder subject conference committee technical amendment to correct legal services allocations in five departments The corrections is summarized in the table at the middle of the page. It resulted in savings of about $300,000 general fund and $480,000 total funds. Correcting the error now has two benefits. It will prevent the legal services to state agencies cash fund from being over collected, which will prevent more calculated calculations during supplementals to correct it mid year. It also allows the Department of Law to avoid additional federal scrutiny regarding funds that originate as federal funds for legal services it provides. So this is really the first conference committee amendment that you all have seen so far. The rest of the, or many of the technical amendments are going to come to you in a packet of technical amendments. But since my memo was ready to go yesterday, here I am.
Okay. Approved.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Move to approve.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Okay, orbital bills. So, are you taking all the notes for this, Director Harper? Are we waiting for other folks to come as we discussed?
We will have people come in as needed. I don't think we have, as Madam Chair, I don't think as staff we have a ton to add to the information that you already have. I think as a bit of a preface, what I think I'm requesting here is a bit of guidance from you all. I'm going to be putting together a general fund overview to try and tell you where you are at this point. And right now, it's a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure book because we're looking at a House-passed version of the long bill, the Senate-passed version of the long bill, so direction from you all on which version of the bill, I should assume. And that's also vital for the staff. I mean, we've been drafting amendments, as Mr. Thompson has referred to. but to make sure that our amendments are drafted properly, we'll want to make sure that we have guidance on which version of the bill to assume in the committee report for the long bill. So we've got two versions of the long bill to deal with. That one I'm more comfortable with the uncertainty, I think. But you have eight orbital bills that are waiting for conference committee action, and I've broken them into two categories here in this memo. Three, that the the impacts or at least the differences between the chambers are all in the out year. And then there's five where the differences are in the budget year in 26-27. So my key goal here was to get you all started discussing where you think you'd like to go with these and frankly the biggest to sort of steal the or give a bit of foreshadowing, the biggest questions are probably in 1411 and 1412, the two Medicaid bills, simply because they have a large impact on balancing. And frankly as I was trying to think about making a uniform assumption of picking bills that just go with the House passed version or the Senate passed version those two are directly in conflict The House passed version of the Coverall Coloradans bill has a bigger budget impact depending on how you deal with the Department of Corrections offset. The Senate passed version of the extrapolation bill has the bigger budget impact. So as it stands right now, my intention in the overview that I'm putting together for you is hopefully get guidance from you on the long bill, which version of the long bill to assume. And then right now I've built it based on the introduced version of all of these orbitals so that I'm not picking and choosing among you and your colleagues. But if you have additional guidance, then the more concrete guidance that you can give to us, the better the number will be that I can bring in to tell you where you're at. So that was my key goal here. And also just to start your discussions, this will also help inform the drafting of conference committee reports by legal services for the conference committees on these specific bills. So if you have specific things that you know you're going to want in those reports, then you can talk about those now or we can get you in touch with drafters or however you'd like to proceed. But again, my key goal here is to try and get as much uncertainty out of the overview as I can so that when I bring it in, you have a clear baseline and you know, okay, if we go with this House amendment or this Senate amendment or whatever the case may be, it's going to make us that much better off or that much worse off for balancing.
Okay. Well, I think my recommendation is that we start with the House bill. We have fewer amendments, and we don't have an amendment with an error that has just a sentence starting in the middle of a... So I think that that probably makes more sense to start with the House passed version. I don't know if anybody has a differing preference. On all of these? No, on the long bill. Oh, on the long bill. On the long bill. But that doesn't mean we obviously can take up any amendment that we... starting with that. It's just which he needs to know which we're starting with. Okay. But it doesn't really have necessarily... I mean, we started with the House in the Senate also. Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This requires a motion, right?
I think so. Do you need a motion now? Does it require a motion? No. Yes.
Okay.
Madam Chair, I don't believe it requires a motion. I would welcome one just so that we have clear documentation, but I don't think it requires one.
Well, maybe it's helpful in terms of as the committee starts to discuss things and as amendments need to get drafted to know what they're getting drafted.
Madam Chair, I think it would be, I think it's cleaner for us with a motion. I went back pretty exhaustively through last year's records and could not find a motion, but I do think, I think it's more, it's clearer cut for us if we have a motion with direction.
All right. Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To continue our extremely complicated drafting process that we pursue here in the Budget Committee, I move that we start with the House version for the Conference Committee.
All right. Are there any objections? That passes on to vote of 6-0. Okay, and then as far as, and I think Director Harper, you know, had some guidance about process, but essentially you know we will meet as the JBC to discuss the long bill and these orbital bills and then we can can or don have to but we can make motions about what it is we want to do as a JVC and then they can prepare a committee report for us to take up as the conference committee later to actually approve those things, but we can have the conversation as a JVC. So I don't know if folks have had a chance to take a look at Director Harper's memo here that outlines some of these differences in orbital bills. I think maybe it's possible to move through some of these reasonably quickly. Do you want to all try to do that now?
Sure.
Okay. Senator Mobley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So starting with the easy part, I think anyway, for me the easy part, the bills with no balancing impact, I would like to do what the Senate did on 1380, which is to just repeal the office. on 1399 and 1409. I'm good with what we did in the, I think we did it in the Senate and the House. I'm good with leaving those in statute and coming up, deciding next year or the year after whether we want to fund it or not.
Well, let's take them one at a time. On House Bill 1380, It was the extreme preference of our colleague in the House that we take the House-passed version. With that amendment, they gave them a year of repeal, which I anticipate will still go into effect, but it makes them feel better that they have more time to have these conversations.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is an automatic repeal. It doesn't eliminate their appeal. It just pushes it out one more year in the House version, correct?
Yes. Senator Kirkmeyer.
I'm more inclined to go with the bill as it was introduced. That's where I'm at.
Well, Brett Brown.
Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, obviously we didn't disagree with you, but our colleagues did. And so in order for the bill to go back to the House, I feel like we, in order to adhere to the will of the House at this point, we would, I think, I would request that we adopt the one-year repeal because I think that's consistent with what our colleagues wanted. And then if I think our concern was sticking with the Senate version would have potentially led to a dead bill, in which case there would be no repeal. So this felt like a kindness. I'm just saying the Senate, they tried the amendment and it failed. So the will of the Senate was not to do that.
Rep Taggart.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I know I was, I think, well, we all were, wanted this to go away because it keeps coming back year after year. But the individual and leadership on the floor of the House, they came to us And then I talked to her individually, said, Rick, give us a year to try to put this, a group together. No dollars. Give us a year to put this plan. And I said, well, if you don't, this dies. We're not coming back to it ever again. And I guess... I feel I owe her the courtesy of at least saying that and trying to get us to that place. But they're on the spot. They either come up with a plan or it's done.
Well, I mean, it's even more difficult than that because this bill is simply pushing out the repeal one year with no money. And so it is giving them a year to have a conversation to bring back a new bill that will require funding. So that's what it's giving them, Senator Kirkmeyer. So it's an automatic repeal.
Fine. I'm ready to move on.
It is.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to adopt the House version of this bill. Is that exactly what it was? Was it an automatic repeal in the House version?
Are we in Congress? We don't have to. You said in your direction.
Director Harper, that in years prior, the JBC did make motions and vote on them, and then last year we didn't. And you would like us to again, but this all can take place within the JBC.
Yes, Director Harper.
That's correct, Madam Chair. I think you all don't have to make the motions for the bills. I do think it's a clearer record if you have motions. but last year what you did was basically expressed those desires. We took notes, they went into the committee summary, and then you received conference committee reports that implemented the wishes that you had. So you have options here, but the motion is in order here, and then you would meet as the conference committee to adopt that conference committee report.
Okay.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I renewed my motion.
All right. Are there any objections? Pass us on a vote of 6-0. All right. The next one is $13.99, and that's related to general fund transfers to the MMOF. And I would just throw out there for the committee's consideration, would folks be open to making this a three-year pause or a two-year pause? Because I don't know that any of us are under some sort of illusion that next year's budget is looking better. and it's just another bill to have to run another year. And so I also appreciate that this was a negotiated transfer and people felt like that was hard fought. So would the committee be open to just pausing it for three years instead of?
Isn't that what we already did?
No. We repealed it, but then people amended it to just be a one year. So we would pause it for three years. That would be my suggestion, but I don't know what the committee thinks.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. We don't know what the future holds. I think we're fairly certain about what next year holds, kind of no matter what happens. And so I think a three-year pause makes sense. And then in three years, I'm sure that our staff here at the JVC that is looking at this will notice that this has been turned back on and will suggest we turn it off. if we are in the same kind of situation we're in right now. So did we ask?
I don't recall us on the floor asking permission to go beyond the scope. Yeah, we did.
Yeah, we did. Yeah, we got permission. I don't know if you asked for it, but we got it. No, we did. I did. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.
I just know we got it.
In that case I think three years is I move that we move to that we put a three pause into this bill when we get to conference committee Perfect All right Any objection to a three pause
That passes on a vote of 6-0. All right. House Bill 1409. The House version was just the bill as introduced, I believe. Great.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just really don't want this bill to die again this year. That was maybe one of my favorite slash least favorite moments last year.
Mine too.
So I just want us to be ready that they may reject the conference committee report. We can go to a second conference committee.
Well, maybe we should do the same thing with this, do a three-year pause or I don't know. I think in this sense, well, it was shared with me that the local portion was not actually part of the original thing. It was something that got negotiated by some other folks a long time ago. It was never in statute. Yeah, I'm fine with just giving a try for the House version because this fund is not getting better. No.
Rep Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm fine, too. I don't know when the 3.5 percent, well, I know it was 10 and we dropped it to 3.5 percent, but again, the municipalities are charging an additional sales and excise tax on marijuana. It's not as if we're leaving them high and dry, and they're not sharing that with us. High and dry?
High and dry.
Hand dry, or just high. You got it.
We're just leaving them high.
I'm glad you got that
Yeah, maybe they get more back Madam Chair
Thank you Madam Chair Move to adopt the House version of this one
Any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0 And I would suggest that you tell your Former representative, now Senator To just Yeah Just sit still and Follow the lead of the JBC
Oh, sure, that'll work.
Linstead.
Madam Chair?
Sure.
Vice Chair Bridges. I sit next to him. We have a great relationship. Great.
He will follow your lead, I'm sure.
I'm sure it'll all be fine. It's all going to be fine. It'll be fine.
Okay. So then we also have some bills tied to balancing. It's a different former House colleague. It is a different former House colleague. THE TREP BILL, 1357.
COULD I HAVE CLARIFICATION ON WHAT THE SENATE DID? DID YOU, IN THE HOUSE MEMBERS WERE TALKING ABOUT ONLY ALLOWING FOR ONE MORE YEAR. AND IN THE SENATE, IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED, OR IS IT THAT THE NEXT CLASS WILL GET BOTH YEARS?
It's that the seniors will get to do the program. So they will get two years. It's a two-year program.
That's what I'm asking.
We were told that they were negotiating for one more year so that they would not get the opportunity to apply for scholarships. Right.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think where I am on this and what I understood it to be and what I would be comfortable with moving forward is to provide one year so that those folks who are seniors can have one year and take that next year to apply to wherever it is that they turned down this year and not have the full two program But one year What did we pass? Because I'm not really sure what we passed. Do you know, Director Harper?
Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Amable, I'm trying to get some additional input from Ms. Bickle because my understanding was that the seniors that were graduating this year would get both years of the program, that they would get TREP at, but I may have misunderstood the language in the bill. I think that was, someone described that to me, but that is not what I was told they were supposed to be. That's not what, anyway, the House members were working on, but they were ultimately not successful in getting an amendment on, but that's what they said they would continue to work on in the Senate. So it feels like it evolved.
I'm okay with just doing one year, but it would be nice to know what it actually is that got passed in the Senate, because I don't really remember.
Senator Kirkmeyer. My understanding was it was for one year, and that's where the $800,000 came from. That's what I understood it to be. And then because we heard in appropriations that these individuals were not able to go get scholarships, and it just really messed up everything for them. And so by giving them another year, they can go start applying for scholarships to finish off the next year. That was my understanding.
Okay. If not, we can change it next year.
It happened in the Senate? There she is.
Okay. We can change it next year, though. If something happens, we have a year now.
Well, I don't want to find ourselves in the same boat again next year. Maybe we'll get scholarships. I'm really clear. This is a one-year extension.
Ms. Bickel. I want to know what we actually asked. Go ask all. Do you know what the Senate did?
Yes.
Amanda Bickel, JBC staff. So what the Senate did was it effectively delayed everything by an extra year. So this is a program, if you remember, that gives two years, a fifth and a sixth year. So what it does is it allows students who are currently seniors to start their fifth year in 26-27 and then to complete it in 27-28. In 27-28, you would get no new individuals entering the program. So then it would repeal after that. So everybody who's been accepted to the program or is in the program gets to finish the full two years. As you introduced the bill, you basically, it was only going to fund students who are currently in their fifth year, this year in 25-26, to complete in 26-27. The Senate amendment changes it so that students who are in their senior year of high school now could enter their fifth year in 26-27 and then finally complete in 27-28.
Thank you, Madam Chair. No, I'm, well, that's, that's not what I thought that we had discussed with our colleagues in the Senate. I am, again, I'm completely okay with, with giving the seniors who are graduating this year one more year, a year of this program, but two years of this program I'm, I'm, do not believe in doing. DURING THIS NEXT YEAR, THEY CAN GO AND REAPPLY TO ALL THE PLACES THAT THEY DECIDED NOT TO ATTEND THEY CAN GET ALL OF THOSE SCHOLARSHIPS THAT THEY TURNED DOWN LIKE WE ARE GIVING THEM A ESSENTIALLY and reapplied all the places that they decided not to attend They can get all of those scholarships that they turned down We are giving them a fifth year of high school that they can go and they can go apply to all these programs. I have two full years.
Senator Kirkmeier. I'm for whatever costs the $799,200 because that's what we agreed to. So whatever that is, that's what I'm for. Ms. Bickle?
So, you know, in fact, that amount of money is essentially sufficient to cover that additional year in 26-27. I think it would be completely reasonable to say, no, we don't want to give them another year beyond that in 27-28, right? This was not a JBC amendment. It was a Senate amendment. So you would want to do something different than what's in the bill as amended by the Senate, but I think that's certainly viable. I mean, that's what Senator Bridges described as something you could certainly do.
Well, those were all the conversations that I had heard, was that this was to be able to provide for those students who didn't have a chance to make different plans for the fall that is coming in a few months, and that's what it was to address, but for a year, not for, like, extension of the program in its entirety. Senator Mobley.
Okay, so I just want to, this, how, why is this $799,000 number in here, if that only pays for one year, when in fact the amendment that got on was for two years? I just don't understand that. I heard Ms. Bickle say this covers the two years. Does this cover the two years?
No, it does not cover the, it only covers one year. You know, of course, things can be lost in translation as well when staff are asked to draft things. So it could be like, but that $800,000 provides the one year. Basically what it does, though, is it provides, that's the funding required for 250 slots, the additional money required to do 250 slots in total for 26-27, which would include both students in their sixth year and students in their fifth year. And I think if you wanted to completely end after that, that's completely doable and would also, I mean, I had honestly some concerns as well, because if you consider that additional year, the cost ends up being like $2 million, right? It's not because you're delaying the repeal of the whole program. So I just think you would do a conference amendment to clarify that we're not changing the repeal dates, and it's only providing a fifth year for students who are seniors right now.
Yes. I would prefer that because the other issue is this school bus money is only accounting for one year, and then the next it would be back on, I assume, the state ed fund? Correct. Which, you know, we were trying very hard to trim programs from the state ed fund since we are challenged to meet our core funding needs for the school finance act. So, I mean.
Rep Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm still, I apologize, a little bit lost. because I thought I heard you say the 799 included both the conclusion of the students that are presently in their fifth year and going to their sixth and one year for the 26th, the graduates here in 26. That's confusing to me because we already left, I thought, in the budget to complete the second year. So I just, that's where I get lost.
If the committee as a whole wants to pay one year for the students graduating in May 26, I'm okay with that to give them more time. But that's not what I heard from you. I heard it was a combination of the two. Would this alleviate funding from the state ed fund for the students who were going to be in their sixth year?
No. That we were already funding? No. Basically, the savings that were in the bill as it was introduced were based on funding only, I think, 137.5 student FTE in 26-27. And that was because you were only looking at the students who were currently in their fifth year in 25-26 and letting them complete in 26-27. If you are going to also allow seniors now to enter the program for one year, then what you're paying for is the difference for going up to 250 student FTE, from 137.5 FTE to 250 student FTE in 2627, and that's what costs about $800,000.
Okay.
Rep Brown? Yeah, I mean, it seems to me like we all kind of agree that, like, we should spend this money. THE PROGRAM CONTINUES FOR ONE MORE YEAR. IF YOU WERE A SENIOR THIS YEAR, YOU GET ONE YEAR. IF YOU'RE ALREADY IN THE PROGRAM, YOU GET AN ADDITIONAL YEAR, AND THEN EVERYTHING GOES AWAY AFTER ANOTHER YEAR. AND THAT'S WHAT I'M COMFORTABLE WITH,
AND IT SOUNDS LIKE THAT'S WHAT MOST FOLKS ARE COMFORTABLE WITH. Yes. Vice Chair Bridges, did you make a motion? I can't remember.
No. I'm thinking about it, Chair. I move to amend House Bill 1357, the phase of the TREP program to align with the conversation we've had, which is one more year for both the people that are entering their second year of the program and people entering their first year. And then it's over. And then it's over.
That makes a great deal of sense to me, and I'll talk with Mr. Baus and get that drafted as your conference committee amendment. Thank you. All right, any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. The... Oh, that's right, we had to... Yes, just in case. 14.05, the cash fund transfers to the reserve.
On the first issue, there seemed to be confusion about that $74,000 as it related to the Veterans Services Trust Fund. And what had happened was we the JVC took Mr Catlett advice that we reduce because the money going into the trust fund is from the master settlement agreement the tobacco master settlement agreement and that amount is going down and it was going down by We, at the same time now, I can't remember what the exact line is that we appropriate for this grant program. We appropriate out of the Veteran Services Trust Fund and what is in the Trust Fund. What we are appropriating out of that Trust Fund into the line item for these grants we are appropriating more each year than what is actually coming in, because there's about a $2 million balance, I think. And we are trying to draw down that balance responsibly. So I think we are appropriating about half a million more a year than is actually coming in. So that is why Mr. Catlett recommended that we reduce that appropriation by the $74,000. People saw that as a reduction that we were making to this grant program, and so they wanted to make up for it in the governor's mansion maintenance fund. And so I don't think that that is an appropriate use of funds. If people feel very strongly that they don't want to reduce the appropriation by the $74,000, we can make it from the trust fund.
AND IT'S JUST DRAWING DOWN THE BALANCE FASTER. VICE CHAIR BRIDGES.
THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE WHERE WE MADE A CUT BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T NEED THE MONEY, AND THEN OUR COLLEAGUES WENT, HOW DARE YOU, THAT'S AN IMPORTANT THING. AND NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE PROTESTED THAT, WELL, IT IS, AND THEY DON'T NEED THE MONEY TO DO THE IMPORTANT WORK THAT THEY'RE DOING, THEY STILL WANTED TO CHANGE IT. So, I mean, can we take the money from the trust fund and then when it reverts, which it will, put it back in the trust fund?
I don't know that it will revert. I bet they'll spend it all. Not on this. No, this isn't. I'm not on the Veterans Treatment Court one yet. You said 1405. I know. Well, there's three things in here. Two. There's different things in there. I'm on the first bullet. Director Harper. Oh, yeah. We can't do that. Yeah.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just raise one kind of minutiae point relevant to the 74654 from the Governor's Mansion Maintenance Fund. It's been a tongue twister for me for the last several days. I think, I mean, we don't generally make recommendations on orbital bills, especially for something like this, But the goal here was clearly to move money from the mansion fund and put it into the veterans fund. You all didn't have a vehicle in order to make that actually possible. So what happened, the closest that we could get as staff, this doesn't, the amendment that's in 1405, I guess the point here is doesn't actually help the solvency of the veterans trust fund because it doesn't get that money from the general fund into the trust fund. It moves it out of the mansion fund into the general fund, but you didn have a vehicle that we could add the transfer to the trust fund to So it was really just dinging the mansion fund and then spending out of the trust fund So it ends up being somewhat helpful to general fund balancing to the tune of $74,000, but it doesn't actually help. You would need another step and you would need another mechanism to actually get that money into the trust fund and help with the solvency of the trust fund. I think the chair's description of the Veterans Trust Fund, and we can have Mr. Catlett come in if you have more detailed questions, but is exactly right. He saw this as a technical adjustment in that Uwals' plan for the last couple of years has been to spend $500,000 more than the projected revenues. So projected revenue is $100. You're spending $500,000 more than that, and that's why you're spending down the balance. His technical adjustment for what shows up as a reduction in the narrative was just to keep exactly a $500,000 difference. obviously 74 654 is less than one-fifth of that it would accelerate your spend down but if you want to just you if you want to keep that spending out of the trust fund we can balance for that over the next several years it'll just spend it down a little bit faster than you expected my key point as we're talking about 1405 is that if you want to take money out of the mansion maintenance fund that's clearly your prerogative and you can put it in the general fund and it'll help with the general fund overview but it doesn't actually help with the solvency of the trust fund which was the end goal we just couldn't we didn't have a vehicle to make that last step possible the title of 1405 is cash fund transfers to the general fund we could move it out of the cash fund into the general fund but we couldn't take the next step well my preference would be at least for
PURPOSES OF THIS BILL TO TAKE THIS $74,000 TRANSFER OUT? I DON'T THINK IT'S APPROPRIATE IN THE BILL. WE CAN THEN TALK ABOUT IF IN THE LONG BILL IF PEOPLE WANT TO APPROPRIATE MORE INTO THE THAT GRANT PROGRAM WHICH POTENTIALLY MAY ACTUALLY I'M HEARING REVERT ANYWAY BECAUSE THEY HAVE HAD TROUBLE PROCESSING ALL THE APPLICATIONS FOR SAID GRANT PROGRAM. SO IT'S NOT EVEN CLEAR THAT THEY NEED THE ADDITIONAL $74,000. BUT FOR PURPOSES OF THIS BILL, THIS TRANSFER FROM THE GOVERNOR'S MANCHIN MAINTENANCE FUND TO THE GENERAL FUND, I THINK IS NOT APPROPRIATE. THEY ACTUALLY NEED THE MONEY IN THE MAINTENANCE FUND. OKAY. CAN I JUST ASK A QUESTION?
SENATOR KIRKLAND. WHY DID THEY... I MEAN, I'M OKAY WITH WHAT YOU SAID. I JUST WANT TO KNOW, WHY DID THEY THINK THEY NEEDED MORE MONEY IN THE TRUST FUND THEN?
It didn't, it was a member, RepTagg, you know how this happened? Because it started a whole wave of confusion. Yeah, it did. I tried real hard to explain. Yes, you did. Okay. This originated more because of a member and members that coalesced around this particular member, that the governor was not participating to the degree they wanted to see in terms of reductions. And this one was one they looked at. And then it got into this whole, they took it then into the, going into the trust fund and on into the Veterans Services Trust Fund, and it just got really convoluted. but it started with an assessment that the governor hadn participated to the degree that he needed to Whether you agree with that or not that where it started All right So agreement from the group that we should take this transfer out of the House Bill 1405 Yes. Sure. All right. I mean, that's just, it's just done. Shall we, we can make a motion per, I guess, Senator Amable.
I move that we take the $74,654 transfer from the Governor's Mansion Maintenance Fund to the general fund that we remove that from House Bill 1405.
Any objections? I vote yes. That passed on a vote of 6-0. All right. The next one, I actually am, I don't, this $7 million from the OIT revolving fund, I don't know if we have analysis about that number and if it is appropriate to take from the revolving fund, if there is a right number that we didn't get right the first time. I'm certainly open to hearing that. The long bill amendment is a separate question, I think.
Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. If Mr. McLeary can provide more detail if needed or desired, but I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that we don't have much in the way of additional analysis. over what you've seen before. I would say that from the staff side of the table, this was similar to the electric school bus thing in that I might have expected a fair amount of pushback from the executive branch over this particular transfer in the long bill or as part of the kind of long bill discussion. I have not heard that degree of pushback And my sort of impression is that there is additional money available in the revolving fund, maybe not more than the 7.1, but it's been interesting. I did not hear the level of pushback from the executive branch or the governor's office or OIT to saying, no, we can't do this. I think it's surprising to both Mr. McLear and myself that this would appear to be a viable transfer, but my general impression is that this money is available. I will note one potential source of confusion here. The transfer took $7.1 million from the OIT revolving fund. That was actually tied to the total fund's cost of the long bill amendment. I know you wanted to set those two apart, but the long bill amendment that it was funding was 7.1 million of total funds. It's about 3.5 million of general fund. So there was a little potential confusion there, but interestingly, it sounds like, and if you were asking me to identify potential additional fund sources for balancing purposes, again setting aside the long bill piece the two that came to light very late in the process and with kind of odd timing to the chair's previous point are the electric school bus money and this particular uh revolving fund in oit we we were not aware Based on Mr. McLeary's previous conversations, it did not sound like there was excess money available.
Senator Kirkwiney, you had a question? I just had a comment. I don't know if there's a 7.1 million in the RIPA all being fun or not, but apparently the bill sponsor on this thought, or the amendment sponsor thought there was. But the IDD services, it was like two parts. One was related to the hours, and the other was the DD wait list. And so what's the dollar amount associated with the DD wait list? Because you're right, it was only $3.5 million, so I think there was a lot of confusion that was going on, and I wasn't involved in helping to draft any of these amendments.
I'm sure we can find the answer. Do you know, Director Harper? Because I think we have a list of things that we have to consider if we have available funding for in terms of both our colleagues' generated amendments as well as some other things that have come up. So I guess for our purposes right now, I'm particularly interested in identifying what else we can take from the IT revolving fund.
Mr. McClure. Thank you, Madam Chair. Andrew McClure, JBC staff. I didn't quite catch all of...
THE QUESTION WAS BASICALLY, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS REMAINING IN THE OIT REVOLVING FUND THAT WE ARE ABLE TO, WHAT DO THEY NOT NEED? IF THERE WASN'T GREAT PROTEST, IS IT 7 MILLION, IS IT 6 MILLION, IS IT 5 MILLION? WHAT CAN WE SAFELY THINK WE CAN REDUCE THAT FUND BY EVEN FURTHER THAN WE ALREADY HAVE?
I believe I caught the tail end of Director Harper's comments. I believe that OIT has indicated that this $7.1 million transfer is absorbable. I have not heard any pushback on this. Beyond that, I'm a little unsure. I think broadly, just be... the because of the tenor of the conversations around my around staff's proposals to cut OIT spending there was a lot of push payments to OIT lines there was a lot of pushback on this and so I I'm pretty unclear as to that delta right and so the 7.1 being available is news to me because as of four weeks ago they were strongly opposed to substantial cuts to OIT. And so these two things are not making sense together in my mind, and I would have to work more with the department there.
We're down to the wire here.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we take 10 and let them come back and tell us why we can't. But my understanding is that they're okay with 7.1, and I think that they'll be okay with tech.
Senator Mabley. I'm not sure I heard they're okay with the 7.1. I mean, that isn't what we heard earlier. And I think what I've been hearing consistently is that all of our tech is in disarray and that there's all these projects out there and they're underfunded and we're way behind in all of these projects in terms of our state being you know operating like it was 40 years ago So I don understand actually what maybe I don understand what the OIT revolving fund is for
Is that for tech projects or is it for, I don't know, something else? Mr. McClure, is that tech debt money in a different fund or is it in that fund?
It's not tech debt money.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Mobley.
The tech debt is primarily being addressed through the IT capital portion of the budget. So a portion of money gets set aside for annual depreciation lease equivalent payments, which are used for managing future tech debt. the OIT, the IT revolving fund is where the payments to OIT are collected for services provided by OIT. So it's not so much IT projects as it is like kind of just services from the Office of Information Technology.
Senator Mobley. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. So the departments pay into that, and then OIT uses that money to pay for what if it's not for projects?
Minor fixes. Mr. McClure.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Mobley.
It's really largely would have you be paying for personnel, and a lot of it is personal services costs, right? So you have your IT staff there at the Office of Information Technology that is providing whatever IT services are needed. Additionally, there are some hardware costs, software costs, that kind of thing that are paid for at OIT.
I just have one more question. So they're collecting from the departments way more money than they need. Is that what's happening?
Mr. McClure? just yes or no yes thank you senator kirkmaier thank you so they've had a week oit's had a week to tell you if they had an issue with it and they haven't told you they've had an issue correct yes correct thanks i'm willing to take 7.1 or 10 if uh senator bridges thinks there's 10 there vice chair bridges is your hand still up or i missed it if it went it is yes i think
there's 10 and I think we should take it and if there wasn't 10 then they would have talked to us that's right I'm a little nervous for Mr. Mr. McLear's comment that they're collecting far more than they need um I uh I I think that what we've heard from JTC and and what we have heard from others is that there is some need to take a closer look at OIT again I guess I'm fine I guess if the The committee wants to take 10.
I just will say we don't really know what will happen because we did reduce the, we swept money from the revolving fund and we also reduced appropriations from the departments to the revolving fund. So we tried to address this from both sides in terms of how much was gonna go in and how much is actually in there. So I just am saying it's possible that a supplemental could come that is not a reduction, but actually an increase because we didn't. MS.
MS Could happen anyways MS Okay Well Senator Mobley MS I move that we transfer million from the OIT revolving fund to the general fund for 2026 But then we have to talk about the second part of this.
Yes, but those are long bill amendments that, because I just, I think we've got a number of pressing needs and still some that we haven't heard from staff about to address in final balancing. Director Harper is going to get us a memo on that as well. So I think we can hold off on discussing how that additional $7 million would be expended. Then the third one. Ten. Sorry, ten. Yes. And then the third one there is this Senate amendment that transferred the 300 from the electrifying school buses grant, which I feel like we already spent. Was that the sum total or that was additional that's available for school buses based on what we did for TREP?
Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Conveniently, Mr. McLear is the CDPHE analyst, and the electric school bus money was also news to him. But I think our understanding is that there's about $2.1 million available in the electric school bus program. $800,000 of that you just approved for the TREP program. That would leave $1.3 million and change, which is available. I think for the $300,000 that you're talking about here for the Veterans Treatments Courts, our understanding is that there's a cash fund within judicial branch that would be available and entirely appropriate. So you could drop the $300,000 transfer from the electric school bus money here and in the long bill replace that with the offender services fund, I believe it is, in judicial. I think our recommendation would be to go ahead and take all of the electric school bus money but I think you have a different fund source available for this particular use Thank you Madam Chair
I'm sure we all spoke with Director Ferrandino at one point or another This is my understanding of what I agreed to with Director Ferrandino when we were having this discussion or what he was agreeing to as well The school bus stuff he said was about $2.2 million so $2.1, $2.2 The thought was that there would be $300,000 for the veteran stuff, so this, and then that there's $925,000 for the sales and use tax system that they have to take care of, and $800,000 for the one year of the TREP program. And that's where we got to it. So I know the $300,000 and the $800,000 were stuff that we had talked about, the $925,000 for the sales and use tax system, and the only reason I know what SUTS is is because I just had to ask him. because that's what he kept calling it, is something that he asked me about, and I said if you've got the money and it's something that we need, because I can tell you what else he said, but anyways, that's what I agreed to with him.
Yes, I think the SETS money is important. That is on the list of things we all have to talk about in terms of other things that have come up in addition to our committee members' amendments. I will say that, well, A, if there is a fund in judicial that has a sufficient balance to cover the increase, then I think that's appropriate. But that, yes, we should take all the school bus money. And if we need to do that in this bill we have to so maybe the TREP dollars are taken care of I don know how you all work it out That fine But whatever we need to do in this bill to effectuate the rest of the school bus money we should do I think But the $300,000 for the Veterans Treatment Courts, I heard, and maybe people would disagree, but judicial is communicating that the needs are being met with the current appropriation and that if they got more money, it would revert. because they wouldn't utilize it. So I don't really want to over-appropriate for something. Not that I am making a judgment about the importance of veterans' treatment courts. I'm not. Simply that I don't think we should be over-appropriating for something if it, in fact, would be reverting. That is what was communicated to me. I don't know if people have different information.
Senator Mabley. I agree with Madam Chair. And at the very least, I think the $300,000 should come from, I mean, if we want to make people happy and say, oh, here you got what you asked for, then it should come out of this cash fund and judicial. But I agree there's no point in doing that. I think we should just take all the school bus money in this bill, transfer all the money, and then we'll fund TREP and then we'll figure out what to do with the rest.
Senator Kirkmeyer. To make everyone happy, can we just, I mean, I basically agree with both of you, but can we say that there could be up to $300,000 that comes out of the Offender Services Fund, and if they don't need it, it reverts right back to the Offender Services Fund instead of the General Fund? Like, you know what I'm saying? I didn't get that information from Judicial, so I didn't know that. And that would be a long bill amendment?
Yes. Okay. So that's possible. Because, I mean, I think maybe we should. We all saw either the text messages that were going around between all the veterans saying we all got to do this. So I feel like we have to be able to go back and say we made sure all your things were covered. I mean, I think I told them that to begin with, but whatever. Can we just say that if the. Sure. If this program needs extra money, that we'll come back and appropriate extra money. Out of the offender services fund?
Yeah. rather than appropriating it now?
We're just giving up to ability or something.
Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, I think it sounds to me, and Ms. Pickles in the room, but it sounds to me like the Offender Services Fund has money available. If you appropriate it and they don't use it, it would revert back to the Offender Services Fund. So that kind of no harm, no foul. Again, that's a long bill discussion, but I think
Okay, that's fine. This path would free up the $300,000 that's currently marked from the Electrifying School Buses Fund and help you with balancing when we get to the long bill. Okay. Okay, so...
Senator Mobley, give it a spin. I'm going to give it a spin. I move that we transfer all of the money from the electric school bus into the general fund and that we fund... We'll deal with the long bill when we get there.
Okay. So all we need to do in this amendment or in this motion is take the money for the school buses. Sound good? To balance after TREP. Yes. Yes. All right. And then we will put a pin in the conversation about the $300,000 for the Veterans Treatment Courts until we get to the long bill. Are there any objections? Hello, yes. That passed on a vote of 6-0. All right, Director Harper. You never took Vote on the 10 million, I don't think.
Just for the record, I actually, I think you didn't take the vote on the 10, so I've merged those two motions into one. I think we're fine.
Okay, everyone's good with the merger of the 10 and the buses? Yeah. Okay, everyone seems to be...
I did move the 10 million, though.
Okay. We talked about it anyway. You moved it, but there wasn't... Then I didn't vote. Oh, you didn't vote. Sorry. Okay. No. Okay. It is almost 5 o'clock. I'm assuming folks need to go very shortly. I think I would put a pin in the 14 and 11 bill conversation. And I don't know if we could resolve 14-12 quickly or not. I will just throw out there that the House passed its version either unanimously or very, very close to. But I think just for clarity's sake, all we were attempting to do was make this amendment that I think we thought we were being consistent in what was done in the introduced version, where there was this, in the introduced version, it didn't have this word alleged. And then in the part about what the auditor was supposed to be doing. and so it was taken out of the rest of the bill. But if that, so I would like to go back to the House version, which is essentially what we agreed to, but if the word alleged is giving you heartburn that you feel like we did something that was going too far past what we agreed to, we can, if you really want to, we could just go back to the introduced version if that makes everyone feel better. That makes me feel better. Okay. Well, plus we get the money that way. Yes. But just, okay, introduced bill. Yeah. Well, the with the 10% stuff, I mean that we all agreed to that day. I think everything that we agreed to
was prior to that we worked out. Okay. Okay, great. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Senator Amable. I move that we regarding 1412 that we revert back to the introduced version of the bill.
All right, any objections? I vote yes. All right, that passes on a vote of five to zero and I think unless there's anything, sorry six to zero, six, six. Director Harper, is there anything else for us? Otherwise I think that'll take us to the end of our business today.
Madam Chair, I think that gives us what we need on the orbitals. I will, barring you all telling me not to, I will go ahead and assume 1411, the impact as introduced, and then that'll give you your starting point. And then if you want to go with the, if you want to discuss the house past version of 1411, then that would just be an additional cost. But I'll incorporate the transfers that you've approved today and the other changes to the the orbitals that you've made today.
Is it an additional cost if we were just considering what the house did, which is technically budget neutral? I mean, I'm not saying that the house is doing, or that the committee is going to do that. I'm just saying that, what would you assume differently?
Correct, Madam Chair.
I've been thinking of this as, yes, I think you're correct. I'm just going to go ahead and assume that 1411 is as it stands. and then if you decide to move the money from corrections to HICPF then that'll be a decision
for the long bill Okay Right did we just Although it at you make it in this bill We haven done anything Actually because the Oh Dr Harkar He just saying what he going to assume when he creates our general fund overview
Okay.
And to correct myself, it is a decision for this bill. That was the amendment that was moving the money from corrections to HIGPF was in this bill, not the one bill.
Okay.
So we'll return to that when we have more time to discuss.
Good idea.
Okay. So the Joint Budget Committee will stand in recess. Good job, everybody.
Well... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.