April 7, 2026 · Minority Caucus · 16,625 words · 22 speakers · 130 segments
We'll start with a quick roll call. Representatives.
Barone. Present.
Bottoms. Representative Bottoms.
Radfield. Here.
Bradley. Here.
Brooks. Here.
Caldwell. Excuse.
DeGraff. I hear.
Flannell. Present.
Gonzalez. Yes.
Hartsook here. Johnson.
Here. Kelty.
Here. Luck.
Here. Soper.
Bonjour. Zoom.
Richardson. Here.
Garcia-Sander. Present.
Slaw. Present.
Representative Slaw.
Sucla. Here.
Taggart. Here.
Weinberg
Representative Weinberg
Winter
Woog
Representative Woog Okay We have a quorum We will get started here in a moment Real quickly what we're going to do before I turn it over to Rep Taggart Our beloved member from the JBC Is going to run through right now And we have, what do we've got? Bills, House Bill 1348 through 1413. What we're going to have is Rep Taker is going to run us through an overview of all of the bills that we're going to be discussing. We will then circle back with questions after we've gone through everything because we want him to get through everything that we've got and make sure that we're on track. And then we'll go back. We know that there's some very contentious bills that we want to have a lot of discussion on. But please hold your questions until the end. and then when Rep Taggart is finished with his briefing, we will then start with the questioning. At this point, Rep Taggart, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I get started, I have a lot of expertise in behind me that I know I will need from time to time to bail me out if I make a mistake or have forgotten something because the long bill itself, which is 1410, which we'll tackle first, is over 200 pages long, and there are 60-plus orbital bills. When we get to the orbital bills, it would be very helpful for me, rather than going through bills one by one, if there are particular bills that you want to talk about. The one that I will start off with and speak with you about is the Orbital Bill 1411, which has to do with the cap on Coverall Colorado, which I just finished discussing in appropriations. So to get started, 1410 is the long bill. And if you have your long bill in front of you, I'd like to take you through some of the tables and then go through a few of the departments that are driving the increase in general fund spending for fiscal year 26-27. I will touch on probably about six or seven departments If there are additional departments that you want me to go back and talk about I happy to do that So if you have your book in front of you, if you flip to page six after the write-up, I think it's important in table number one that we see what the beginning point for 26-27 comes from, and that is the appropriation, the general fund appropriation for year 25-26, which will conclude here in a couple of months. You can see here that with the supplementals, the first column after the departments, with the supplementals that came to us in January, we had a total appropriation with those supplementals of $17.1 billion. Since that time, and in particular in February, is the time when HCVA gives us their prediction based on their caseload, we also approved additional changes to that first column. And you can see that is for an additional 72 point, basically 73 million, of which, what, 95 percent is between corrections at 6.3 million and HICFA at 68 million dollars. So our prediction for 25-26 in the end, and I'll get to so you can see where we are from a reserve standpoint coming up here in a few moments. we are now at 17 for 25 26 17 basically 17.2 billion dollars which was a four percent increase over where we were when we approved the supplemental then if you turn the page remembering that 17.2 million this is the proposed long bill on table two for fiscal year 26-27. You will see again the drivers of the increase are primarily in three departments, and I'll take you through those three departments. You should see them somewhat underlined. The largest increase is in Medicaid and HICFA of $213 million. An increase in corrections, which we'll go through as well, corrections is at $69 million, and judicial is at basically $31 million. So the total, but I want to point out to you, 13 of the departments had decreases. 13 of our 20-plus departments had decreases. And so the total net change is $212 million, yielding a general fund appropriation that is proposed by us in the JBC of billion This is a 1 increase over last year And if you were to take away those three departments, that being judicial, HICFA, and corrections, this would actually be a decreased general fund for fiscal year 26-27. So think of it from the standpoint that caseload is our driving force in terms of increases. If you then move over to pages 8 and 9, you will see both in 25 and at the bottom, Table 5A. I won't take you through at present Table 3 or Table 4, but if you look at Table 5A and Table 5B, you will see the transfers from cash funds that are taking place to help us balance this budget between 25-26. And if you added up tables 5A and 5B, you would see it's approximately $397 million for 25-26 and a little over $102 million for year 26-27. So at that point, I'm going to jump then to page 14 in 1410. And the reason I jumped to total spend, total funds, is to give you an idea of what the funds are in addition to our general fund. So you will see the column of total funds lists $49.5 billion. The general fund we've already talked about is at $17.3 billion. Cash funds at basically $14 billion. and reappropriated funds, which are, for the most part, duplicates that show up in particularly on the general fund side. So I know all of us like to talk about our total funds from time to time, but let's make sure we talk about it accurately. The accurate assessment of total funds last year without the duplicates of reappropriated funds was $43.6 billion. And I hear people talking about $48 billion, $50 billion, billion here, billion there. Okay, but let's be accurate that it was last year $43.6 billion without the duplication of reappropriated funds. For this year it is and you see it in the write here that you can read as well for this year it billion So it's gone from $43.6 to $46.6 billion. 6, a $3 billion increase. Let's also be accurate in how we describe these increases, because that's a 10% increase. That is largely driven by two things. The federal funds that we're going to be drawing down primarily on Medicaid, but it also exists in transportation and education in other places, that increase on that side of things is a 10% increase. of federal funds from last year. It's about a one point, a little over a billion, a $1.2 billion increase in federal funds. The second portion of that increase is for cash funds. And cash funds are up 9.5%. So while the overall growth in total funds is up 6.9%, it's being driven by federal funds that are up by 10% and cash funds that are up by 9.5%. It is not being driven by general fund. Please, if we're talking about this, it is critical that we all realize general fund is up 1.2%, and it actually would have been reduced had it not been for increased caseload in corrections and Medicaid. So if we could move on from there, I would like to talk about with you some of the key departments. So the first one we want to talk about is the Department of Corrections on page 19. You've already seen that this particular budget is up $69 million, which is a 6.1% increase. And if you look up above on the general fund, you can see the driving forces. Starting with medical caseload, it's going to be up $27 million. Our population within corrections is aging. And as it ages, similar to I'm aging, you guys aren't, but I am, especially these last two days, anytime you have an aging population, you also have increased medical services. And that's a combination of services that are provided in corrections and what needs to be done outside in third-party and or clinics and hospitals. To be very honest, in this particular area, if you were to dig into the details, we are still having a very difficult time hiring and maintaining nurses, and several of our correction facilities. And because of that, we're contracting with visiting nurses in particular on an ongoing basis. It is something that we are trying to tackle in the JBC. We're looking at our compensation levels. Behind me, I don't want to call out too many folks, but there is a man directly behind me by the name of Justin Brackey that knows this information inside and out, and we lean all over him in the JBC and his knowledge and expertise in this particular area. Common policies. So this is the first time you will have seen employee common policies, and I want you to understand across the board what has happened with common policies. The initial proposal from the governor had several components in it as it relates to compensation and benefits. It had a step plan. It had a cost of living increase. and it had a moving up, so to speak, of ranges by 2% across the board. What we have done in the JBC is we've adopted and worked through our classified employees, which was not easy. What we did was we eliminated the 2% push-up in the range. We eliminated the cost of living increases, and we are only implementing the step plan across all departments. That saved... Mr. Brackett, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe that saved about $60 or $70 million. Did I get that correct? Okay. So you're not going to see, per se, that in one place. You're going to see that in each of the departments as you read through their budgets. And so for the employee compensation common policy for, in fact, the Department of Corrections, you can see it's $21.5 million. I don't want to say it would have been double that, but it would have been significantly higher. we also the last thing i will point out on that because we cut back so much we also agreed as a jbc that the benefit increases in health life and dental would be paid 100 by the state this year had we not done that with the cuts that we did on the compensation our employees would have seen a reduction in their paychecks and we did not want to do that under any circumstances so so it's a practice that everybody's heard me talk about too many times i say it one more time i don believe in that practice i don believe that um employers should pay 100 of the increase But in this particular year when we cut back compensation so much I said I understand it for this year, but let's talk about it for next year. And I'll let you go down through the remainder of those. The other thing you should realize in this is that corrections also includes the expansion, and you would see that show up under caseload, an expansion of 940 additional beds. plus there's a $6 million number in here for the purposes of private prison. Excuse me. Well, there's two elements there, and I'm trying to see it. Part of it is we have increased the per diem rate to our private prisons to be more commensurate with what we're paying at a county level so that we have some consistency there. And we are having to expand the private prison as well to handle this caseload. So that's one of the, I won't take you through all the details, All of the changes, the per diem's written out here, the shift relief information is here, payments to local jails, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll let you folks read that. But if you have questions later on between myself and Mr. Brackey, I hope we can answer those questions. then if you would follow me next to one of the other bigger departments and it starts on page 30. Now, as you know, when it comes to the long bill we put the information in here for K-12 but this requires its own bill which will be coming to you later. But what I want to point out to you, because I keep hearing this statement, that we are cutting funding for K-12. If you look over onto page 31, you will see, as planned today, funding for K-12 in total. This does not include the local share at all. okay this does not include local share this is only state share it is up 252 million so i don't know about you guys but i'm tired of people telling us that we have cut k through 12 this year did we cut the general fund um for k through 12 the answer is yes because of the fact that we brought additional dollars into the state education fund. We brought in almost $40 million from healthy school meals for all. If you recall last year to fund the healthy school meals for all we had to take money out of the state education fund which shows up the predominant numbers in the cash funds We had to take those dollars out of the state education fund. Those are, in fact, now going over to coming back into the state education fund and being whole. The other big area, if you would look at, is back on page 30 again, and you will see a $70 million transaction there. This has to do with royalties, licenses and royalties on state school lands. and rather than having $70 million go into the perpetual fund there, it is being diverted into state public school fund revenue to add an additional $70 million. So in total, if you look at the cash funds, the cash funds are almost $334 million additional dollars. And the general fund is somewhat offset by those transactions going into the state education fund. And so rather than significant dollars coming from the general fund this year, the vast majority or the increase is being driven by state education funds. And we're backfilling those to make sure that we don't go, it's under strain, so we don't want it to go off a cliff. Now, if you have a question as to 1448, if you recall, is the bill from two years ago, three years ago, having to do with the new funding formula. This is something that in the Education Act, that group will have to make a decision as to are we increasing, are we taking the second step of that? because, as you recall, it started last year at 15% of the formula came from the new formula, 85% came from the old formula, and we held every district across the state, but in a term of hold harmless. And all that meant is they got the higher of the two. If they had higher funding through the old formula as compared to the new formula, we bridge that gap as a state. I don't know yet to know whether it's going to go from, it's scheduled to go to 30% this year. You'll have to wait to hear whether it's going to move to 30%. The only thing I insisted upon in the JBC is if we can't go to 30%, we have to make sure that the hold harmless provision stays in place so that school districts that are not seeing the benefit of 1448 don't end up any worse in the per pupil funding than what they did under the old formula. Okay? There going to be more to come on the state education funding Okay so the next place I like to take you if I can flip there. Okay. Okay. If you'd follow me on page 43. Page 43 is healthcare policy and financing. And let me call out the very first line under the changes from 2025-26. The number that jumps off the page, And this is an increase over the increases that took place that I showed you in 25-26. If you recall, I pointed out to you that I believe there was another $70 million worth of caseload that came in after the supplementals. I believe it was $72 million. Taking that as a base, Medicaid was up, by way of medical forecast, $468 additional million. A number that was basically 8.1%. And if you recall, over the last 10 years, Medicaid has averaged 8.8% increases a year. Let me repeat that. On average, it has been increasing at a rate of 8.8% a year. That is unsustainable. it is only a matter of time and it's already putting pressure on every other department it's only a matter of time if we don't manage it that it overtakes our total total general fund right now it's at basically 35 percent i think 10 years ago it was about 23 24 It is a staggering number, and 8.8% in today's inflation, that's more than three times the rate of inflation. It's unsustainable. So if you look at this, you will also see below it reductions of $21 million in eligibility and benefit changes. provider rates which we negotiated unbelievably hard to get this down to this number the governor originally proposed to us the provider rates that he had already cut the 1.6% that Senator Kirkmeyer and I fought like hell to get 1.6% increase last year for all of our providers. In one fell swoop, that went away. And it went away in October of this year. So the 1.6% increase was taken. and then the governor proposed to us an additional cut for this year in two components. An additional 3.6% increase and taking every code. There's not a code for services, for procedures, for everything that takes place in Medicaid. But where there are codes that compare to the Medicare codes, he asked, or the department asked, that we dropped those rates to 85% of Medicare. Again, through hard negotiations, we negotiated some things out of this. One, for maternal care, for NICU, and for PBT, we negotiated that they were not to be a part of the 1.6%, or excuse me, the 2% that we agreed upon, because they were already hit by serious reductions. And I think all of us that are in rural Colorado and other places realize that we're starting to get maternal deserts across the state. even one of my biggest hospitals is considering changes in this particular area. So we carved those out, and we said we cannot hit them with a 2% reduction. So those are the three areas that we focused on. PBT, everybody know what PBT is? Pediatric behavioral therapy, autism. So we are not applying the 2% there because they already had cuts that took place in the fall. And NICU and as well as maternal health care. So while these reductions are significant at $107 million, I think the first set of numbers we saw here were about $250 million that were going to be reduced in this area. So we had to negotiate hard to get that. and the continuation of supplemental actions, some of those were the changes of going from the increase that we put in place of 1.6% that the governor took out in his executive order. So even with all of the trims, we're still up in this area $213 million. And it's painful, but as compared to dealing with $468 million, we did make some progress. And please hold on. We'll talk about Cover All Colorado in 1411 coming up. Okay. If I can move on then to the next. department that I wanted to highlight which is one of our big six is in fact higher education The original proposal to us was to cut higher education as a combination of, oh, we're on page 57. I'm sorry, folks. The original thought in this particular area was the governor, if you look down to prior year actions under the general fund, the governor had taken $11 million from higher education for fiscal year 25-26. And the proposal was to take another $19 million from higher education to a total of cutting higher education by $30 million. Again, we negotiated really hard, and again, I will call out Senator Kirkmeyer working with me very, very closely on this. We reinstated the $10.8 million, basically $11 million that the governor had taken away in 25-26, and we added $14.2 million to this from to the public schools. It looks like it's a cut, but those dollars are staying in here and go to our public schools. Don't hate me for what I pushed in this particular area. we have been in addition everybody knows the college opportunity fund college opportunity fund gives every colorado resident student that goes to a school of higher education about $3,500 of tuition every year we have been providing COF at a 50% level to our private schools and to our proprietary schools, which is another word for for-profit private schools. We also have been providing, in addition to that, that $14.2 million of financial aid. I proposed, and we've put it here in this long bill, that we take those dollars and put those back into public schools so that they don't have to raise their tuition as much. And I realize it hurts the private schools, and they're mad at me, and I understand that. I went to a private school a long time ago, but I went to a private school, and I can tell you from experience, I made that choice because it had the best program in the world for the education that I wanted. I did not expect the state of New York to give me financial aid for my decision. That's a decision we make as parents and individuals. I still remember like it was yesterday. My dad looked me square in the eyes and said, you've got two older sisters that I'm paying for school. You better get every athletic and academic scholarship to go to that school that you possibly can. and I did So that shows a negative but it a movement from one area of the budget to another area of the budget We also gave the schools the ability to raise their tuition not to exceed a cap of 3 for in tuition and 5 for out The community colleges came to us and asked us, could you give us the 5% because we're in really tight, tight times? And we gave them that. I'm hoping they don't use it, but we gave that to them. Please understand that common policies, when it comes to compensation, do have an impact on our state institutions. And it's not picked up here very much. But if you have classified employees, which we do in all of our public institutions, you can't give them one set of increases and then look at other people within those institutions and say, you get zero. You have to match it at a minimum. And so they are also impacted by our common policies. Okay. If you can follow me to page 72, this was one of the departments that's up $30 million. Actually $31 million, the judicial department. And I want you to see what the two driving forces of that increase are so you know what they are. So this is a department that has 5,700 employees across the state in 23 judicial districts, not to mention all of the folks that are in public defenders and that whole group of additional departments within the department. judicial department. So with 5,800 or 5,700 employees, excuse me, you have actually it's now 5,800 if you look at the next line down you will see that 21 million that's the impact to compensation common policy. Even with us trimming back when you have that many employees, that drives a big increase. The second one down is the prior year actions. And this is a bill that was signed off of last year, and please don't take it that I disagree with it, but it is last year we added 60 individuals, five judges, and all the staff that goes around judges across the state. That yielded $60 million. And if you look further down on this, you will see I've got to pick it up someplace. There's also an increase for this year to fill out 10 more judges. I'm just drawing a blank. It may all be yes it is all in that prior year action So it a combination of the five and the staff that went with the five and then 10 additional district court judges this year along with their staff So it's all combined in that 7.3, but because it was a bill that was approved last year, it shows up as a prior year action. So that's judicial tongue-tied this morning. Okay, one that I don't normally talk about, but it jumped off the page at me, and I wanted you to be aware of it, is on page 82. Page 82 is the Department of Law. And it struck me, and if you went all the way back to, I think, page 8, excuse me, page 7. If you flip back for a second to page 7, you will see on the total general fund, if you look over at the percentages on the right-hand side of that particular chart, you see the Department of Law up 11.6%. Relatively small group in terms of total dollars, but I was like, where did that 11.6% come from? It shows up on page 82 under prior year actions. We agreed with the Department of Law that district attorneys and assistant district attorneys were way underpaid. And that, those dollars, basically 80% of, if you add that and the common policy together, that's more than the $3.3 million increase. So that's the reason for that. It's change in compensation, increase in compensation for our district attorneys in our 23 judicial districts across the state. so that's the reason why you're seeing that and if you looked at page later on page 82 you will see it's actually 4.4 million in total but some of that is coming from has been reduced in some way shape or form and I can't tell you off the top of my head why there's a delta there. It may be strictly timing. So those are the major highlights of 1410. And before I leave 1410, Mr. Chair,
do you want questions before I go to the orbitals,
or how would you like to handle that?
How long do you think it will take you to get through the orbitals?
I'm really only planning to go through one major orbital, but I will go through any of them that you want me to, because I know there's one in particular that you folks are very concerned about. But if there's others, I have all my notes here, and I'm happy to answer something on other orbital bills if you want me to, if you just tell me what the number is.
Okay, let's run through the orbital. if you've only got one orbital. Let's run through that one and then we'll circle back for all the Q&A.
Okay, so Let me open up the orbitals here. 1411 is the orbital that I was almost certain that you folks would want to review. 1411 is about changes to cover all Colorado. I've had some difficult bills before, but this was by far the hardest bill that I've ever had since I've been in the legislature.
and to start with... Hold on real quick,
Rep Taggart. Does everybody see 1411 in the handout, the spreadsheet that went around the supplemental?
Because it wasn't in yesterday. There was a new supplemental that was handed out. Everybody has 1411 to follow along? Okay, please proceed.
As you recall, when the original bill for Cover All Colorado went into place, the projection for when this program was to mature was somewhere in the neighborhood of $26 to $30 million. This year, $25, $26 is going to be over $100 million or very close to $100 million. And were we not to work on this, our projection was that it would be closing in on $130 million this next year. This is a hard one because these are human beings, folks. These are kids, and in many cases, kids and pregnant women are what are covered. And I hope you all have empathy for the fact that kids didn't make this decision to come to the U.S. and Colorado. Their parents did. So, while we want, as a JBC, to continue to serve this population, we can't keep letting it expand to the degree that it has been expanding. And so this bill does two things. First, it limits benefits going forward. And if anybody has the bill in front of you, it's on page 226 of the orbitals. But I'll read to you the benefits that are being modified. we're eliminating long term services and supports for people not already in long term services you may know that term better by home and community based services the waiver programs we have 49 and I think it's almost all kids we have 49 kids in that program today we effectively January 1st of next year there will be no additions to that at all so whatever the number is and if you ask me what that number is I can tell you Based on what's happened, my gut tells me that it's probably going to be in the 60 to 70 range of individuals. But these are some of the most expensive services in Medicaid that we have. And so after January 1, there will be no more additions to this area. The folks that are in it remain grandfathered in that program, but no additions. We're capping dental services for both pregnant people as well as children at $750 a month as compared to, I think, the Medicaid benefit up until this year where we made modifications is around $6,000 per annum. We've also cut that, by the way, down to $3,000 for Medicaid as a whole. But here we're dropping it to $750. We're eliminating behavioral health capitated services and modifying it for a fee for service. Capitated payments are daily payments. and they can range, I don't know the exact one in this area, but they're in the $900 to $1,400 a day kind of situation. And this drops it that it's strictly a fee for service. You go visit behavioral health specialists, et cetera, et cetera, they will be reimbursed at the provider rate. There won't be a capitated rate any longer. And then we are eliminating the care coordination services, which is under the Affordable Care Collaborative, effectively January of 2027. The only one that varies from a date standpoint is the dental goes in place on July 1. and everything else goes in place on January 1st of next year. That has a savings for six months of the year of $16.3 million. It has a savings on an annualized basis of $32 million. So a significant cut in benefits to this population. In addition to that, I was able to negotiate an additional cap. Right now we have 21,000 kids in the Cover All Colorado program. The forecast for this year was to go to 25,000. So we put a cap on this program of the 25,000, and it can be triggered by one of two approaches. One approach is just the numbers. it gets to to it capped If in the first quarter there's a forecast as a part of that $127 million that I spoke with, well, actually it's $98 million for children. That $98 million is then broken down into quarters. They aren't equal quarters by any stretch, so you have to compare quarters seasonally. So if in the first quarter, once you adjust it for seasonality around that forecast,
I negotiated a 5% buffer in that. if it should go over that 5% buffer for that seasonal per the forecast, per the projection, that also triggers an immediate cap of the program. And we negotiated that for the first quarter of the year and the second quarter of the year. I didn't do anything in the third and the fourth because that's when the benefits kick in. So we're going to see those dollars reduce anyway. as I said, are really tough, really not easy. And I remind us all, I already talked about, these are kids for the most part. And please also understand that cuts in this area potentially have effects on our hospitals from the standpoint of uncompensated care. And for those of us that are around our hospitals on an ongoing basis, and I think you know I serve on a major hospital board, uncompensated care last year alone was up over 25%. And it is putting our hospitals, particularly our rural hospitals, in very difficult positions. So adding to uncompensated care is worrisome to me. But at the same time, I also had to realize as I was negotiating this, that this program is virtually four times bigger than it was projected to be. And I could not, nor again Senator Kirkmeyer, who worked so closely with me on this, I could not just ignore that and not look at a way to cap this program. So that's 1411. And I would ask you for, I know it's hard to ask for you guys' support on this, but if we don't support a cap on this, we could get overwhelmed, folks, and this bill could go away, and we could be in a situation that we have an uncapped program. So please understand that, and I don't know where that's going to take us. So that 1411 And I will touch on any orbital bill that you like to touch on that you concerned about I'm happy to do that. Just give me the number, and I'll flip to my book and go through it with you. Okay, let's start it this way. Thank you.
Is there anything else you want to cover, Rip Teggert? um no um but i'm happy to take questions on either the long bill or 1411 okay so yeah that's
what we're going to do we've been at it now for nearly an hour majority probably 45 minutes was focused on the long bill let's start with our questions regarding the long bill we will then when all those questions are satisfied they will then shift to 1411 we'll go through those questions and then if there's any other time on any of the orbitals, then we'll shift to those questions. So I ask you, the series of questions right now are going to be focused on the long bill that we covered for the first 45 minutes. So we'll start with that. I saw Rep. Let me hold on a second. Let me get out my sheet and start writing down all the names. All right, we'll go with Rep. Gonzalez, then Rep. Luck, then Rep. Bradley.
So Rep. Gonzalez, go. Thank you, Mr. Kalkus, sir. Thank you, Mr. Taggart. So I guess my concern about Longbow is health care specifically, community health centers. So I know some of my community health centers have voiced some concerns, and I don't know what the final projection is, because it looks like HICPF is having a budget increase. And I guess I asked this question earlier in session. Do you think that we would probably have to do another safety net for community health centers, given the constraint that we have? Or where do you see funding for community health centers specifically?
Representative Gonzalez, I'm not sure I can answer that question, whether we'll have to go back after it from a safety net standpoint and look at supplementals later in the year. I just I don't I don't know at this time, to be very honest. I can assure you that we're going to be hearing from our clinics, whether they're FQs or community-based clinics, we're going to be hearing from them all year long. And they are impacted by the provider rate. They are impacted by the codes. I wish they weren't but at the same time as I have said to everybody if we had absorbed that full almost $500 million increase that would have to have come from K-12, higher education, other areas of the budget So I felt like we have an obligation of a JBC to try to stem that growth somewhat. And it's painful. It's just flat painful. But you can't ignore the fact that the request was for another 8% increase. We just couldn't do it. All right. Thank you. Next we'll move to Rep Luck, and what we're going to do is we'll go with one question each until we go through all the circle on this, and then we'll go back to if you've got a second question on the long bill, then we'll circle back with that. So we'll start with your most important question.
Rep Luck, please. Thank you, Mr. Caucus Chair. I guess if I have to narrow my questions down to the most important, my question would be how would you encourage us to articulate to our constituents that we're going to do this The budget in raw numbers is increasing when the news has been telling them for months now that we have to cut money. How would you best articulate that so that they could understand? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The way I have answered it at this point is that the increase, there would have been no increase whatsoever. And in fact, we have 13 departments, as I mentioned, that have all taken cuts, and some of them very substantial cuts. The driving force is caseload. And the two areas where caseload is impacting our budget is Medicaid and our prisons. If you take caseload out of this, this budget is down from last year, and we cut a lot. But we can't, I think everybody around the dais knows Medicaid is an entitlement program. in this state. And it's our job to project as best we can what that increase is going to be. I mean, could we have said to you that there wasn't going to be close to a $500 million increase just so the budget looks better? Sure, we could have done that. No, we couldn't have because all of us have a lot of integrity and we wouldn't have done that. but if we don't put the realistic number from caseload and i'm not going to guarantee that we can keep it at that we're back here with you guys on supplementals the supplementals that we did on hickfa last year through 25 26 were between 300 and 350 million dollars they were very substantial. So I don't know if that answers your question in total, but that's the way I have communicated with people is that, yes, we took 13 departments down to a number lower than last year. You said, I'm sorry, I can't hear it. You said you clarify the question? Is that what you're asking? Yes. Please go ahead and clarify the question.
Thank you, Mr. Caucus Chair. I guess what I'm asking is the news has reported that the state has to reduce the budget by $1.5 billion. But in raw numbers, we have increased the overall budget by $3 billion. We've gone from $43.6 to $46.6 billion. So how do we best articulate to our constituents that we actually accomplish the reduction, and where did that come from? How do we best? I understand why it increased. I don't understand necessarily how to best communicate to the public that it decreased.
Thank you. Sure. I think you can start by the calculation for the TABOR cap for this year in comparison to last year was approximately between 3 and 3 increase When we have, and mind you folks, when I'm talking to my constituents, I'm always talking about the general fund. Largely because federal funds flow through us. They flow through us. And every time we put the federal funds into it, it clouds the general fund situation. In this particular case, I think I pointed out to you, federal funds are up 10%. That's wonderful. We can use them. For those of you that may not know this, we're one of the states in this country that pays more to the federal government than we get back. Let me repeat that. We pay more in income tax to the federal government than we get back. So when we get a 10% increase, I'm not going to criticize that because it largely helps us support Medicaid. Also transportation, also education, but by far the biggest, if you look at that chart, is going through HICFA. So we had a cap that went up 3.5%. We're only taking 1.2% of that. which if our forecast holds true, and I think everybody here knows that forecasts early on in the year, you know, we're going by a March forecast. That's not even in the fiscal year. That indicates a potential TABOR refund by the way we manage this budget of over $700 million. that's a substantial refund. Now, that's before tax credits, etc., etc. So I'm not going to tell you that's going to be the refund. You can also say to them, rather than have the senior homestead exemption, is not being taken from TABOR refunds any longer. It's out of 1410. It's out of the general fund. To my knowledge, this state has never been able to do that. And by way of being fiscally responsible for this budget, we are, in fact, protecting the senior exemption, but we're taking it from the general fund. It was on the table to go away, guys. It was on the table. I told you that. and we fought like hell to keep it but we had to keep it in the general fund because for this for the tax year because our tax years don't line up with our fiscal years we're under the Tabor cap this tax year and we would not have been able to pay that had we not brought it over into the general fund so I'm giving you representative luck just bits and pieces of things that I talk about I know there's not I wish I could tell you there was one that calms people but I don't know of one unless somebody gives me some advice there I thank you Rep Bradley
thank you thank you Rep Taggart I have obviously a lot of questions about HECPF but I start with the Department of Ed and if we have time I go there I have mentioned this from the world many times. We have a 10,000 drop in students this year. It's the biggest since the COVID pandemic. 5.5% increase in homeschooling, which I think is a big messaging to the state of Colorado. So I can't wrap my head around a 252 million increase of state share when you have 10,000 students being pulled out of our schools. So help me with that.
Rep. Taker. Let me first make the statement that what's in here for education is for the purpose of the overall general fund and cash funds. the state education bill will be separate. And I think questions like that are very valid for when that bill gets started. This per se, I'm not trying to skate anything. This right here right now is a placeholder. And I think you have a very valid question. that those numbers are going down. Now, I think everybody knows as 1448 matures, so to speak, the years of balancing, it's still, I believe, at four years. And as a four-year average for a school, that will drop to three years, I think, on the 30%. I'm not absolutely positive of that. And then it eventually drops to 2%. I don't know if it ever goes to census or not. I just don't have 1448 in front of me. But your question is a very valid question, and the averaging smoothing, so to speak, of multiple years is a part of one of the reasons why it's higher as compared to the true census. All right. Thank you, Rip Kelty.
Thank you. Thank you, Rip Taggart, for going through this with us. I have a question. page 62, in there and under human services, I have lots of questions, but if I only have the one, and I know it just seems like a drop in the bucket, but I'm just kind of going through this. In there, it shows the nutrition education under human services and also the youth services radios, which that one's only $327,000. Still a huge amount for what that program is. because we are in a huge deficit and a financial crisis right now, can you tell me why those two remained in here as something we're spending money on rather than either trickling down, trickle service, the services radios if they do need to be replaced, where we replace what we need to right now, especially if we don't have the money to replace them all, even though they are not supported as far as the vendor is concerned. And then the nutrition education program is $2.5 million. Why are these – they seem untouched. So can you explain those ones to me while we're keeping those?
Rep Teggert Thank you Mr Chair Thank you Representative Kelty I trying to follow you and I don see those on page 52 62
62. 62. Yeah. Well, first off, the first one, I don't have an answer for you on the radios, but I will get an answer from you unless I have some of my colleagues that can speak to the radios. But it's easy for me to talk about the nutrition side of things. So let me pause for a second and see. Okay. We've got to get that question on the radios back to us because all of us are struggling a little bit on this. The nutrition education is not coming from the general fund. It's coming from the healthy school meals for all. And whether we agree on it or not that it should be a dollar and cent spending, I will just say from my experience, and I think all of us are parents, nutrition decisions that are made earlier in life have a very positive impact on our lives later on nutrition that is not that goes unchecked in my humble estimation every day going no offense to fast food but going to fast food restaurants create a nutritional issue that stays with people all of their lives, too, and causes health problems. So I think as a part of the Healthy School Meals for All, using those dollars to educate parents and youth on the importance of nutrition, I think is important. And it's not coming from the general fund. It's coming from healthy school meals for all. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Oh, yes, I remember that now. The discussion about the radios, and please, if you want to add to that, I'm happy to continue to talk to that. The radios that we're talking about are in our DYS facilities, and those radios are aging out. We ran into the same issue with our digital trunk radios. I believe they're the same brand. They're from Motorola, and they, in fact, stopped supporting the old system or about to stop supporting the old system, and that puts us as a state in a position that we're going to be in a position. have to modify to new radios, and these are secure facilities that staff need to communicate with one another. And I think people have heard me on this particular issue as well as the digital trunk. I don't particularly care for the fact there seems to be just one or two providers in this area, and they have us when they change their technology or upgrade their technology and then say, we're not going to support the old technology, it puts us in a difficult position. But we have to have communication devices within a secure facility. That's an absolute must. All right. All right, thanks. Let's go to Rep. Graff.
Thank you, Garst. Just from what we were talking about, the JBC doesn't get a line item of all the programs, and so that doesn't allow for the forensic analysis that needs to be done to uncover the fraud in this. I know our previous JBC colleague was digging into that before he became very sick and subsequently passed away. But can you just tell us what are the funds that were off limits? I mean we have a lot of funds here. We're taking, you know, what I see is a lot of governor-inflicted pain with expanding the number of people that are here illegally. And then, like you said, these are kids. These are kids. They are persons, and they can't just be abandoned. But we have a large level of governor-inflicted pain, and it's now being meted out on the back of Coloradans. I look in, like, 1374 in the supplementals. We've got Medicaid doubling every eight years. And when is a forensic audit going to be done? We're trimming at the edges. We're taking stuff away. We're not looking at cutting the funding from the nonprofit organizations and the non-audited government organizations. So I'm curious what funds, because there's clearly not all the funds were on the table here, what funds were you told or were you not allowed to touch? because I see things like we have like $5 billion going to the cuckoo train to nowhere. And the whole front range rail, yeah. And so I'm wondering why are we not rolling those niceties into some of these things where we're actually taking care of people. I know the governor is excited about his train, but, I mean, we're talking about people that are hurting that he brought here. And, you know, I'm looking at his budget, and I guess he can't afford to pay for all of his, you know, wanton spending out of his own budget. But, you know, why are these programs not being taken out of his funding when these are largely choices he made?
Rep. Teigert. Thank you, Mr. Chair. and let me try to unpack a little bit of that, if it's okay. First off, I will point out that nothing is off limits to us in the JBC. Sometimes, as I pointed out to you, you have to go and look at things at a line item, and there isn't per se a summary chart, so you dig into the line item. in particular But in terms of abuse and misuse in the orbitals you see 1412 if you review that bill grants authorization by way of a case review and then extrapolation formulas to go after two areas that have been very problematic and have hit the press over and over and over from a Medicaid standpoint. One is non-emergency transportation, medical transportation. That's part of this extrapolation audit. PBT has also gone through it. Pediatric behavioral therapy has also been abused. So that goes after that. And then separately, we are also doing an audit on the home care, home and community-based services in terms of a concern that there is – well, we know for a fact there's problems there. There are agencies and providers out there literally advertising to families with children and adults with IDD that they can get those parents $100,000 a year. They're just plain advertising that. We also have agencies out there that are taking very significant chunks of percentage of the Medicaid before it gets through to the ultimate provider, whether that be a nurse or a home care specialist. We are also looking into that as well. So can I tell you that there have been results yet? The answer is no. Did we as a JBC dig into those areas this year and say something's got to change and it's got to change quickly? The answer is yes. The dilemma is how do you do these things that don't decimate the providers that have done things correctly, that really care about their clients, their patients in this particular case, the parents of these, how do you do it such that you don't hurt those people, but you go after the abuse and misuse? And that's what 1412, as well as what we set aside for the IDD waivers go after. In terms of the train, I probably won't use the term that you use, But we did take $10 million from that fund this year. Okay, are there any other first-time questions for the long bill? Rep. Flanel, go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Caucus Chair. And thank you, Rep. Tagger. I know that this is a really difficult task for you, and I do feel for you. My question is actually a little bit similar to rep to graphs I can help but think you know is there a way to do an investigation into all of those people who are on Medicaid Is that, I mean, is that, because it just, it seems odd to me that it continues to increase, yet I personally know so many people that are on Medicaid that should not be on Medicaid, because from my understanding, it's like you qualify if you make under $20,000 or something like that. 138% of the poverty, federal poverty rate is what it is. That's the max. Rep Flanel. Is there any way to do some sort of audit on that? Because I feel like that is where the bulk of our tax dollars are going, and it seems like there's a lot of corruption with that.
Rep Taggart. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Representative Fennell. We have a change in leadership coming in the governor's office as well as a change in leadership for HICFA. I think I'm hoping, and I don't want to sit here and criticize people. That's just not my style. But I'm hoping with that change of leadership comes a new fresh look and a new fresh look that addresses some of those issues. And I think it's up to us as a legislature, as those changes take place here, that we put a lot of pressure on that. I don't know how any timing of a program that's, what is it, in total about $11 billion when we put federal. There's got to be there is abuse and misuse. We know that from just law. There are 95% of us that follow the law and there are 5% that just don't care and do whatever they want. I again it's not a criticism of a past leadership but I'm hoping new leadership will take a very fresh look at these programs and suggest how can we get that under under control if if it's out of control we we have selected particular programs and I think I've talked about this in caucus meetings where we have seen exponential growth that just flat doesn't align with demographics and have said, time out, folks, something's wrong here. And we got to go find it. And we need to go find it before the press. I mean, I don't have anything against the press, but it's a little embarrassing when the press figure it out before we do as a state government. And so we are going after those areas, I said. But an overview, an overall look, I would hope new leadership is going to dig into that and dig into that hard. All right, thanks. Any, Rep. Bradfield.
Thank you, caucus chair. Rep. Taggart, you didn't say anything about transportation. Anything new in that department other than billion Thank you Mr Chair
Thank you, Representative Bradfield. Transportation, as you know, this is just a placeholder kind of situation. The transportation, because it's 99.9% funded by cash funds, we don't have a great deal of influence on that in that particular department. And so is there per se a change there? Certainly not that I'm seeing, but I think we all know the transportation challenges and the state of our roads. And that's, to me, a lot of dollars. And we're constantly criticized in the JBC that we should be handing over more general fund dollars to transportation. And our view is there's money flowing through there. Let's manage it efficiently. So I don't know that I could say a great deal more than what I just said. It's been my impression for every year that I've been here that transportation kind of has their own little kingdom, so to speak, and that it's, you know, hands-off. But it seems to me that they are not good stewards of the roads and bridges. and I think some pressure needs to be brought to them that you're probably not doing a very good job if we are one of the bottom ten states for condition of our highways. So I thought maybe you were going to say what you said, and you did. Thank you. Thank you. All right, yeah, we have more potholes. Okay, any more first-time questions on the long bill? Any more first-time questions on the long bill? Okay, now we will switch to reattacks on the long bill.
We'll go with Rep. Gonzalez and then Rep. Luck. Thank you, Mr. Caucus, Chair. Representative Tigard, so I know the people who run the state government have been incredibly hostile towards the federal administration. Do you see any potential pushback that we could jeopardize federal funding from kind of our actions and policies that this body has pushed against the will of the people of Colorado that I think, for example, transportation funding was just mentioned, maybe potential Medicaid match dollars. Do you see any ramifications of the impact of what we're doing to jeopardize federal funding here for Colorado?
Rep. Tiger.
Thank you, Representative Gonzalez, and thank you, Mr. Chair. There's a risk. There's a risk there. For me not to say there's a risk would be insincere and inaccurate. I don't know what we can do as a JBC to stop that. Again, there are changes coming. it's you know the attorney general and the governor have the authority to take that on so long as they live within their appropriations. But there's a risk. There's no question about it.
Okay. Rep. Luck, please.
Thank you, Mr. Caucus Chair, and thank you, Rick. I have two quick technical questions that I see in the budget as we've been going through. On page 72, the third line from the bottom, it's labeled attorney contractor rate adjustment, and it seems that we're making a $5 adjustment, which when we're talking about millions of dollars is a bit odd. So I don't know. And I'm looking at the staff behind laughing, so I don't know.
Rep. Tegger.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm trying to catch up with Representative Lodge. She said on page 72 it would be the third from the bottom, attorney contractor rate adjustment. She was $5. I believe that's what she was asking. I have no idea. I don't think I've ever seen a number that small. That's why it caught my eye, I think. Did we miss them?
Thank you.
There was a request from our independent agencies as it relates to compensating outside law firms because, as you know, the public defenders are on our payroll, but most of the attorneys in the other independent agencies, we contract. And there was a request in at least one of the agencies, if not a couple, was to raise that rate with outside attorneys by $5 an hour. And we came back and said, we can't afford it. With all the other things we had to trim back, we just said, I'm sorry, we can't do that. And might that cause a law firm not to take on cases through the independent agencies on our behalf? The answer is probably yes, but there's only so much we can afford. And the second quick technical question. I don't know why that stray $5 is there, but that prompted me, and thank you to Director Harper for reminding me of that.
Ripley.
Thank you, Mr. Caucus Chair. Thank you for that answer from all sides. The other technical question that I have for you is on page 57. The second line before the final line, so to speak, I want technical adjustments. I note that the technical adjustments in value is going down 4 million plus, but the FTE is going up 535.7. So I just wondering what that signifies I trying to get to technical adjustments here
Page 57.
Well, it's spelled out on page 61. And it's a thank you, Representative Locke, and thank you, Mr. Chair. We rely on the enterprises, that being the institutions of higher education, to true up with us from time to time what their actual headcount of FTE are across all of our institutions. It doesn't cost us any money because it's part of their enterprises, but this represents a true up of headcount changes across our institutions.
All right. Thank you, Mr. Whipp.
Thank you, Mr. Caucus Chair. I apologize. I was looking over a note. uh rep tagger i i know you probably uh you probably spoke of this a little bit on your presentation but can we touch upon it again on the taxpayer bill of rights uh uh cap the ceiling uh you said that that is what affected the general fund increase um or or can you touch on that did that did that ceiling go up and now now the citizens of colorado are going to get less if any of returns on their tax income for the state?
Rep. Taggart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Representative Barone. Let me try to answer that precisely. And to do that, we've got to talk about two fiscal years. Fiscal year 2526, we are below the Tabor cap. I think in the neighborhood of $300 million. And that made balancing the budget for 25-26 with some of the changes that took place in supplementals, impacts of HR1, very, very difficult, as you know. For 26-27, the TABOR cap rises 3.4% to 3.5%. At present, the way we've balanced this budget per the forecast, there will be $711 million left for refunds in the broadest terms. Now, that's before any tax credits. Now, the two big tax credits have been triggered off because of the fact that they relied on a forecast that took place in December, and we were below the number. so I can't tell anybody what the final number is going to be but right now the forecast is for just over $700 million but that's based on a March forecast that I think all of us would say right now that forecasts are really difficult right now with everything that happening in the world And so for me to say our taxpayers under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights are going to get $711 million in a refund, I can't say that. But I can say we forecasted that we have those dollars as potential refunds. and I hope it gets better and not worse. But we have not, yeah, so we have money above the Tabor cap.
All right, thank you. I guess, okay, Rep Bradley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Rep Taggart. My question was when you guys were coming up with what not to have 2% of the cuts for the health care provider cuts. Why was the pediatric behavioral therapy decided not to be cut? If you read the news, there's been a lot of fraud in that department. How are we ensuring, because these kids need it. I'm not arguing that they don't, but the fraud, it's been year after year after year versus cuts to the IDD community that Rhett Brooks and I have really been very vocal about, the homemaker cuts that we have done, equine therapy, things like that. So I guess I'm just trying to figure out how we pick. And I know it's very, listen, I told you, I would never run for your job. I'm never going to run for that. So I understand how difficult it is. I guess I'm just trying to figure out why we pick something that I'm questioning if they're going to actually do the right thing or we're going to get rid of bad actors versus cutting services to the people that are actually taking care of their kids in the home.
Rep Tigger.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Representative Bradley. I'm going to try to unpack some things in there. First, let me do a simple one. Equine therapy is off the table. It was PI'd this morning. it is now back in the budget for $300,000. So that one I hope we've solved. In terms of why PBT did we call it out not to do additional cuts, I don't know if you recall this, but when we set the rates for PBT procedures, there had been a study that had been done by a third party that looked at several states around the state of colorado one of those states was nebraska and it drove those rates up significantly and i mean fairly significantly that we were going to pay in that rate straight in that provide a rate structure. Believe it or not, the state of Nebraska took a look at that study and went, wow, we're outliers. Our numbers aren't, our rates that we're reimbursing don't look like any of the states around us. And they reduced them significantly. Department brought it back to us then and said okay this rate structure once Nebraska came back into the survey with accurate information we in fact then rolled back in Colorado some of those significant rate increases I don't want to tell you the percentage off the top of my head. I should know it, but it was significant. And so when we looked at the provider rate reduction of 2%, we said, look, we already hit these folks with this major cut. Let's not layer another one on top of it. In terms of the abuse and misuse, that's where 1412 comes into place. and that's going to start, assuming 1412 passes as an orbital, that those case reviews and then extrapolations of those case reviews are going to start very, very quickly, and we're going to get to the bottom of where that abuse and misuse is and stop it. Does that answer most?
All right, thanks. Rep. Kelty?
Thanks, Chair. Rep. Tiger, I do have a... So going back to kind of what I was talking to before about the nutritional education program and the youth services radios, you know, I was raised by parents who were born and raised during the Great Depression. So I understand having to do without, because we did without a lot when it made sense when we had a financial issue. So the state of Colorado needs to do without. And I understand that there's a lot of feel-good measures in this book. I mean, I've gone through the book, and sometimes my emotions are like this because I'm either angry or either I'm okay. I'm never happy because there's money being spent, and I don't like spending money. But, you know, for example, you know, the nutrition education program, for me, this is why I'm having a hard time with it, But I understand that everyone should know what healthy foods are, that kind of stuff. That's a parent's job. It's not the state's job to train parents. If you want to look online, you can Google what's good to eat or not. For us to spend $2.5 million when we don't have the pennies to spend, I have a problem with. And then with the youth services radios, where I was going with that was that in my field of occupation, I deal with equipment and softwares that are, you know, years outside of the vendor support. And just because a vendor is saying, well, you know, we're not going to support it after next year. So is it broken? Is it still working? Can we limp by until we have the financial means to actually be able to buy the new radios? I mean, again, it's only $327,000. But that's $327,000 out of my pocket and my constituents' pockets. And I go back to the feel-good measures because I know in higher education you guys had a tuition waiver for the Native American tuition waiver in here. It's almost $800,000 for the tuition waiver. In Colorado, the main tribe in Colorado is a southern Ute tribe, which is one of the richest tribes in all of the United States. There's only 1,400 members, but yet they bring in plus over $4 billion a year. So we're giving tuition waivers during a time when we don't have have the money to people who are some of the wealthiest people in the whole United States. So I understand the good feeling measures. I understand that. The whole book is full of all of these. But I want to know, why is it that we're not just treating this like facts and data? Why is it that we're continually putting in these good feeling measures when we know we don't have the money for it and we have to cut them.
Rob Tiger.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Representative Telty. Let me start with the tuition waiver. The tuition waiver is not something that we as a state legislature have put in place. It is, in fact, a part of a treaty with our federal government. and the state of Colorado. And that has been a feature, and I look to Representative Sucla, that has been a component of a waiver dollars that goes to Fort Lewis College to educate Native Americans and has been in place for decades. This is not something new. This is not something that we as a JBC woke up and said, to feel good, we're going to spend $21 million. This is an obligation by way of treaties of the past with our Native American tribes that we would in fact fund that. And it is, I can't tell you the details of how that came to pass because it's been in place for a very long time. but it is not new. In terms of nutrition, I guess in some respects, I understand what you're saying, but also understand the cost to society right now of obesity in the American public. look at the amount of the drugs that are on the market right now to address that subject. And some of that is genetic. Believe it or not, probably not looking at me, I come from a very heavyset family, genetically. When I stand alongside of my, I've lost one of my sisters who was obese. When I stand alongside of my family, I look malnourished. I'm not, I can assure you. But I understand you don't agree with me. I think $2.5 million out of the HSMA fund is helpful to help parents and help students understand how important nutrition is to their healthy lives in the future. and I think it needs to go along with the amount of dollars that are coming into that program for lunches and breakfast every day And it coming from that cash fund and I understand your concern I can't really answer the question on the radios. You know, we have to, when it's presented to us, that it's absolutely critical that they make this change over to the new technology. we listen to it. Whether it's 100% accurate, your guess sometimes is good as mine, but it came from very credible people that did make that presentation to us that it was needed.
All right, I think at this point we're going to transition to 1411 and then the rest of the levels will start with 1411. I know there's been a lot of questions to start with on 1411. so we've been at the long bill for nearly an hour we're going to switch over to 1411 now i know i got starting out brett bradley had some questions i've got rep johnson over here uh brett bradley you'll you'll kick it off rep johnson you'll go second thank you mr kakish
mr chair before we do that could i just add one thing to the discussion about the radios Behind me are several of our JBC analysts and the department chair. If you haven't met these folks, please do. They're some of the smartest people that I have ever met. And when it comes to these recommendations, they drill the departments. And when they present to us, they present to us with a recommendation of do they think that this request is a viable, evidence-based recommendation or not. And I will just speak as one JBC member. I trust them because I've seen how much they dig in and find things that we as JBC members would never find. they work their tails off and when they make a recommendation as they did in this particular case in addition to the department
I trust them. All right thank you
Rep Bradley let's switch to 1411 please. Thank you Mr. caucus chair and thank you Rep Taggart and I appreciate your sentiments I think we don't want to come off as not compassionate but I think this is where I'm coming from. We don't want children to go without care, but I don't want also healthcare providers to not be able to feed our children. I didn't sign up to be a part of a sanctuary state when I decided to be a healthcare provider, and now I'm going to get drafted 2% on top of a 1.6%. I have to feed my children too. We have prison guards that need to feed their children. We have nurses that need to feed their children. So we're picking winners and losers in the state. That is what is happening. Because if we cover kids that have, their parents have made choices to come here illegally, now the rest of us have to make choices. And there's parents that are working two and three jobs, especially in my district, that don't even see their kids. I've got a school right now whose parents can even walk their kids to school over homelessness because they're working two to three jobs. So I think that there a flip side of things also right And and we again there losers and winners that that are happening and we grown this four times bigger than what it supposed to be So we have to stop this I going to I just going to ask a quick question actually I just wanted to kind of put that on the record
How many children right now are in this program?
Rob Tigger.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, Representative Bradley. There are 21,000 children across the state that are signed up in this program at present. Thank you.
And so what is the intent of allowing 4,000 more to have access to this program
when we are literally, we just heard that we are not able to maintain nurses in our prisons for health care, and we're not able to compensate the staff at our prisons? again I keep hearing from the IDD communities and people in our communities seniors and people that can't afford to even live in our state and I know this is going to come off harsh but I can't get off a plane in another country and demand education and healthcare and a free place to live and feed me and clothe me and all those things that really the churches and communities are supposed to be doing this has never been in the intent of the state it never has been and now the intent of this day has gone from 26 million to 130 million and now we have to make we're the bad guys that have to make these cuts and it was never the intent it's never been the intent of any other country in the world so tell me why now and i appreciate you rep tiger because you got that big pop of heart and i'm i'm not yelling i'm not mad at you i'm using my mom lovely lowly voice i'm not using my southern voice that i want to use right now but why are we going to expand it another 4 000 kids when we have seniors desperate for property tax relief and veterans that need help and mental health therapy and kids that go home hungry and all the things
rip tecker thank you mr chair and thank thank you representative bradley i think the only thing i
can say to you there is that this was a very hard negotiation for me. I knew that we couldn't continue at the pace of growth that we were on. But as you all know, orbital bills have to be unanimous. And the last count I looked at in terms of the six of us, there are four Democrats and two Republicans. And myself and Senator Kirkmeyer negotiated hard for the very best cap program that we could get. And I can tell you from an evening that was very emotional, and that had we continued down the course we were on for a couple of days, we would have never gotten to a compromise. And are compromises ever perfect? Is this perfect? It certainly isn't perfect from the standpoint that I understand you folks are coming from in terms of capping it lower. It certainly isn perfect from our Democrat colleagues that created the original Colorado cover all Colorado legislation It not perfect to them It not perfect to the individuals that are presently being served here But I tried awfully hard, and this is the best I could, after two sleepless nights working on this compromise, this is the best I could do. And I understand for you folks it's not enough. But it's the best I could do to get a bill through the JBC. And I just remind you that without this we don't have a cap.
Rip Corsi Center.
Thank you, Mr. Cox Chair. I just don't have a question. I just want to say thank you because you're right. Without this, we don't have a cap, and I think this is a start. I think the state, you guys have looked at this before last year. Last year, I know we talked about where are the cuts going to be made. There's no more money, and they swept everything that they could last year. You did. And this is the first year that I can remember in a long time that we're seeing cuts. and I think they kind of are painful, but they're necessary, and I think you've done the best that you can, so I really appreciate the framing of this. And Rep Bradfield and I sat in on appropriations this morning, and we could hear how unhappy the majority party is about having to run these bills, but they're necessary, and it's honestly not your fault that we're here. It's not anybody on this diocese's fault that we're here. It's the majority legislation that has put us in this place. And I appreciate your efforts to chisel away at what has been created and set that cap. I think that's a huge win for Colorado this year.
Rep. Tiger.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. All I can say is thank you. I appreciate that. It's been a hard-fought discussion, so I appreciate the kind words.
Before we jump to a different bill, I do have one question then on 1411.
So we've talked extensively about the cap. What happens if it doesn't go through? What happens? What's the alternative? What happens if the bill is not passed? What's the alternative? Where does this go?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If the bill does not pass, we go back to exactly where we are right now, that the program continues and continues to grow. And I can't forecast where it could go. I just can't. It's been going up at a rate of $30 to $50 million a year. I can't tell you if that will continue but without this it will continue to grow and then what's the impact on the other side of the budget thing if this continues to grow that's going to be more expensive how does that impact the rest of the budget thank you Mr. Chair I can't give you a direct correlation that this program is at the expense of this another part of management but it's going to influence provider rates. It's going to influence other key factors within Medicaid, and it could have impact above and beyond that. Right now it's been born within HICFA, But I can't sit here and assure you that that's where it's going to be born from now to three or four years from now.
Thank you. Rep. DeGraff.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just from these conversations, I'm just thinking that we're only having this conversation here because of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, because we have to have a balanced budget. And so Tabor, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights is ultimately keeping the tax junkies from raising taxes, fees, enterprises, and other schemes ad infinitum, right? So where would we be, I guess, if we didn't have the Taxpayer Bill of Rights? I mean, are we talking like another couple billion? I mean, we've blown through, what, $4 billion? We've got another $4 billion in participation trophies or certificates of participation, whatever. And, yeah, now we have $5 billion for the cuckoo choo-choo. So where would we be without this overall containment on the, well, they're just tax junkies. I'm curious where we'd be without the taxpayer bill of rights. Because I don't, I mean, Medicare, we're looking at that 8.8%, just a quick calculation. I think that means it doubles every eight years. So we're doubling that in scope every eight years, which is an exponential growth rate, which is unsustainable, obviously. So where are we without the taxpayer bill of rights?
Rep. Tecker.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Representative DeGraff. the best way I can answer that is the way I answer about the Taxpayer Bill of Rights to my constituents. We all live within a budget. Our families live within a budget. Our kids, when they go off to college, we give them a budget. I don't know where to go with this. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights is an amendment that causes us in state government to in fact live within our means. And it's critical. And I don't know what else I can tell you. I am a huge believer in that because I'm a huge believer outside of this crazy place living within a budget. And I always have, whether it's me individually or the companies that I've run. And it's just ingrained in me. So I can't tell you where we would be and what the dollars would be. I can just say we have to live within our means. and that means in a year like this and next year as well and last year they're really tough decisions to be had.
Thank you. Rep. Johnson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Taggart my question is on 1349 Can you explain what this does I read it a few times and I was just hoping if you can explain it Bless you
Thank you, Mr. Chair and Representative. This is a program that we always need to be careful. the nurse home visitor program and safe care program as a part of the department of early childhood are are important but they're also aligned with one another and one of the things we have an obligation as a legislature in the jbc as well is if one of those programs yields a higher contribution from the federal government, we should align our spending, still getting to those nurses, those home visitor nurses, still doing it in a way that we can maximize those federal dollars. And that's what this adjustment did, is it allowed us to maximize those dollars. And if you ask me the next step of which one does and which one doesn't, I can't answer that off the top of my head. But I could get you that answer if you'd like.
All right, thank you.
Rep. Gonzalez.
Thank you, Mr. Kalkus, Chair. Okay, Representative Taggart, let's talk about 1409. So it's no surprise that I support the industry itself. I think that it's also a way to take it to Big Pharma, specifically. We saw last year that we pulled money from it. We're seeing $6 million pull out of it this year. Do you know how much money sits in there currently after this switch is made? And I guess was there a cost benefit or an ROI done on it? Because we're continuing to see this industry, part of it's the regulation aspect, that this body also shoves down their throats. So we see sales declining. We also see that it pulls high among Coloradans. I think it's about 60, almost two-thirds of the state people view this favorably, whether people in this room believe it or not. I think it's one of those issues that is pertinent to the people of Colorado. So how much money sits in there now? Was there a cost-benefit? Because I think in many aspects, I think we're going to basically continue to lose millions of dollars in revenue from this industry as they continue to plunder, I think, because some of the things that we do in this building. So I guess those are just my questions. ROI, cost-benefit, and how much money sits in there now?
Rep. Taggart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Representative Gonzalez. I can't tell you the absolute amount of dollars that are in this fund right now in terms of the balance, but I certainly get that for you. But this bill is very specific to the 3.5% that we were taking from the marijuana tax cash fund revenues and dispersing it to local governments Why did we look at that This marijuana tax cash fund program was put in place I think clear back around 2011, 2012 in that neighborhood. Since that period of time, local governments have, in fact, in many areas of the state, licensed marijuana retailers in their municipalities. They also put a sales tax and an excise tax on those sales. And our view in the JBC was they have the revenue by way of local to do what and to spend accordingly in their markets. And the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund goes to several education programs and health programs where we need to protect that Marijuana Tax Cash Fund. And so you could say, were we selfish? You could say, were we supporting local? No, we're not supporting local in this particular case, but they have their own revenue flow. And it's not fair for them to say, you've got to bolster our revenue flow when you're taxing your consumers in your market. And we want to make sure programs on the education standpoint and health standpoint are, in fact, funded with a fund that's dropping significantly. I think that it was up over $230 million a year during the pandemic. The forecasts in recent time have said we're going to go back there at some point or get closer to there. We keep dropping every single year. I think we're in the $120 million now and $120 to $130 million. And we need those dollars. Trust me, we went through a list. There's another orbital bill in here that shows you where those dollars are going. I can't remember which bill number is. But this one is strictly or primarily about the fact that we eliminated the 3.5% of those revenue funds to local. And I will, as a former mayor, I'll defend that to the nth because they've got their own flow of revenue and they should be responsible for what's going on in their markets.
All right, do we have any additional questions on 1411 or any of the additional orbitals that are in the package? Go. Oh, Rep. DeGraph, go ahead.
All right, wasn't sure if I was going to ask this. I just, 1374 is when I get caught up on just flipping through. It's on 97, and that is taking money, looks like $5.5 million from non-certified kinship care. so it seems you know here we have kids and our you know our role is to uh you know make well whether the whole program in general but now we're we're prioritizing lots of other things over this non kinship care and i think that drives us into a uh well that drives into you know certified only which is a lot of hoop jumping which is now we looking at taking these kids who are obviously in a difficult situation and then not being able to not having the funds to put them with somebody just because they're non-certified. It just seems like to me that some of these things are, again, a misprioritization. Here's kids that could go with other family. They could go with friends. They could go with somebody, but those incur a cost on that family, and now we're going to take them, and we're going to not eliminate the cost, certainly, and it's not going to eliminate the cost. but we're going to uh you know we're going to put them in force them to go into a situation where you know they don't know anybody and you know so why why would this money not come out of the certified foster care program and focus on i mean we had these conversations like with icwa and then so i'm not sure if this you know if this affects icwa but you know instead of taking it from, hey, the money now is going to let's put these kids with strangers as opposed to let's put these kids with somebody that they know. Now, I think that goes back to a foster care bill from a couple years ago. But why is the priority on sending these kids to places that they don't
know instead of places that they do know? Rep. Take. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Representative DeGraff, 1374 is not at all intended to have folks that are with family taken from those families. It is not for the purposes of having those kids go anyplace else but with people that they know. grandparents, parents, most likely grandparents or other relatives. This is a program that is totally administered by our county health departments that are very, very good at this. And if I have the numbers right, they fund about 90% of this. We just strictly want our county health departments to do everything they can to encourage those kinship households to become certified. I don't view that as a big hurdle. If you look at page two of the bill, you will see it just strictly involves a background check and home safety check to make sure those children are safe. And we have that responsibility. And so this is just strictly encouraging and doing everything we can with our county health departments. And they understand this program is to get those kinship families certified so that they can have funds. It is not under any circumstances intended to push them away. We just want them to get certified. And when you look at the dollars and cents here, you'll see the write-up that we did is that it initially would have reduced it. If everybody that was in a non-certified situation, we just ended it, it would result in a $9.4 million savings at a state level and county level much bigger. But we only took 5.5 of it because we want to encourage those kinship households to get certified. And I would hope you would agree with me. We want to make sure those kids are in safe settings. We have to make sure that they're in safe settings. Their world has already been turned upside down. And the last thing we want is them to be in a situation that could cause harm for them. So just do a background check and allow the county health departments to do a home check and become certified. We're not asking somebody to go to school, somebody to get credit hours, etc., etc. It's a relatively low hurdle to the benefit of the children. I hope they all get certified. I hope I come back with a supplemental that says, you know, 95% of these folks got certified. And Rick, with all due respect, we're not going to give you the $5.5 million savings. it's going to be $1 million or it's going to be $500,000. That to me is a success in this particular case.
Any additional questions? Oh, yes. Rep. Garcia Center.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I just was hoping that Rep. Taggart could talk a little bit about HB 1353, the student state assessment in social studies just to get it on the mic that it is not cutting the social studies assessment for seventh graders across the state because we all know how important history and social studies and civics and government and geography are And this won't be tested in fourth grade, but it will be, instead of sample tested, it will be all seventh graders. Is that correct?
Rep. Teggert. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you. Representative Garcia-Sander, you are absolutely correct. This program is targeted and focused to make sure every seventh grader goes through an assessment test on social studies. It takes away the elementary school side of things. It takes away sampling. It is for every seventh grader in our public school systems.
Follow-up? Yes, go ahead.
Can I ask why it was landed on seventh grade instead of tenth grade? And I'm just thinking that eighth and ninth and tenth grade also teach social studies and advanced levels of history and geography and civics. Just wondering why seventh grade?
Rep Teggert. Thank you again. I don't know the answer to that. Seventh grade has been a part of this for quite a long period of time, but how the department got to, that's the critical grade. I'm not sure I know the, I know I don't know the answer to that. Let me look behind me and see. I don't see, I don't see our K through 12 analysts here. So we will for sure get back to you why this came from the department, obviously, and I don't know the rationale, but I can get that for you.
Thank you Rep Cursew Center Thank you Mr Chair Thank you Rep Tiger I would love to hear the rationale about why And also I just curious whether you had discussions about the science assessments as well since those are tested at all three levels, elementary, middle, and high school. Why was science not part of that conversation also?
Rep. Tiger. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I seem to recall science came up, but I'm not sure if it was this year or last year. But again, I'll find out. It didn't – I don't recall it coming up this year per se, but we can find out.
Any additional questions on orbitals? Seeing no additional questions, Representative Teigert, do you have any closing comments before we adjourn?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just, if I look a little bit tired, I am a little bit tired. We started with well over a billion dollars that we had to trim from this budget. And I can tell you that my five colleagues, along with an incredible staff of which some are behind me, We have worked really hard these last five months to come up with a long bill and come up with orbitals to address this budget problem and the structural problem. I will be the first to say it's not perfect. I'll also be the first to say that your priorities may be different than my priorities. but we've worked very hard on your behalf and I know I have worked very hard on your behalf to get the best solutions that we possibly could for this 26-27 year and I appreciate your support I appreciate your questions I appreciate the differences of opinion but we keep working at it
Thank you, Rep Taggart. We appreciate that. We do have one last minute questions. Rep, go.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And sorry about that. It wasn't a question. That's why I waited. So thanks for letting me do this after. I just want to thank you truly. To me, you're the best man for the job. And your ability to listen and your thoughtfulness, whether we all agree or not, and maybe I don't even agree with everything, but I just am very glad that you're the one doing this. So I want to thank you for that. You put in a tireless effort. And you bring so much to us. And you just have a great ability. And you've worked hard at your craft to do this. So I just really appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, universally I think from here everyone will say thank you. It is a brutal job. You're still our favorite JBC member, so. We do love it. Well, if there's no other questions, then this meeting shall adjourn, and you all have a great afternoon. They have committees in one hour at 1.30. Thank you. Thank you.