March 24, 2026 · Budget Committee · 28,178 words · 12 speakers · 534 segments
which hopefully we'll get to a little bit later today with all that detail.
Does that impact what you want to know about for the bill, Senator Kirkmeyer? It does to some degree, yes, because I think there might be additional things that need maybe go into the bill, depending on what the funds left over after the HMSA expenses and the reserve.
Senator Kirkmeyer, Madam Chair, there definitely are additional funds. I WOULD SAY EVEN USING THE MORE CONSERVATIVE OSPB FORECAST AND EVEN USING, AND EVEN WITH THE DECISIONS YOU'VE MADE SO FAR. BUT YOU COULD, I THINK, CHOOSE TO DO THIS BILL AS WRITTEN AND THEN IF YOU DECIDE THAT THERE'S SOME OTHER THINGS YOU WANT TO GO INTO IT, IT'S NOT GOING TO BE INTRODUCED UNTIL YOUR LONG BILL PACKAGE. SO YOU COULD MAKE SOME LATER DECISIONS ABOUT OTHER THINGS YOU WANTED IN IT.
Yes? Okay. That but. We can still keep adding to it. Okay.
Well, I mean, does it make sense from Mr. Lively's perspective to introduce it and then amend it later or would you rather hold on to it?
No I don't mean amend it once it's in.
I mean like make changes after Ms. Bickle tells us about what's in her memo.
Yeah, I mean, this is, I wasn't thinking you would introduce it first and then amend it.
Okay, I thought that's what you did say.
No, no, I just meant that you could make a decision now about the bill in its current form, and then you could make a later decision that you wanted to add things to it before you introduce the bill. Does that make sense to you?
Mr. Lively.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would say two quick things. First, the title is at least relatively narrow. So depending on how you wanted to expand the bill, the title might need to change. Also, without knowing what you would want to add to the bill, I'm not sure we could promise we wouldn't need to bring the bill back before you. Obviously, if you all decided to make some real substantive changes, then we would need to bring it back before you.
Well, then let's hold off on this bill. Okay. Because I think it sounds like the committee is fine with what's in there. Folks just want to look and see if there's anything they would want to add.
May I just say it? Just for example, I know we talked about the transfers, both of them $31 million and the $8 million and stuff.
I don't think your mic's on.
It wasn't you. But the $2.5 million for the outreach education, I don't know where that's at. And even when we talked about it, I don't know where we actually put it into the long bill. Is that going to be in the long bill?
It's a comeback that we have, which I believe is a line in the long bill. Madam Chair, that's right. I don't believe that requires, I mean, actually, I don't know. I didn't think it required a bill based on the current law around what you can spend HSMA money for.
So I think you just decide if you want to do that or not. Yes, there's that.
And then I think depending on how much is actually left over from, I mean, there's stuff in the 2526 forecast, 99.1 million. I'm just looking at OSPB because that's who we picked. And then the 2627 one is 119.6, and that's funds left over after all HSMA expenditures and reserves. So we might be able to use those funds for some other things like county admin related to SNAP. But would that be something that we would put in this bill? I would not think you would need to put it in this bill unless you need to change the statutory language about using the money for SNAP administration And I think it would be a question of what you want to do. But if you don't need a statutory change, it's just an appropriation choice. It depends what you want to do.
Okay. Well, I don't know. But you can, once you, it's fine. We can hold off on the bill. And if you want more statutory changes in the bill, we'll add them. Right now it's fine, but maybe we might add something and then change it.
Sounds good. Okay, cool, thanks. Okay. Actually, I have the next one too. On a totally different topic.
I mean, it's basically fine unless we add something else to it. So the next one is shifting gears. years. This is, I came up in judicial department and related to the gaps that you had in the requests versus the, that you got from the independent, various independent entities versus what OSBB had assumed. And I had suggested to you that at least if we could make sure everybody agrees on what the base budget is, it would be better, recognizing that the decision items will always differ. I believe at this point everybody is actually on board with this, including OSPD, the Office of State Public Defender. There is one change that OSPB asked for late, really what the, and so I'll tell you about that. It's a very simple bill at this point. Basically, if you go to page 3, it adds a requirement that by September 1st, all the agencies, so that includes folks under the governor, the legislature, everybody, will submit to the JBC, and the addition would be probably to OSPB as well, what their calculation is of their base budget, which in this case would include just their prior year appropriation, but plus the second year impact of any legislation that had been adopted or any decisions that the JBC had agreed to. That would, I think, be quite helpful for you and potentially for, like, even ledge council staff when they're doing your September forecast because we would be able not merely to compare whatever the forecast is with the prior year budget in their most simple scenario, but the prior year budget plus the second year impact of decisions you'd made. So I think there's some benefit there that we could get everybody on the same page. I also spoke to Ms. Castle at the legislature, and she felt like this could actually be quite helpful, even for on the legislative side of things for making sure everybody's really clear on what their base budget is before we you start making additional decisions on it. As the governor's office, everybody seemed to be on board with this. After I thought I had all the comments, the governor's office said, could you add submit to the JBC, the OSPB as well as the JBC, which would be a change on line 13 of page 3 of the bill. I think that would be fine, because otherwise the information will be sent to us and we'll be sending it back to OSPB. So I think that addition would be a good one. The only other thing here on page 4 it very kind of this should be what happening already but it essentially that OSPB will make sure before November 1st that everybody knows what their common policy calculations are for everybody else. That doesn't mean that everybody else is governed by those common policy calculations, but on the whole, based on current law, agencies, including the legislature, including all the branches of government, actually largely use the OSPB common policy calculations when building their budgets. So it seems like the opposition to this has gone away, unless you've heard something different from me. So I hope you'll carry it.
Okay. I think it's on. Fine. So you have incorporated all of the changes because you said the governor came in late, but I thought you said some other agency also came in late?
No, I think that the only other comment I had has already been added on page 4, and that was like line 10 where it says as soon as practicable prior to the submission of November 1 that the governor's office will give the other agencies the information. But the thing that came in after we finalized was just that line 13-14, so where we would say for the upcoming state fiscal year to the Joint Budget Committee and the Office of State Planning and Budgeting in a format agreed upon.
Okay. Senator Kirkmire.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'm curious what as soon as practicable means. Does that mean like at 9 o'clock in the morning on November 1st? or right after they talked to the press? Like when would that be? You know, obviously it is weak language. We originally had just said before November 1st. My understanding is with the common policy calculations, there's quite a long period of back and forth where there's some stuff that the agencies are told very early. There's some stuff where there may be final tweaks to common policy that happened late. when we said before November 1st, some agencies were worried that OSPB would use that as a reason to delay giving them information. So that's why we added in as soon as practicable. Basically, it's going to be happening over a couple of months, though, the back and forth around this topic.
Rep. Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. You just touched on my concern, and that is if we're asking the departments across the board to submit by September 1st, knowing full well that the common policies probably aren't in place at that, how do we make sure in the final submission that those common policies then get updated into those when they're presented to us? Because my worry is if those don't get updated, it's great to have the base, but as you well know, the common policies add a lot to the expenditures. so I would not want the governor to present to us and say, you know, just because of the timing, common policies are not included in XYZ departments and we back in the same boat Ms Bickle Rep Taggart this bill does not change anything that already in current law about budget requests being due on November 1st
Okay.
And those will include the common policies.
Okay.
All this is supposed to do is make sure that insofar as the governor's office is doing common policy calculations, that they're including in assumptions for everybody that in particular the independent entities actually know what those assumptions are. Maybe do or don't agree, but it'll help us, I think, understand where the differences are when you get requests.
All right, Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move for the introduction of LLS 0948 processes to determine state budget requests.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. House sponsors will be Brown and Taggart. And in the Senate, Amable and… You can do Bridges. No, no, hey, you want to do it? Sure. All right, Amable and Bridges. It's exciting. This one's not too contract. Co-sponsored by Sirota and Kerkmeyer. Good thing you're not on that bill. All right, we'll see if it helps. We might start talking. Mr. Kurtz? Ponies for children? Ponies for children. It's us, it's not him.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This is just repealing in statute, section 25.5-5-332. That's one line and the rest is the appropriations clause. Senator Mobley. Thanks, Madam Chair. Somebody told me that equine therapy is just therapy and they could build this therapy under a therapy code and whether it says equine therapy or not, like it's not its own separate code. I don't know. Do you know about that?
Mr. Kurtz. So there is a, the department will still reimburse for therapies, movement therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy. possible that there will be a substitution that if people are not able to charge for equine therapy, that they'll just use more occupational therapy or movement therapy. And to the extent that happens, that will eliminate the financial benefit of this. The department, their projection and their assumption based on the way people are utilizing this service and what they saw happen when it was first introduced is that this is more of an add-on service right now. That's the way it's being BEING UTILIZED, THAT THE PEOPLE ARE GETTING THEIR THERAPIES AND THEN BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY to build Medicaid for these equine services, they're getting equine services as well.
Senator Mobley. But you can do movement therapy with a horse even after we eliminate this program.
Mr. Kurtz. That's my understanding that the therapist will still be able to get reimbursement. the stable and for the horse the time with the horse you won't be able to get reimbursement for that.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you Madam Chair. I move to introduce LLS0926 repeal Medicaid reimbursement for equine therapy.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. House sponsors will be. Sirota and Brown in the Senate. Kirkmeyer and Amable. Co-sponsors Bridges and Taggart.
Thank you Madam Chair. The next one is, this is the, when we received the enhanced federal match, some of it was being used to offset general fund and we have some straggler reconciliation payments for services that were delivered during that time frame and this just makes sure that those straggler payments also that enhanced match is going to offset general fund. Okay. Vice Chair Bridges. Madam Chair, I move to introduce LLS 0955 COVID increased Medicaid match to general fund. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of six to zero. This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. House sponsors will be Brown and Taggart and in the Senate. Sure. Bridges and Kirkmeyer. And co-sponsors will be Sirota and Amable. Mr. Brackney. Thank you, Madam Chair. Justin Brackney, Joint Budget Committee staff. I got LLS 260921. A couple years ago, the General Assembly passed a bill that included some provisions establishing in statute increasing appropriations over time in both the Department of Local Affairs and the Department of Public Safety. This bill just strikes those future statutory appropriations, and the General Assembly retains the prerogative to increase or decrease funding in the future if it wants. but it just strikes a requirement to appropriate certain amounts in certain years. So it keeps the funding flat.
What's that?
It's keeping the funding flat going forward.
Yeah, that's correct.
And you could always increase or decrease after the fact if you want. Okay.
Vice Chair Bridges.
I move to introduce 0921, Multiple Employer Health Trust Funding. Are there any objections?
That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill will start in the House and run with a long bill. How sponsors will be Taggart and Sirota and Amable and Bridges Okay Co Brown and Kirkware
Mr. McClure. Thank you, Madam Chair. Andrew McClure, JBC staff. So I just have a bill for you here that prevents the reversion of ADLE payments from the IT capital account to the general funds. So we're using these ADL payments to alleviate future tech debt by preventing large expenditures at one time. So this is meant to kind of parse out those replacement costs over time. So we, given this, we don't want that reverting back to the general fund if that is the purpose of these ADO payments.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So this continues the sort of like take a little bit and put it in a bank so that we can fix things as they come as opposed to spending a whole lot of money in an unpredictable way on emergency shutdowns of key systems.
Okay.
So we're keeping the ADLE payments for tech but not for capital is what we've done.
Yes.
Mr. McClure.
Madam Chair, yes, that is correct. I will note these ADLE payments have not actually gone into effect yet. These payments have not been made into the IT capital account. So it's always possible in the future that there could be circumstances such as those described by Ms. Ewell. But for the IT capital account, we just don't have any evidence that this is going to happen yet.
Senator Kirkmeyer. Could you just remind us again why we're doing this bill?
Mr. McClure. I mean, there are so many. Why are we trying to prevent the transfer to the general fund? Sorry, I should have led with this. This is just a cleanup bill. There is an interaction between two existing bills, the bill that created this ADOE payment system, and then subsequently SB 25262 called for the reversion of remaining funds in the IT capital account to the general fund, which would revert those ADLE payments, which is presumably not something we would want to do.
But we did want to do it last year.
We wanted the payments to revert to the general fund, and now we're saying we don't?
My understanding was that 262, the goal of this was reverting to revert unused funds for IT capital projects to the general fund, but not these ADLE payments that are used for this kind of long-term tech debt management.
Do you all want to do this? Thank you Madam Chair It a good idea Yeah you think we should I don I have no memory of the conversation we had
Mr. McClure. Thank you Madam Chair. Well you have had many conversations in here so I can appreciate that. uh the as a tech debt management uh solution this makes a lot of sense to me rather than having these large requests to replace legacy systems as you recall i was in here with the i.t capital request and there's a lot of modernization language this is hopefully going to ameliorate that problem as we move forward
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. McClure, how much money are we talking about here?
Mr. McClure. Thank you, Madam Chair. There aren't any ADLE payments in the IT capital account right now. This was created recently and will only go into effect starting next fiscal year is when we will start to receive these ADLE payments. There's nothing. Yeah, thank you. So there's nothing for balancing that would be available here. This is just in the future. Okay.
All right.
Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Craig Harper, JBC staff. Just as a bit of background, and I will be candid, I don't remember the discussions any better than the members do, but I do have the benefit of a screen in front of me that's reminding me of things. What this bill is trying to do is marry up initiatives from two different committees. The ITADLE payments came out of GTC.
Oh, that's why we don't.
It was a JTC bill to create the ADLE payments for IT. And then you all passed 262 to capture interest and the non-ADLE reversions to the capital IT fund. The benefit there is A, it puts money in the general fund, and B, it'll make similar to the capital process, it'll make the capital in IT, IT capital process more transparent and easier to follow because the amount that you transfer into the fund will be the amount for the projects. What happened is when the JBC ran Senate Bill 262 last year, you ended up with this conflict between your bill and the JTC's bill. And this is just trying to make those two work together so that the ADLE payments that the JTC wanted stay there, but the reversions that you all wanted in 262 stay there. Vice Chair Bridges? We're doing it their way. This is backing down from our position to defer to a committee with admittedly more expertise in IT, but it's not us. What? I don't know that I agree with that. I don't either. Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. You all would know better than I would. I believe that you would be backing down from a position that you didn't intend to take. I think you were trying to get to where.
It's like right now. Madam Chair, I move to introduce LLS 0745, information technology depreciation lease payments. All right. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill will start in the House and run with a long bill. House sponsors will be Brown and Sirota, and in the Senate, Bridges and Kirkmeyer. and Amable and Taggart will co I don want to have to explain it I bet it goes in the consenting I bet it does too. I don't think anyone wants it to be explained to them. We don't have any. Appropriations, I'm going to ask you to explain it. Right.
It's all yours, Kyle. Thanks. I'll do my best.
Shall we move on to packet 12? Yeah.
Ms. Bickle, you're back.
Yes.
Oh, boy.
All right. It's all right. I do stuff like that all the time on the mic.
So Amanda Bickle, JBC staff. We are on page one of packet 12. This one is the ARPA bill, which Mr. Immol drafted really quickly based on your decision, I don't know, one or two days ago. It makes various transfers from various refinanced ARPA funds to the general fund. It excludes, per your decision, the Burnham Yards project.
Vice Chair Bridges. Come on. That hurt. Let me know. No, we need to look through the bill. I am happy to be cut off on this, and please go right ahead.
Does anybody want the explanation, or do you want to move to?
We had it yesterday.
Senator Kirkmire, you have a question?
And the other part of it is the bill is extending the deadline from 2026. It is extending the deadline for one program, which is the Fort Logan Mental Health Institute Capital Construction Project. So it's extending the deadline for returning those funds for half a year. So then we'll see where that project is next year and you'll make a further decision then. Hopefully it will be done.
Okay, okay, Vice Chair Bridges. Are we sure?
You know, Mobley can make a motion.
Any of us can make a motion. I just want to make sure I'm not moving too fast. Madam Chair? Yes, Senator Mobley.
I move for the adoption of LLS number 26. If you're going to make the motion, make it right. I'm sorry. Madam Chair, I move to introduce LLS 0932, topic State Money Used to Refinance AM Rescue Plan Money. Are there any objections?
That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. House sponsors will be Taggart and Brown, and in the Senate, Kirkmeyer and Amable. Bridges and Sirota will co-sponsor. Okay. Let's see, I think I have another one for you here as well.
And that is for the phase out of the TREP program. And I have a memo in front of that too, which at least is dealing with one of these. So this is showing you, I believe I told you that there was a little bit of hold harmless impacts. to the alleged council staff who help provide numbers. The bottom line is that the savings it will give you from the state ed fund, it's the $1.7 million offset. It's basically $1.6 million of savings from ending the program early, and then you get some additional savings in 27-28. those details are shown on page two of the memo. I also have included in here a memo on a bill that you'll be hearing I don't know if it'll be later today or tomorrow which is about that which is the legacy school foods program bill which does a refinance of some old school food programs to use healthy SCHOOL MEALS FOR ALL MONEY, AND THAT'S ABOUT, IT'S ABOUT A $3 MILLION DOLLAR IMPACT ON HEALTHY SCHOOL MEALS FOR ALL. AND THEN THE BILL ITSELF YOU'RE GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT, WHICH IS JUST THE TREP ONE HERE, IS ON PAGE 9. AND JUST AS A REMINDER, THE WAY THIS IS GOING TO WORK IS YOU'RE REDUCING THE RATE PAID for the TREP students in 26-27, and you're also limiting participation to those students who are participating in 25-26 because that program provides two years. It provides both a fifth and a sixth year, so students who are currently in their fifth year will still be able to complete their sixth year next year, but we won't have any new students.
Senator Kirkmeyer. Thank you. Did we ever check to see what's in this line item? Like, have all these funds already been encumbered? So in other words, after the planning year, the next year, you know, it's like, isn't it like three more years after that that they get funding? Was it already encumbered or is it that, and what's in the balance there, or do we have to continue to keep funding year over year like you're showing here? Let's see.
Let's see. We're talking about the TREP bill and what's shown on page six. Is that what you're asking about? Yeah. Okay. So it's the funding source is State Ed Fund. And there's really no funds encumbered. What there is is there's students who are currently in the program. There's 137.5 FTE who are in their fifth year this year. And you will have slots for them next year for them to wrap up the program. There's no other, like, funding reserves. It's just based on your existing school finance formula, there's some small hold harmless impacts within school finance because districts are promised that their funding isn't going to drop by more than X amount. So if I may, so there's no cash fund that was created where the state education fund gets transferred into a cash fund? There's no separate cash fund. It's just straight up state ed fund. It's an annual appropriation from the stated fund. Okay. Rep Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. I had forgotten about the change that takes down the reimbursement rate at a very specific $7,100. Ms. Bickle, could you take us through how we got there? Because I just don remember how we got from down to That is the same figure you used when you took down the Ascent program and that figure was based on a study that said that was sort of the average cost that districts might be paying for community college placements for their students. Okay.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to introduce LLS 0886, phase-out of TREP program. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. House sponsors will be Sirota and Taggart, and in the Senate, Gamable and Bridges. And co-sponsors will be Brown and Kirkmeyer. Okay. That's a long one.
Thank you very much.
Maybe you shouldn't have signed up for this one. So, quick question.
Senator Kirkmeyer. So, the Legacy School Foods Program that's using the $3 million of healthy school meals that paid for it. That's not reflected in this balance, right?
No, it's not. So that would be one use. Another use would be the approximately $27 million that you've already voted on, I believe, related to SNAP payments or SNAP administration. But all of that is relatively small compared to that $119 million figure. You also said here that that's another bill draft. Yes. I'm sorry. I thought it would make it into this packet, and it didn't. But it will be in the packet that you get this afternoon for discussion tomorrow.
Okay. All right.
Thank you. Mr. McCleary, you're back. Andrew McClure, JBC staff. What I have for you today is a bill draft for changes to the Affordable Housing Financing Fund. I have a memo here on page 20 of your packet. If you recall, during figure setting, there was a proposed transfer from this fund totaling $110 million. At the time, I did not make a recommendation for you all, given the uncertainty of the forecast. following the forecast, I am now recommending approval of this transfer of $110 million, given that we are, under OSPB's forecast, $229 million below the TABOR cap. Staff views this transfer as low risk, but as you can see from the memo, I do want to clarify that there is not no risk to this transfer. There is still some uncertainty as to whether this is TABOR revenue or not. If we remain below the TABOR cap then this is an academic point But if we have unexpectedly high revenues by the time of TAPER certification on September 1st 2026 then there is a potential uh a potential issue here if at some point in the future it is found that this revenue is not TAPER exempt. So I just wanted to flag that for you all. I just wanted to flag on page 8 and 9. I think I'd like, I have been asked to consider whether or not we want to change that language, and I think I am convinced that we should not be changing that language there on page 8 and 9, just leaving it as it was, as passed.
Mr. Lively. Thank you. Are you talking about starting at the bottom of page 8 of the bill? Yeah, pages 29 and 30 of the bill. Page 8 and 9. Page 8 and 9. Page 29 and 30 of the bill. Mr. Lively. Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Bridges, just to confirm, if this subsection is not changed at all, then there would be no subsection that would be explaining the necessity of transferring this money out of the state affordable housing fund. So perhaps as a bit of background, like what the subsection says under current law is that if in a March forecast for the next state fiscal year, it's determined that the state's going to be under the cap, then money can be transferred out of the state affordable housing fund. In this case, what happened was that at the March forecast, neither forecast predicted that. Instead, it wasn't until later. So when OSPB, or sorry, when the governor presented this request, the governor suggested that either just for this particular transfer or perhaps for future years, which is why I think there's a question, it would be allowed that not just the March revenue forecast, but some other revenue forecast could be used to determine whether there is a sufficient revenue shortfall to justify the transfer. So would it be acceptable to you to just say for this year?
Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, is there a way to say we'll do it this year because extenuating circumstances, et cetera. Moving forward, this is still the language that governs. And if there's another year like this year, we know that we, if we need to, can do something like this. But that's sort of, that's not the default approach to this.
Mr. Lively.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, Senator Bridges, I think then what I would suggest is making what is currently 5, 5A, duplicating it as 5B to make a change and just specify that it's for this year and then repeal that paragraph a year out so that we have this in existence for the relevant fiscal year, but then it disappears.
Vice Chair Bridges.
Will there be a this section has been repealed line in CRS? I just hate how many of those I see. It doesn't just go away entirely.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Bridges, I believe there would be yes. I'm not sure, I mean, how to prevent that because there would be repealed language.
Senator Kirkman.
So if we change the language as Senator Bridges is suggesting and you're giving us language for, does that mean we wouldn't be able to make any transfers for budget year 26-27?
Mr Lightley Thank you Madam Chair No I mean I think that that could be a choice that the Joint Budget Committee would make That choice would be independent of any at least contemplation of that subsection 5 that I've heard because I don't believe anyone's anticipating that we will be under the TABOR cap for 26-27. Perhaps I misunderstood your question, though.
Senator Kirkmeyer.
I just want to know if it would prevent any transfer of the monies in 26-27 budget year.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
No, it would not make any difference in comparison to the current language we have. But it would mean we'd have to come back and do it again since our March forecast was over the cap.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Yeah, and Mr. Ibley.
Madam Chair, and I think something that's perhaps helpful as a bit of background is to explain why the language is written the way that it is. The reason that the language is written why it is, presumably at least, is because of the somewhat odd funding nature of this program, which is that we have the money, make sure I get the names right, I've written them down. We have the State Affordable Housing Fund, which fills up during the fiscal year. and then on July 1 money is transferred out in part to the Affordable Housing Financing Fund and in part to the Affordable Housing Support Fund. So the advantage to determining in March whether you will be taking this money out is that you all and the General Assembly can run a bill to make sure that that transfer happens before all the money goes out on July 1, Whereas in this case, we've obviously missed July 1 of 2025 and are coming in after the fact. As this bill shows, it is possible to make this work, but it leads to a somewhat odd situation where we're taking the money out in this year, but the impact will be felt on affordable housing programs in the next fiscal year, which is, I think, perhaps not what was originally intended, but it's something that the General Assembly can choose to do.
Okay. MS. Well, then, I think if it's amenable to the committee, if everybody is okay with the change that the Vice Chair has requested, if we could have those changes incorporated and then come back to this bill.
MR. Absolutely.
MS. Thank you.
I just... I think we need to do that with friends.
Okay.
Sorry about that.
All right, Mr. Kurtz.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The next one, we have a provision and statute that was run by the Budget Committee last YEAR THAT ALLOWS MANAGED CARE PROGRAMS AND DENVER HEALTH IN PARTICULAR TO TRANSFER SOME MONEY TO THE STATE FROM LOCAL TAX DOLLARS THAT THEN GETS MATCHED WITH FEDERAL FUNDS AND WE SEND THE MONEY BACK SO THAT IT INCREASES THE FEDERAL FUNDS THAT DENVER HEALTH CAN EARN. THAT PROVISION ONLY APPLIES TO HOSPITAL SERVICES. this bill would change it so that it also can apply to physician services that Denver Health is offering because Denver Health as the hospital side, but they also have these clinics. So this is just allowing Denver Health to draw more federal funds at no cost to the general fund.
Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I move to introduce LLS 0927, Denver Health Federal Funds for Physician Services. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. House sponsors will be Brown and Sirota, and in the Senate, Kirkmeyer and Amable, co-sponsors Bridges and Taggart.
34 of the packet Thank you
Mr. Kim
Thank you Madam Chair Alfredo Kim, JBC staff So committee I have for you LLS 260947 This repeals three programs Listed as limited purpose Fee for service contract programs This was part of the department's request That the committee adopted and this sunsets all of these programs one year out.
Vice Chair Burgess.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I move to introduce LLS 0947, adding repeal dates for certain higher education programs. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. In the House, sponsors will be Taggart and Brown.
And in the Senate?
Sure.
Bridges and Amable. Co-sponsors will be Sirota and Kirkmeyer.
Thank you.
Ms. Pope.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Emily Pope, JBC staff. This bill, starting on page 37 of your packet, is the bill to say that we will not double count money that's being received from two DHS from the raise.
Senator Mobley.
I thought there was some problem with this.
That we thought we had this solved and then we didn't. Or did I just dream that we didn't have this solved? Now we do.
Ms. Pope?
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we've explored a lot of options. There is no option where no one person, where everyone is not concerned. So there remains people who are concerned about this bill draft. I feel tolerant. So the bill draft just says we're not doing that, double counting, and maybe it flies and maybe it doesn't.
Senator Kirkmeyer? Since I wasn't in any of those meetings, and I'm not sure who was, but I'd like to know why this is any different than what the General Assembly did back in like 93, 94, 95, 96, when they were defining what was to be counted under TABOR and not How is this any different Was there any discussion on that Ms Pope Thank you Madam Chair I have not even heard myself directly from the folks who are concerned so I can speak to that Well, then maybe I can ask Pierce a question.
Senator Kirkler.
May I ask Pierce a question? Is he the drafter on this one? Who's the drafter on this one? Oh, it is Pierce. Do you not want to give us legal advice? I'll just ask a question. Senator Kirkmeyer. Does this bill differ dramatically from what was occurring back in the early 1990s after Tabor passed in 92 when the legislative body went through and started determining what counted, what didn't count, what was exempt, how to implement Tabor?
Mr. Lively.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Kirkmeyer, I think this is similar in so far as it falls, I would argue it falls within the General Assembly's plenary power and authority to interpret and implement the Constitution. I think this is slightly different in so far as it's not a strict definition of state fiscal year spending in the section where we define that. But if anything, I would argue that makes this bill more defensible because the bill is narrower in its application.
Thank you.
We'll take it.
Go on. Vice Chair Bridges.
Well, it did look like Mr. Lively had something else he was going to add.
Mr. Lively.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Mobley, no, I don't think so. Obviously, I can't speak to what other people's concerns may be and why they have those concerns. I think that is up to those other people.
Okay.
We think you're a pretty good lawyer.
Vice Chair Bridges?
I think you're a really good lawyer. I'm very happy that we're doing this. 0931, Managed Care Entity Payments. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. House sponsors will be. Rota and Taggart and in the Senate, Amable and Kirkmeyer. Co-sponsors will be Brown and Bridges.
Okay. All right. Shall we go back to the staff comebacks?
Tab one. Tab one. Thank you Thank you Did it seem like they were going far? Where did they go? I don't know. Did we adjourn? Nope. Still rolling. What? I mean, like, you know, my mic's on. All right, well, we need a senator. We have one. We need one more. And with me, you might even need two more. All right.
Mr. Bracke.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Justin Bracke, Joint Budget Committee staff. I have four comebacks for you that represent all the outstanding items on my list. To bring back to you on page two of the comeback, this is packet 12. You'll see that kind of in total, my revised recommendations are about $30 million general fund less than what I originally recommended. I'll walk through the first two items with you briefly because they're both connected and only needing a vote on one. So the first one is the unfunded pair liability shortfall. This is the, for the past four years, there's been cost overruns in this particular appropriation, mostly due to unbudgeted overtime, but also the way that overtime stacks with incentives and shift differential and all this other stuff, that 10% unfunded liability payment has been above and beyond what's been appropriated. So what we have here is a request for $3.9 million in the current year and $3.9 million next year to address that shortfall. I'm recommending that you do both on a short-term basis, one time for next year, while folks figure out the shift relief factor issue. Speaking of which, because it is connected, the correctional officer shift relief factor on page three. My original recommendation was for 29 million and 325 FTE annualizing to about 31 million and 350 FTE the following year. I'm withdrawing my original recommendation just for balancing purposes and also to just close the loop. It's not as if the analysis change. I think it's still viable to do part or all of it, but just for the sake of closing the loop, I'm withdrawing my recommendation and also your need to vote on it. I did bring back a little bit of additional information. There were some questions during figure setting about using reductions in overtime. There's a line item in the executive director's office that you could reduce to offset because one of the primary goals here is to reduce the amount of general overtime being worked in the department. And if you were to approve the whole amount of kind of the 325 FTE, you could just ballparking, maybe start with a reduction of about $10 million and just go back during supplementals next year and kind of see where things are at to kind of offset that cost. It's kind of a little bit of just a switch. You're appropriating for FTE instead of overtime, and then they can use some of those funds to figure it out as they go. And then there's some more information about how often non-security personnel are working security at This is just a handful of examples I have numbers for every facility if you wanted BUT YOU CAN SEE see that case managers and teachers are working required to work two or one shift per week Lyman etc etc So basically, if you don't move forward with some or all of the shift relief factor, I would recommend that you do approve the department's request for the para liability shortfall. So I'll stop there if you have any questions.
All right. Well, I was trying to follow, but I'm going to say I wasn't following probably very closely. So we're not going to do the $29 million increase, but we are going to do a $10 million reduction in overtime? No. Mr. Bracky.
No, Madam Chair. Senator Kirkmeyer, it's just if you wanted to move forward with appropriating the money for the FTE to address kind of the insufficient number of FTE they have to cover all the, hours they need to work, you could offset that appropriation with a reduction in overtime and then true it up next year once we kind of know how much overtime they're working, if that makes sense.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I know we need these dollars, but
At the same time, I wonder if there's an opportunity to test your concept in some locations, including the reduction of the overtime, and see if it pans out. because in business it would pan out, and it would be healthier for all people involved, not just our folks that are imprisoned, but certainly it would help staff. And I wonder if there's a step in between that we could test this in a couple of, you picked the number of locations. I just don't think it's healthy to keep driving this level of overtime.
Mr. Brackey.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Taylor, yeah, a reduced amount is certainly an option.
I think generally just, again, it's more of a best guess,
but like kind of a one to three ratio of overtime versus, so if you were to just do 10 million for the shift relief factor and kind of just set a flat number and we could kind of figure out which facilities it might make sense to work at, you could offset that potentially with like a $3 million reduction in overtime and just kind of see what happens. So again, it's a best guess. It would require some supplemental truing up, I would presume, depending on how it works. But you could absolutely kind of scale this and just kind of do a pilot at a handful of facilities in any amount that you feel like would be warranted for this purpose.
And would you be able to tell based on budget lines, if it was just happening in a few facilities, would you be able to tell based on overtime, it's broken down by facility and usage so you'd know if it were working?
Yeah, I think the department could provide that information. I think we would have to work to kind of streamline the data reporting and stuff right now that they've provided, which informed the analysis. but I do think we could get kind of a more granular how much are we actually paying out for specific staff and specific facilities. I know that they do code and they're spending all the way down to the prison level. So I do think... We could probably try to reconcile the two and see where we're at now versus where we'd be if we appropriate more money for FTE for specific facilities.
Senator Kirkman?
So basically, if we don't go with your original recommendation, we go with today's recommendation.
Are we just putting off a $29 to $30 million shortfall into next year and that we know we're going to have to go find funding for it at some place?
Mr. Bracke. Yeah, Madam Chair, Senator Kirkmeyer, I would say, yeah. I mean, like, this is kind of a giant festering problem that's been going on for years, and that obviously requires a lot of money to address and a lot of FTE. Part of the argument here is that if you even did a partial amount for FY26-27 to kind of see how it works, it at least gets you part of the way for any future changes that you might make, because I would presume that they're going to come forward with a budget request next November in some amount for some shift relief factor. So any amount you provide now would just be getting you a portion of the way to whatever they end up requesting next year, rather than doing one giant lump sum all in one amount. So to Rep Taggart's point, doing a lesser amount would at least give you a sense of how it's working and step you up on the way there, if that makes sense.
Senator Kirchmeyer.
And then also in your comments here with regard to the paraliyability shortfall, it's increasing the shift relief factor purports to reduce overtime. Is it or is it not reducing overtime?
Mr. Brecky.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Kirkmaier, it was, it would, I think, that's my conclusion, that's my analytical conclusion. We just don't, we haven't seen it in action yet. So that's kind of the challenge is exactly how much overtime you'd reduce. You would need to kind of figure that out as you go.
Senator Kirkmeyer.
So by the reason you're saying that we haven't seen it in action yet is because it only took place in this current fiscal year?
Mr. Bracke, we haven't done it.
Why are we funding it on liability?
Yeah, the shift relief factor issue, the last time they updated their shift relief factor was 25 years ago. And as people take more leave in recent years, that's contributed to the amount of overtime they're working, which is contributing to this unfunded payer liability shortfall. So, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question.
Senator Kirkmeyer.
Well, how much more time do we have to do shift relief, have the shift relief factor before we can figure out if it's actually reducing overtime?
Mr. Bracke.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Kirkmaier, I would imagine in the first year you'd see part of this is kind of the big question here is how many people they could actually hire at specific facilities. Your challenges at hiring at a facility like Sterling are much different than your challenges of hiring in, like, the Canyon City, Pueblo area. If you were to do a pilot, like, I know they're working a lot of overtime at Fremont, even though their vacancy rate at Fremont on paper in the Canyon City area is very low. their effective vacancy rate is very high because people are out on leave. So if you were to try this at a facility where you know hiring has been better, I would presume you would see fairly immediate results, presuming they could actually hire the additional staff at those facilities. That's the big question is if you appropriate the money, could they actually bring the people in? The department thinks it would. I would agree with them in those locations where they already doing pretty well It just a different kind of challenge when you trying to do it at Pointa Vista Sterling and stuff like that Rep Taggart
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Hi. I know it would be helpful to me if Mr. Brackey could select
the locations where they're being successful and bringing down the vacancies
and come back to us with a potential proposal of how much that would take in dollars associated with a number of FTE because I'm concerned about burnout. I'm also concerned that folks that have been hired for positions that are not corrections officers are being placed in situations that have to be uncomfortable for them. And I don't, you know, it would be hard for me to say, is that $10 million or $15 million? But the longer we push this off, the worse things are going to get.
Well, I would say I don't disagree with you.
This feels like a, I don't know, we're on a collision course for bad things in corrections, I think, due to the staffing challenges that we have, these tables showing teachers and case managers and the number of shifts they're doing each week, this is bad. And so I don't know if the, but I will also just say we've got to close this budget and we are reaching a point of we don't have a lot of time for the department to keep coming back with plans. So I think if the committee wants to do some kind of a pilot here of this, I actually think we should just pick a number and do that. I mean, if you feel like you need more information before you could make that choice, I just don't know how much time there is.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I think I appreciate all the work that's been put in here. I'm inclined to just go with the recommendation, the revised recommendation for today. We are going to have to talk more about DOC before the session ends because there is no, I don't believe there's anything about the prison in this comeback, and that's coming before us, and that obviously is going to have also a huge impact on staffing. And I don't want to just pot shot at some, let's throw a little bit of money in there. The department hasn't asked for this. It's probably a good idea to do it, but given where we are with the budget, I think I would be comfortable just taking this revised recommendation. And when we have another conversation, I assume after the long bill is done, we'll, we can talk about all the things and about staffing and about how we're going to staff something new and all of that Rep Taggart Thank you Madam Chair
I just have to say I'm totally uncomfortable with that approach. We know that over time at the level that is being performed right now is not in the best interest of anybody, and we also know that it's going to be difficult to hire case managers and teachers and other individuals when they're being asked to be correction officers. That is not in their job description. And I, if you want me to give a number, I have tremendous respect for this man that presents on behalf of corrections. I would say pick the number that Mr. Brackey used a few moments ago and say $10 million and let between he and the department figure out which prisons where it could be tested. Senator Mobley.
I also have tremendous respect for our analyst, but I don't tremendously have confidence that the department is going to actually change any of this behavior just because we gave them some more money. Like, I just don't know how we make that happen by us just here today saying, oh, well, here's some more money that you didn't ask for, and we don't really know what you're going to do with it. And so I'm disinterested in us doing just pick a number. I think that seems very, has the potential for us to just be throwing money into the wind. I did, I could just respond.
I did that just strictly because Madam Chair said to me timing is of the essence. if Mr. Brackey has time to come back to us quickly with a more thorough number, I'm fine with that as well. Well, I mean, you could pick a number and it could be piloted in certain facilities or also it could be just a number that's available in a line item and it would be its own line. So, I mean, the department could use it as much as they could. I suppose you'd have a better sense if you were targeting it to particular facilities of whether or not it was something that was working.
If we appropriated some amount for the shift relief factor, would you reduce the recommendation for 26-27 on the pair liability shortfall?
Mr. Bracke? Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think just for the sake of simplicity, if you do anything in some larger amount, like so we're talking about $10 million, you're not obviously adhered to that. But if you wanted to appropriate $10 million for the shift relief factor, I think you could reduce overtime by $3 million, making the total cost of that $7 million. Work with the department to figure out how to distribute that money. and then I would just say reject the request for FY 2627 for the unfunded payer liability, and we can always do a supplemental true next year if it still looking to be So basically it would be savings of million on the unfunded pair liability reduce over time by million and then appropriate million for the shift relief factor It would be how I think about it, right? So if you do something on the shift relief factor, I would just reject the FY26-27 portion of the unfunded pair liability, knowing you can always just true it up during supplementals next year. That's kind of a big part of this.
Senator Krookmeyer?
And so does that get us to what I thought your original concern was with your original recommendation was is that there's, I mean, kind of like truth in budgeting. Like this is how much we think it's really going to cost just because they didn't request it doesn't mean it's not going to cost that and they're just going to come in with a supplemental. So, I mean, that's why I was looking at your revised recommendation and then you put in additional information about consider the overtime reduction of $10 million of general fund offset the cost of increasing the shift relief factor. So now you've kind of maybe tweaked that a little bit.
Is that what you're doing with this next suggestion?
Mr. Brackey. Yeah. Generally, I think my advice is if you do appropriate some amount of money for the shift relief factor, you could reduce overtime by a third. So $15 million appropriation for shift relief, reduce overtime by $5 million. Just knowing that there's going to be some amount of supplemental adjusting next year, given that there's a lot of uncertainty in how this will actually play out. So in trying to balance your budget, that's kind of how I'd recommend going about doing it. But that also, if you reduce the overtime that is needed, you are reducing the under-budgeting for the parapayments. Correct. Because you'd also be appropriating money for unfunded para liability as part of your FTE appropriations.
Yes. So. Well, I don't know. I can't tell. I like that suggestion.
$15 million?
No, the reduction of the peer liability at the $3.9 million,
and then reduce the overtime, correct, is what you said, to offset it?
Yeah. But that would correspond with a shift relief number.
That's what I'm asking. What number? Could you just explain one more time?
Let me think of how to phrase this. There's two general ways to go about this. There's the pick a number route, which is just the amount of money you're willing to dedicate for the shift relief factor. There's also the route of I go back and I look and try to figure out. I do have it broken down by a list of facilities from my original recommendations, so I could bring that back pretty quick. Talk to the department a little bit. Whatever amount you settle on for the shift relief factor, you would reduce overtime by a third of that, approximately. So, again, $10 million reduced by a little over $3 million for overtime, and then reject the request for next year for the unfunded payer liability, which is the $3.9 million that they're asking for. So your total net increase after all this is said and done is, again, it'd be if you're appropriating $10 million for the shift relief factor, it'd be an increase of $7 million. Because all you're doing is rejecting the request on the para-unfunded liability. It's not a decrease so much as you're just rejecting that portion of it. Does that make sense?
Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. rather than just pick a number right now and then we're locked in, if you can do that quickly and I guess easily, I'd rather have the actual numbers in front of us and we go with that as opposed to just... We decide a number and it's wrong by a certain amount, which it's going to be anyway, but I'd rather get it as close as possible.
Okay.
I'll be back. Thank you.
Okay.
So page four, this is just another staff-initiated item. Place a letter for community supervision. like the shift relief factor, all I was doing here is trying to close the loop and withdraw my original recommendation, meaning that there's no requirement to vote on it. I still think the original analysis is valid. There's probably some different ways to help streamline the way, particularly folks that have already been approved to be released, but I think that's something for you all to sort out between yourselves and the governor's office. So no action needed here. I'm just withdrawing my recommendation, and you can move forward or not at your own leisure.
Okay.
I was going to say peril. Peril.
I thought it was too. Awesome.
So page five, this is the last item here. It's the one-item detail for the management division. This was delayed action on it pending discussions. This is as close as I could get with the numbers moving a little bit. I will adjust as needed to reflect all the other decisions you make, but this is just your consolidated table for the line item detail.
Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move Management Division line item detail staff rec.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0.
I'll be back. Thank you.
Ms. Pope.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Emily Pope, JBC staff. A few things to talk about for human services. First, I think Senator Kirkmeyer mentioned that she wanted to revisit a decision you made around transfer authority for the Division of Child Welfare. And then I also have an adjustment to transfer authority for the Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health. So there are footnotes in the long bill that give different amounts and different kind of approaches to transfer authority within the department. there was a footnote for unlimited transfer authority between a few line items in child welfare. There's a $1 million allowable transfer between some line items in youth services, and there's an allowable 5% transfer authority within the Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health. During figure setting, I made recommended some adjustments to those transfers, and you approved them for child welfare. this was a result of the department transferring about $3 million from Health Life Dental to child welfare, which was part of their allowable transfer authority, but I felt was not necessarily an appropriate use of that transfer authority, particularly if we had seen a similar thing in a different department. So I recommended that you rebalance some of those lines and limit their transfer authority to $1 million to align with the Division of Youth Services. At the time, I indicated that that could have, will definitely have impacts for the county closeout process, which could impact the access to children, excuse me, access to services for child welfare youth. And the committee chose to take that recommendation, but I think counties in particular continue to remain concerned about that transfer authority limit. So if the committee would like to change that decision, that's why I'm bringing it back to you.
Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Emily for all the work you been doing on this So totally in support of the rebalancing the appropriations between lines makes perfect sense and let catch up with it It's limiting the authority to transfer between the lines that you have listed here, you know, and the other lines within child welfare, BUT I DON'T KNOW IF THERE'S A WAY TO DO IT TO WHERE WE DO LIMIT AUTHORITY WHERE THEY CAN'T TRANSFER FROM HLD TO THESE FIVE LINES. I MEAN, I GET IT WHERE THAT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY DID THAT. AND YOU'RE RIGHT, IF THAT WAS ANY OTHER DEPARTMENT, WE'D BE HAVING SOME DISCUSSIONS ABOUT IT. SO I DON'T KNOW IF THERE'S AN ABILITY TO DO THAT WITHIN. IS THERE LEGISLATION THAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE?
MS. POPE. THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. I am not aware of a way. I think it was surprising to us that they were able to do that. So I don't know if there's something legislatively you could do to limit transfer authority to HLD, but I think this is sort of Mr. Chem has raised concerns about the ability to transfer essentially appropriated line items for reasons like this. So I don't think there's an immediate way to address that.
So is there a way to go maybe in the positive that transferring can occur between these lines, these certain lines that you've identified, and that's it?
Thank you, Madam Chair. So the issue is there is at least one of these lines that has FTE in it. So the department transferred $3 million from HLD to that line with FTE, and then from that line to the child welfare block. so I don't think there's a way that we can change the current transfer structure I mean the only thing I came up with was limiting the amount that they're allowed to transfer which you could, I said one million dollars just to align with DYS but you could choose a different amount or you could choose a percentage or whatever you're comfortable with but I'm not sure that there's another option to consider other than limiting the amount that you're comfortable with
Well, the problem is if they can't transfer between these lines during closeout, then you'll have counties who are not made whole, essentially, because their allocation was not enough. Because it's not like they're overexpending. They're being underappropriated and underallocated. So that's the problem is how do we get to a solution where, again, the realignment part makes perfect sense. I've often wondered about that myself. over the years, even prior to being a state senator. But it's just the limiting the flexibility to go into each of these lines, and you limit it only to a million dollars when I don't know what the total funding is right now for child welfare services, probably should, but I do remember it used to be over like 350 million. So that would be a problem at closeout.
Thank you, Madam Chair. that it could certainly be a problem. And I think what counties have offered is maybe we realign, look at it in a year or two, see what happened. Maybe the department has taken the signal that they shouldn't be transferring from HLD. So I think those are essentially our options, continuing to allow the unlimited transfer authority or setting some sort of limit on it.
Senator Kirkman?
But could we carry legislation THAT ONLY ALLOWS CERTAIN TRANSFERING TO OCCUR BETWEEN LINES CERTAIN LINES MS POPE THANK YOU MADAM CHAIR I NOT SURE HOW Between lines certain lines Ms Pope Thank you Madam Chair I not sure how I don think I have any insight into what limits we could put on HLD transfers
I think that's been the issue that Mr. Kim has been trying to raise with you.
So we can or can't put it in statute to limit those types of transfers?
Thank you, Madam Chair. Our understanding, again, from Council is that there is case law that would appear to indicate that you have very limited ability to control the movement of money associated with Health Life Dental, at least.
Unless we just cut it.
Ouch.
We have the ability to cut it.
Correct.
Well, do you like what Ms. Pope has here? You're just, there's an outstanding question as well. Senator Kirkmeyer.
Thank you. I like the realignment and the rebalancing. That makes perfect sense. It's, and I would like to be able to figure out how to limit their authority to transfer HLD to child welfare services. That's not why we appropriate funds to HLD so that they can transfer to child welfare services and basically put it into the block is essentially what ends up happening. That's not the purpose of it. But these other lines, the five lines in child welfare, there needs to be the ability and the flexibility to transfer whatever they can possibly from those lines to help where our allocation is short to help beef it up at the end at closeout. And that's typically what happens. I think in this last year, every county, with the exception of maybe the city and county of Denver, remained whole after the transfers occurred. Thank you, Madam Chair. Maybe the option is to remove the hotline from the transfer authority or put a specific limit on that transfer and allow the other ones to be unlimited because that's the one with the FTE in it.
That's a great idea.
So to clarify, would you like to fully remove the hotline from the transfer authority or would you like to set some sort of limit on the allowable amount to transfer from the hotline? And I can recommend a number. I wasn't prepared to do that. I think if you recommended a number, that would be fine. Okay.
Okay, the other one was for the Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health.
Similarly, I recommended a $1 million rebalance between forensic community-based services and the Pueblo Hospital and limiting their transfer authority from 5% to 1%. That's because their appropriations have grown significantly in recent years, and also they were only transferring about 1.3%. The department asked if I could reduce the amount that I was recommending to rebalance, so only doing a $500,000 move instead of the $1 million, and I'm comfortable with that, so I'm recommending that we make that adjustment.
Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Move Staff Rec Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health. Are there any objections?
That passes on a vote of 6-0. Okay next I wanted to give you some updates on where we stand with some potential legislation One of those was kinship which we ended up getting a bill draft for and you approved yesterday So we can move on to adoption assistance and RGAP on page 8
Kind of similar to where we were with kinship, you asked me to continue working with counties in the department to look at cost control options. That is because the general fund appropriation is almost $50 million in the budget year, and it's increased by 122% since fiscal year 23. The department had requested legislation to reduce the amount that we're reimbursing counties to 80% instead of 90%, and they continue to request that as the best option and haven't been supportive of other legislative options. Counties have recommended capping financial assistance payments and removing case services from the entitlement. Those caps would vary based on the age of the youth and are provided on page 9. As a reminder, case services include supports that are important to maintaining permanency, such as child care, tutoring, and behavioral therapies that aren't covered by Medicaid. Counties are concerned that alternatives for these services, including Medicaid-eligible services, are not fully exhausted before families are utilizing the entitlement. The executive branch is concerned that these options will have significant impacts on families without realizing significant general fund savings. They estimate that these options will be about a $4.7 million reduction in the budget year, and that will increase to $5.5 million in the next year. so or excuse me it's 5.5 million for the department's option of reducing the reimbursement to counties compared to 4.7 million for this county option I'm recommending proceeding with the county option because the department's option is not really addressing the long-term sustainability issues with adoption in our gap and I think you should also seriously consider removing the over expenditure authority for this program I have heard you talk about some of the concerns with things like the Department of Early Childhood not being able to forecast some of their expenditures. And the Department of Human Services also certainly has issues with their ability to forecast costs for this program. I think it could have serious impacts to remove the expenditure authority. This was established as an entitlement for a reason, and that reason being that families weren't getting adequate access to services but the department could always request additional funding as necessary they would just have to justify those expenditures to you. So I do think we're going to have challenges moving forward with drafting this legislation because there's some lack of clarity in current statute about what's even covered by the entitlements but right now I'm recommending that you proceed with the county option and we'll do our best to get it included in the long bill package but I'm a little concerned about our ability and timing to do that.
The casework, case services, this is related to, I mean, there were some pretty heart-wrenching articles that had come about relative to adoption services over the last few years, but really specifically looking at families and, like, failed adoptions, essentially, because of a lack of case services. So, I mean, this is what we're talking about, right, Ms. Pope?
Yes.
Rep Brown.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm trying to understand the difference between the executive proposal. It seems so that the executive branch was proposing 80% of the costs, and the counties came back with specific percentages related to specific services. can you tell me a little bit more about how this impacts the was the county proposal essentially that they would reduce while the executive branch would have reduced funding that goes to people and the counties themselves the county proposal is just reducing it to the people or what's the difference I guess other than the percentages which seem lower in the county proposal.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Rep. Brown. The proposal from the executive branch is to not make any changes to the program, just to reimburse counties less for those costs. So the counties would essentially be eating some of the cost of the program. So that's why I'm saying that helps us in the budget year, but it's not really addressing the long-term sustainability of the program and is just shifting the cost to counties. The county proposal is reducing the services and payments that families receive. So it's a more severe option, but it's trying to address not only some of the cost drivers, but, again, counties are genuinely concerned that these services are being used when there are other alternatives available.
So just to follow up, it sounds like, I mean, under the county option, how does that impact sort of the county, the dollars that would be retained by the county, or it doesn't? So you're saying that the first option, the executive branch option, they would essentially, the benefits for people would say the same, we would pay less, the counties would pick up some part of that tab. In this particular environment, we're actually reducing the allocations to the individual people. And I assume what happens with the payments that the counties would be receiving. They're just not, we're just reducing the cost, and so the families end up with the cut. Is that it?
Ms. Pope.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, so under the county proposal, families receive less financial assistance, less services. The counties pay less. The state pays less.
Okay.
Senator Perkmeyer. So maybe some history of this would be helpful because the child welfare is a block allocation. It wasn't meant to be an entitlement program any longer after 1997 when it went through. And it used to be that the counties were able to negotiate on the case services with the providers of that to make sure they got a good price. Because otherwise, when it was an entitlement program, it was just kind of going through the roof. I mean, the dollar amounts and stuff. Because they were just entitled and there was just automatic spending, which is why removing the over-expenditure authority might be a good idea. BUT SO WHAT THE COUNTIES ARE PROPOSING OR WHAT THEN HAPPENED IS I DON'T KNOW IT HAD BEEN LIKE 20 SOMETHING 10 OR SOMEWHERE IN THERE LET'S JUST SAY WHAT THEN HAPPENED WAS IS THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH SAID OH LET MOVE ADOPTIONS AND RELATIVE GARDENSHIP INTO AN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAM PULL IT OUT OF THE BLOCK AND MAKE IT AN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAM COUNTIES TOLD THEM AT THAT TIME IF YOU DO THAT adoptions and relative guardianship into an entitlement program pull it out of the block and make it an entitlement program Counties told them at that time if you do that you will start increasing the cost and it will be expensive. And the state said they would go ahead and do that and they would bear the increased cost by having a 90% match instead of the 80%. So, I mean, it's not like the counties could say they didn't want it. It just happened. And it took away counties' ability to negotiate and try and keep the payments down to a reasonable cost. So then, here we are now, the state is coming in and saying, eh, forget what we said before, and we're going to make the counties put in more money. And the counties are saying, look, we will work with them, but we have to have the financial part, be able to negotiate on services and be able to cap what goes to adoption and the relative guardianship. programs because it can't be an entitlement because you give us a block allocation. It's not an automatically we're just going to keep spending. It's not like Medicaid. So that's the problem here. So I would be inclined to go with the county's proposal. Senator Mobley. I also would be inclined to go with the county proposal. I think they're the ones that are going to bear the brunt. We're trying to, you know, demonstrate from Mr. Vice Chair. We're trying to bend the curve, and they have a proposal here to do it. They're the ones that are doing this work. They're the ones that are on the ground that understand what the implications of that are going to be. And that seems better to me than the state just coming in and saying, well, you still have to do all the things, but we're going to cut your funding.
Rob Brown. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms. Pope. So the county proposal retains the 90-10 split, but is reducing our costs and the county costs by capping benefits in particular ways and reducing the amount of that support that families are getting. And so this, we believe, puts the counties and maybe the state, I don't know, believe will put the program on a more sustainable financial trajectory. Is that correct?
Yes.
This here, eliminate case services, does this mean that counties will no longer provide case services at all? or what is the connection in relation to the other services that they think some of these folks actually are entitled to through Medicaid and other alternatives?
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, it's my understanding that there will still be options to provide these services, including through the child welfare block. That's just where you end up with that block already being overextended. So I think there will certainly be impacts, and that's why the executive branch has not been comfortable supporting this position. But, again, counties remain concerned that we're not adequately looking at other alternatives before relying on the entitlement as the default.
Well, I'm willing to go forward with this county proposal with deep anxiety about how this is going to impact adoption and ensuring that kids stay adopted and don't return to foster care. Yeah I mean I mean we so what are we currently I think I missing this I don know the details well enough but what are we currently these like the adoption rates and the or the RGAP rates in the proposal it 50 or 60 or depends on age How is that different from the current rate that they're getting paid?
Do they get the full foster care rate at this point?
Ms. Pope.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To my understanding, the only requirement is that it has to be less than the foster care rate, and there's a standardized assessment that determines what rate you get paid. Okay.
And what is the typical rate? It's a standardized assessment that all counties use at this point?
Okay.
Okay. But we don't know what this 50%, how that relates to what the current assessment rate is, or the current payment rate, I guess, is.
That's correct. Thank you, Madam Chair. I can try and get more information for you when I bring back a bill draft. One reason, another reason the executive branch wasn't very supportive of this option is because they felt like there's not very many families that are getting more than what's being paid here, so it didn't seem worth it to set limits. And that sort of reflected in the cost, the savings only being a little less than a million compared to 50 million that we're paying out. But I can try to get more information on those details.
Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry to belabor this committee. I appreciate your patience with me. How will we be tracking the impact that these changes will make on, I think, as the chair mentioned, either adoption or the ability of kids to stay adopted, I guess? Do we have mechanisms in place either through the department or otherwise to track the impact that these cuts are going to have potentially on families?
Thank you, Madam Chair. There is data collecting and reporting on youth that reenter foster care after adoption and guardianship. and I'd be happy to think about there's also a statutory report around adoption in our gap so we could include that in the report.
Okay. I think I would be interested in that at least so that we know the future impacts of these decisions.
We'll also say in a lot of these allocations the department is encouraged in statute to ask for budget increases as they need them, and I have never seen that happen, but that's language we could also include here as well if you would like. But it's not necessary with the over-expenditure authority necessarily.
Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Is staff rec the county proposal then? Yes, and technically you've already given drafting authority just since there's this kind of debate about how we should move forward. I wanted to bring it back to you before proceeding. Do we give drafting authority for the county proposal? You just gave me drafting authority to work something out. That's right. We said go figure it out. So if you would like me to move forward with the county proposal, that's what we will work on.
Vice Chair Bridges.
Madam Chair, move staff recommendation to move forward to the county proposal in drafting. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6 Madam Chair before I leave I would like to note that there are two bill drafts we working on that don have a fiscal impact and I think we're struggling to get them together for you in time for the long bill. One is about updating the use of the excess Title IV-E cash fund. We did get more information on that today, so we're hopeful that we're going to have that ready for you, but just giving you a heads up that if an issue comes up, we may ask to delay that. The other one is related to how we're handling payments for youth who are in residential, child welfare youth in residential treatment that Senator Kirkmeyer asked for during my HICPA figure setting. We've had a lot of stakeholder meetings, and I think we still need additional work to come to some sort of option for you. So I think moving that until after the long bill would be helpful.
I think that's fine. That's fine. Okay. Senator Kirkmeyer.
But we are still looking at pausing, and then we're trying to figure out with regard to children that are in child welfare placements, how to deal with them. Because they used to be carved out, and now they're not, and that 30-day kind of clock thing is a problem. That's what we're working on.
Thank you.
Okay. So after the long bill for both of those seems totally fine. Great. Great. Okay, Ms. Bickle.
You again.
Okay. Then we can go back to the bill. Thank you. That's all right.
I'm Amanda Bickle, JBC staff. I've got first a pretty minor just technical change for you about for the wage and local school food purchasing and technical assistance grants for healthy school meals for all. The figures that you approved during figure setting were based on the department request. That was based on a forecast, and I belatedly determined that there had been some changes to the law that meant that the calculation is actually based on two years prior, so 24, 25 actuals, so we actually have real numbers. So I'm just recommending you adjust these figures. their amounts from the Healthy School Mills for All cash fund for these programs based on current law. They're really close.
Huh?
They're really close.
They are close, but it's, you know, a million less.
Thanks, Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I move staff, rec, JBC, Comeback, Department of Education from Amanda Bickle, March 23rd.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0.
So the next piece is really just informational, and there's two pieces up to it. First was initial calculations that I'd done with Ledge Council staff, and then the thing I just handed out to you is based on the OSPB forecast, since that's the forecast that you've adopted. So we can... Mostly look at that one, I think. The bottom line, though, on both forecasts is that you definitely have no problem doing either the $31 million transfer back to the state ed fund or suspending the state ed fund transfers to HSMA and still providing the grant programs, which is a reserve requirement. requirements so no matter you can do those things and it doesn't under either forecast it works but current law requires you to specifically look at the ledge council staff forecast for making that determination so therefore I first wrote for you the ledge council staff forecast one but having when are we using that huh are we going to use OSBB or ledge well I'm anticipating that for everything else you're going to be using the OSPB forecast because that's the forecast you've adopted but statute says that for determining whether you've hit this reserve requirement for healthy school meals for all so that you which drives the amount of the grant and the stipend programs it specifically says you should use the ledge council staff figures and And so, and it in fact says, Ledge Council staff and the department, but I'm kind of your intermediary here. So I think there's, everybody is in agreement that you fund the grant and stipend programs at the maximum amount based on the Ledge Council staff forecast. The OSPB forecast is lower, but I brought that to you, not for making that decision about the grants and stipends, but for just looking, thinking about what do you want to do generally with this and understanding the difference between the two forecasts, which is kind of remarkable, honestly. The numbers are huge given the scale of this thing. So if you look at this new memo I've given you on page one, you have a comparison of the OSPB and Ledge Council staff forecasts. and you can see the difference is actually over 88 million in 25-26 and another 43 million in 26-27 and I met with all the forecasters on yesterday to talk to them about this and sort of try and get my hands around why are these things so disparate And basically, everybody says it's because we have no idea. You know, this continues to be a rather new revenue stream, which is highly dependent on things like changes in federal law and H.R. 1. The two teams used different approaches to forecast the figures. Neither one seems to think the other's approach was wrong. they just come out with really different amounts. And as the experience was last time around with Prop FF, particularly for Prop MM, you won't actually have any real information until November of 2027. So it is very much a forecast question And it for Prop MM you really see the impact in 2526 and that's because in 2526, that figure is not capped because it's a half-year approximately impact. And Tabor 3 and the language that was in the ballot initiative said that the Prop MM revenue was for up to $95 million, that that only applies to starting with the first full fiscal year, which ends up being 26-27. So you've got different figures there for MM, but you can see you've also got very different figures for the Prop FF and LL impacts. And all I will say is that given these huge differences, I am glad if you are using the OSPB forecast, which ends up being quite a bit lower. I think particularly in this case where there is so much uncertainty about the revenue, it is definitely better to use the lower forecast. So then on page 2 and 3, I sort of just walk you through with the OSPB forecast where things seem to be. Question?
Senator Kirkmeyer? Or Reptaggart, sorry.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Bickle, you've got me confused in one area. I thought you said the C- statute required us to use the LCS forecast when it came to healthy school meals. I don't, so I'm a little bit lost as to which one can we really use. I agree with you always of taking the more conservative approach, but you confused me a little bit. I'm sorry.
No. Rep. Taggart, my apologies. Statute requires you to use the LCS forecast for a very particular thing, and that very particular thing is determining where you stand whether the reserves are large enough to give the amounts for setting the grant and stipend levels. So the reserves, if it's at 35% or above, 35% of the amount required for administration and meals, if it's above that, then you give the maximum amount under law for the grants and stipends. If it's lower than that, then you give lower amounts for grants and stipends. Statute just says you must use the LCS forecast for that. So happily, both LCS and OSPB would agree that you should give the maximum amount, and so that is what you've done, right? That's the action you've taken so far in terms of the amounts for the grants and stipends is based on that, on that maximum reserve level. But then I'm assuming for the rest of it, you're going to look primarily at OSPB, and I am not necessarily assuming that you're going to spend every dollar, right? I'm just sort of, but I think OSPB is a good place to start with sort of understanding where you are relative to how much of the money that we think is available is committed in one way or another So going to page two so here we are starting with the OSPB forecast And so you have a start of your balance in 2526, which was $29.1 million. I'll just note that that's partly because state ed fund money was spent instead, and now you've repaid that state ed fund money. And also Prop LL had some money that was being held in reserve, and that's released. So you start out, actually, the year in 25-26 with almost $30 million. Then you've got the revenue forecast for 26. You have the expenditure decisions that you've already made. and that gets you an end of your balance of just over 101 million basically. And that then really carries forward to 26-27 where the grant stipend programs start to kick in and some other things start to kick in. So what I've shown you in these next two columns is you've got current law, But then I think you probably want to look primarily at the one on the right-hand side, which is showing you with the bills you've sent to draft. And this was, in fact, the bill that you just reviewed earlier and didn't finalize, but everybody seemed to be okay with changing the transfers. So if you look in that far right column, you'll see for 26-27, You have basically $223.6 million in revenue once you've taken money out for that transfer back to the state ed fund. You've got expenses laid out there of $181.5 million. If you compare those two things, you have $42 million over, and you've had some carry forward from 25-26. So that leaves you before you do any SNAP things based on your actions so far, you've got $143 million. Setting aside that minimum reserve for the grant and stipend programs, I've assumed you would continue to do that. I just think, honestly, it's good practice given the instability of this revenue stream to keep some kind of a reserve in place. and then you've got other decisions that you've made so far and you actually just made one of them or we talked about one of them, you haven't quite made it yet you've got the SNAP administration decision that you've made so far which is the 37.3 million and then you've got about 3 million for the legacy school food programs I think that figure's actually come down slightly from when I put this together. But it leaves you at $102.6 million, or approximately. And that is where your current end-of-year reserve is. You can also see, I've shown you, the reserves of percentage of meals and administration right now would be at $68.7 million. So I am imagining you probably still want to keep about 50 million in reserve but you do have you could potentially potentially do some more I have you know certainly to the extent you want to do for example some investment in trying to reduce your SNAP error rates going forward If there's additional investment you can do that would result in that, like that would be beneficial. I think this is an uncertain revenue stream, So I'm always unsure about these numbers, but you probably have enough space to do something like that.
Senator Kirchmeier.
Yes. So my first question is, why do we have to wait for the $31 million in 26-27? Why can't we do it in 25-26? There's certainly the money there.
Senator Kirchmeier, you could do that. But I don't think it makes much difference either way. I'm just asking.
And then with regard to the SNAP administration, and I'm assuming everything when you say expenses
like admin and the reserve, that's all coming out of the healthy school meals. Correct.
None of it's general fund.
Okay, great.
Just wanted to make sure. Then on the SNAP administration, down at the bottom where we're end of year balancing OR I GUESS THAT IS WHAT IT IS. AND YOU HAVE 37.3 MILLION. IS THAT JUST THE STATE'S ADMINISTRATION OR DOES THAT INCLUDE THE COUNTY ADMIN DOLLARS IN SNAP?
I WOULD NEED MR. DERMODY TO SPEAK TO THAT. IT'S THE DECISION THAT YOU MADE EARLIER. I THOUGHT IT WAS STATE ADMINISTRATION BUT I'M NOT 100% SURE. sure we can perhaps Director Harper can text Mr. Germany and he can tell you more about the action you've already taken there.
And then I have the same question with regard to the administration and we do need to know if that includes the county admin. I'm not sure that it does but would like to know and then I'm wondering why we couldn't do that also in 25-26.
Senator Kirkmeyer, I don't know that there's anything that would stop me from doing that necessarily. I would, yeah, I will have to, Senator Kirkmeyer, I will have to double check the statute because I cannot remember if it says effective July 1st, but I'll check.
Okay, I'm sure people are listening and they're going to let me know. Senator Kirkmeyer.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
And then with regard to other, does all of the dollars have to go specifically to like food related or SNAP related kind of expenditures?
Senator Kirkmeyer, yes.
I mean, that's based on what's in current law.
You know, it is law, not the Constitution. Things can be changed. but based on the action of the voters, it certainly seems appropriate to do it for food-related things.
So I do think there are some other grant programs that are in human services that are food and nutrition-related that maybe we could look at and have some general fund in them. And then also I would think that we could still, that would mean that we could use CBMS dollars, dollars for CBMS that are related to SNAP because there's quite a bit because the error rate and some of the changes that are occurring within CBMS are related to the error rate that, you know, I don't know why we're not focused on it as why the department is not focused on it more, given that it starts in October of this next year. So anyways. I would hope that we could use some of these dollars for CBMS and maybe move up some of that project to get CBMS fixed. Because if we can fix the work participation and the error rate issues and the work questions in CBMS for SNAP, it also helps us for CBMS in the PERM for Medicaid. So I don't know what I don't have a dollar amount for there, but I think we should be using that and seeing if there's stuff again. If we can't move these, see if we can't move all these up into 25, 26, get some savings there, and then also do it in 26, 27 and get savings there. Same with your legacy school food program. And I still, I'm just going to keep saying this because I have people who keep asking me about it. And I know this wasn't my thing, but the 2.5 million outreach and education, that needs, we need to make sure that that is included in here, that we are reducing that. And I don't know if that's included in your grants and stipends, the $32 million, or not. But I don't know where you have outreach and education at that $2.5 million. And then, like I said, there are some other programs that are food and nutrition related that I think maybe we could, if they're general funded, we could substitute if there are funds available. Ms. Bickle.
So, Senator Crookmeyer, it's not part of that $32 million. Just to be clear, that is very specifically for the Healthy School Meals for all grant and stipend programs. I think in terms of those other uses, I don't know if Mr. Dermody has any comments about whether that $37.3 million for SNAP administration includes a $2.5 million component for... If I recall, we made the line and said we'd come back and decide what to put in it. Mr. Dermody.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Tom Dermody, Joint Budget Committee staff. So if I'm tracking correctly, one of the questions was whether there's county administration funding being supported by HSMA. That is true. There is some. In terms of outreach, yes, there is a portion of the approved amount for the, for HSMA includes roughly 1.3 million in HSMA funding for specifically for SNAP outreach. in terms of the nutrition education. That was, the line item was created by the committee during figure setting. We had anticipated getting a number from the department during their comebacks. I'm still working on getting that number before you. So that is still a bit of a question mark.
Senator Kirkmeyer. So Madam Chair, my understanding is that number is 2.5 million. That's what was agreed upon apparently at some place with someone other than me, but it was out there. Between the advocates and the people who put the ballot initiative in the first place on, and that's my understanding it was 2.5. Am I low or is that right?
No, no, I think you're correct. I think just agreed upon, it was agreed upon by a number of people,
just maybe not the administration. Yeah, well, but I think they kind of deal, so deal's a deal. And then it sounds to me, though, like the SNAP administration is actually more about the offset are the loss of federal funds going from 50 to 25 percent, 25 percent federal.
So I don think that million includes county admin for SNAP Mr Dermody Thank you Madam Chair Senator Kirkmeyer does That million includes that cost shift from the federal government to the state and the county admin line It also includes $3.6 million for county indirect cost plans for federal pass-through, as well as $6.4 million for county administration overspending. So it absolutely does include a significant amount of funding from HSMA to counties.
Does it include all of the county admin? Dollars?
Your dialogue.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Kirkmire, no. My understanding of the statute as it currently stands is that HMAA dollars can supplement but not supplant current funding for SNAP administration. Well, then we need to change current law.
There's no reason this money just sits there and we could be spending it and using it to assist with our general fund problem. I mean, only if there's an ending balance. What is the recommended reserve?
It is basically 35% of meals and admins. It's at $52 million. I would say on an ongoing basis,
it looks like you have about $50 million to play with
between the ongoing expenses and the, well, actually maybe a bit more than that. I mean, if your ongoing revenue is $250 million and your ongoing expenses are in the $180 million range, so you've got about $70 million a year beyond the amounts that are required for HSMA that can be used for other things.
My assumption is that you will continue to keep that $50 million, though, ongoing in reserve, right?
But that's if you like one-time funds until you spend it. So you do have some, if you like money to play with, which includes that $37 million that you've already identified for SNAP,
maybe another $3 million for these other programs. But also potentially other very large costs for SNAP coming in the future.
Yes, absolutely. I mean, I would say personally to the extent that you can, that there are things that you could do now that would help reduce the risk of those ongoing costs for SNAP growing even more, right, based on the error rate. Like I think now is a good time to make such investments if you know what they are, like if it's clear what you should do.
Senator Kirkmeyer. Well, and I think I kind of know where you're going with maybe your questioning. And if we just did the county admin change in statute just for 25, 26, and 26, 27, because we can always see if there's funds, because I would agree with you. I mean, we agreed that there should be reserves, so we don't want to, I don't want to screw with that. But I think it's pretty clear for 25, 26 and 26, 27 there would be. And then I think CBMS is one of those other areas where we could look at that is definitely related to SNAP and the error rate that we should be looking at to see if we can get those workload and workflow issues down and those technical errors fixed so that maybe we can get our error rate down or for sure don go over 10 Because if we can get our error rate down, then that also reduces the amount of healthy meals needing to go to SNAP. That's the benefit of that as well. I don't know. I have no, what is the dollar amount we're talking about?
Ms. Bickle. I mean, I think that I'm not clear on exactly what the dollar amount would be in terms of what you would want to spend on this, but I know that the out-year costs with SNAP are quite high if your rate ends up getting worse. It goes over 10%. Yeah. So I think I would agree that if there are things that we can do now to address that, if it's county admin, I don't know what specifically we are suggesting here, but I'm open to that. I just, I don't think that I would want to reallocate the balance, which is a projection. Nobody knows. but what we're anticipating. It's been a roller coaster, this program and the revenue. But we are contemplating or anticipating, rather, some very, very large SNAP costs to come. So I would prefer not to use it if we can have it for that.
Senator Kirkmeyer. Well, I would just say this. adding to county admin allows them to add additional staff to work to get the error rate down and get people determined or eligible who are eligible to get the determination done so that, again, it starts bringing down our error rate. And that's really what we need to be focusing on. And I think the changes to CBMS, because of the lack of data information and the work management portion of CBMS is lacking, From my understanding, I'm not fully engaged on that as I used to be, but that's my understanding of it. I think looking at where we could spend the money now, and if we want to make sure that there's at least maybe even more money in the reserve for things like you're talking about, then I don't have an issue with that either, but I just think there are ways we could, one, help our balancing of our budget, and also at the same time really start trying to focus in on how we get that error rate down. AND EVERYONE CONTINUES TO GIVE VERY POSITIVE UPDATES TO WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE WHOLE SAFETY NET COUNTY ADMIN DISCUSSION THAT SNAP IS RELATED TO.
I guess my question would be, Ms. Bickle, what do we need to do now? What needs anything done statutorily? And what is a long bill allocation? I'm trying to bucket what kind of actions we are needing to take now. What can be a decision not right now? I see, like, maybe you want us to, you know, agree to the fully funding of the grant and stipend amounts. I can't tell. AND THEN THE BILL THAT WE HAVE DOES ANY OF THIS NEED TO GO IN THAT OR IT JUST AN APPROPRIATION THAT WE MAKING SO MADAM CHAIR WHAT I SHOWING YOU The bill that we have does any of this need to go in that or it just an appropriation that we making So Madam Chair what I showing you here really reflects virtually the actions you already taken right
I mean, except for that you haven't yet voted to introduce the transfer bill. And the actions that you've taken other than the transfer bill don't require legislation. if there is something else that you want to do to divert some of the healthy school meals for all revenue to pay for, I don't know, other grants in human services, or if there's some other project that you wanted to use the money for that isn't already described in statute that you haven't yet discussed exactly what that would be, like that could, you know, we could potentially combine that with the transfer bill that you're looking at already. Right now, there's no additional action you have to take. Like this is just showing you sort of where you are based on pretty much the decisions you've already taken.
Senator Kirkmeyer. I thought Mr. Dermody said that on the county admin portion that we would need a statutory change because right now it's in statute, or did I misunderstand? Mr. Dermody.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To the best of my understanding, the provision around the use of HSMA funds for SNAP administration is that it was supplemental and not supplanting. So it could not supplant current appropriations. It was the way it was drafted and my understanding of it is it was intended to address the cost shift that the federal government had implemented, shifting essentially half of the federal government's responsibility to the state. As a result of that, the majority of that HMSA funding, HSMA funding that was approved by the committee is for county administration. Roughly of the 37, it would probably be about 24, 25 million is for county specific purposes.
Senator Kirkmeyer. And so does that give us general fund relief? But are you saying we can't do that in 25, 26?
Mr. Dermody. Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Kirkmeyer, that's correct. It does give general fund relief in 26-27 because without that HSMA, that 20-something, 30-something million would be a general fund obligation. I believe it was MM, it might have been LL, I forget which one. MM allows for HSMA to be supplemental funding for SNAP administration, not supplanting funding.
So I'm still not clear, actually, what Ms. Bickle needs from us in this memo or if it was just informational. Mr. Dermody, are you doing a comeback for us on the SNAP-ED line, or do you want us to freelance that right now?
Madam Chair, I do have a newly minted comeback in the comeback folder that is yet to be put into a memo or a packet for you. I would say staff's recommendation in that memo for appropriations for the nutrition education line is, to your point, kind of winging it, given that the department hasn't provided a number. I've just taken it best. If 2.5 is what the committee would like, that would alleviate one of your comeback memos at this point.
Do you want a motion for that?
I would absolutely need a motion, yes ma'am.
2.5 million for the SNAP-Ed. It's outreach and education. Move 2.5 for SNAP-Ed outreach and education.
Mr. Dermody. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd probably ask for a little bit more specific on that motion because SNAP outreach is its own thing. The nutrition education was a very specific carve-out for HSMA appropriations, so I would just say 2.5 million for.
Well, SNAP-ED is actually no longer a federal program. It got struck in HR 1.
But isn't that what we named the line?
No, there was no line item for SNAP-ED.
We made up a line item. Yes, nutrition education.
Is that what we're putting it into? Yeah.
Nutrition education.
Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of six to zero. Okay, back to Ms. Bickle.
So, Madam Chair, you voted on the only thing I had for you, which was to modify those grant and stipend amounts. Otherwise, this is really just informational because I assumed that you would want to know sort of where you were with this funding stream based on the OSPB.
forecast. Okay. I think we did want to know that. So I don't know if this then suggests anything else needed to go into that HSMA bill that you presented us earlier today. I think maybe to Senator Kirkmeyer's point about how we are addressing SNAP and county admin and if there is anything left that we could do with the HSMA dollars, that could actually be done through the long bill and we could make an amendment to that later after we suss out the actual numbers that we're talking about.
That's correct as far as I'm aware. I mean, if the interest is in somehow refinancing some other programs, that might require a statutory change. But if, for example, you are interested in, there might be some other changes that we could just do in the long bill. So perhaps we could talk a little more about offline about sort of what exactly have in mind, and then we can look at what might need a change or not and how much money we're talking about. At the moment, I feel like I'm winging it. I don't know enough about exactly what you're thinking of.
Okay. Okay. Senator Kirkmeyer.
Then we're going to need the numbers for CBMS. and what's being invested in CBMS for SNAP. And also the $3 million and the $6.4 million that you talked about, the offset, whatever that was, Mr. Dermody. Whatever other numbers you have, you said something about that we could fund an additional, I thought, $6.4 million and $3 million. You were talking pretty fast. I didn't get that.
Mr. Dermody. Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Kirkmeyer, those are already approved. those were part of the request that was approved by the committee that was 3.6 million for county cost allocation plans those are the federal pass-throughs and then six point roughly 6.4 million for county administration over expenditures that's already approved by the committee
okay so we need the cbms numbers and i guess i need to go back and look at MM and then look and see if there are other programs because I know there are other food nutritional type programs in human services and other places Okay, thank you. Thank you.
All right, I think everyone needs a brief break, and then we will come back for comebacks. so the budget committee will stand in a brief recess
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Joint Budget Committee will come back to order. Director Harper, were we starting on this new comeback packet 15 or are we going to 14? What did we say?
Thank you, Madam Chair. My understanding was that the committee's desire was to move to 15.
Okay.
To give just a little bit of context, this set of staff comebacks interacts directly with OSPB comebacks that you receive from OSPB. The line that we tried to draw, because JBC staff does not generally come in and debate the OSPB comebacks, we're happy to provide input if you want it, but the items in this packet are places where the OSPB comeback provided additional information and the JBC analyst would actually have changed their recommendation based on that new information. It may or may not align with what OSPB is asking for in the comeback, but that's the context for the items that are in packet 15 is new information actually was helpful to JBC staff and they're bringing forward how they would adjust their recommendation based on that data.
Okay. All right, Ms. Kanagaraja.
Thank you. Phoebe Kanagaraja, JBC staff. This first set is on early childhood related items. I admit that the first comeback item doesn't fit quite so neatly into Director Harper's description. The department did come back on this item, but that didn't necessarily change staff recommendation. What has changed here is based on the OSPP forecast. And the main thing that I want to bring before the committee is the first sentence in the updated staff recommendation that the OSPP forecast had a 2.3 inflation rate for March instead of what was initially projected at 2.6%. And so that brings down that inflationary increase for UPK by about $439,000. Staff is recommending to decrease that amount out of the general fund recommendation for fiscal year 26-27. OSPB had requested that PPGM appropriations stay above or at a 10% reserve requirement. Based on the updated OSPB forecast and their projections for revenue into the PBGM, the existing staff recommendation would fit above that 10% request.
Senator Kirkmayer. I need to know what you're actually asking us to do.
I'm asking the committee to approve the updated staff recommendation, which is a lower general fund amount for UPK. And the general...
Senator Kirkmeyer. And the general fund amount increase is based on what? That we're increasing that $146 million now by inflation?
Skana Garaja. Thanks. Yes, except that in the staff recommendation, I had split that kind of 50-50 between general fund and cash fund. And in this updated staff recommendation because inflation turned out to be lower than projected that decreased amount I recommending to take entirely out of what I had recommended from the general fund And so last year did we leave the provision in about increasing by inflation in the law
or not?
We didn't increase it last year. We do increase it. It's just whether or not it comes from the preschool cash fund, the EE funding, or whether it comes from general fund or state ed fund. We're still increasing by inflation. It's just a source of funding.
But last year we didn't increase it using general fund. And there isn't any provision in statute that requires the increase to general fund any longer?
There wasn't.
There wasn't before?
there was, then we passed a bill without actually recognizing that that's what we were doing by eliminating that requirement.
And then there is legislation that would return it, but it's not through the committee. Senator Kirkmeyer. I don't want to increase it by the general fund.
Do you want to take it all out of EE fund?
I don't want to increase our general fund obligation from the $146 million approximately dollars to $147.5. It needs to come out of EE.
What number are you looking at?
I'm looking at her recommendation, updated staff recommendation to take an appropriation of $1.463 million general fund. That is less than what we've already approved. We approved $1.8 million. I know I didn't want to do that either.
Well, Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. Understanding that, Senator Kirkhemeyer, you don't want to do that, this does reduce the total amount we're taking from general funds. So I will move to reduce, to adopt updated staff recommendation with the $439,000 reduction to what it is that is coming from general fund. Senator Mobley. So is there some other fund that has money to take that out of instead of the general fund? Yep. Ms. Conagraja. Thanks, Madam Chair. Senator Robill, I could entirely come out of the PPGM. I don't know off the top of my head what that would make the reserve at the end of the year be, but I think that the projections for both LCS and OSPB indicate that that fund would get more revenue next year, where I'm not entirely concerned about a drop to the reserve below 10% for this year, knowing that there will be more revenue into that fund next year.
So why wouldn't we do that?
We have this argument. I mean, we approved half of the increase coming out of the general fund, half coming out of the preschool program. And every dollar that you don't spend on the general fund and make it come out of the preschool fund are fewer dollars that you have toward the full day program, which is part of the program that is supporting the stacking of costs with CCAP. So you are just eliminating the amount of dollars that are available for full day care, which is working to try and offset some of the CCAP requirements. So I just wouldn't be opposed to eliminating the general fund that we have already appropriated.
I will relent and take the staff come back to lower it by the $439,000, but I don't want to eliminate the general fund appropriation that we have. We've already approved wholly. Senator Perkmeyer. So when the ballot initiative passed, it was for an additional 10 hours. It wasn't for full-day preschool. And our preschool program in 2022, when it ended, cost us about $176 million. And we have more than doubled that now to over $350 million. dollars and we didn't double the number of children that are in preschool. So I don't know why this program is doing what it's doing but I don't think in a year where we don't have general fund money that we should be increasing our general fund obligation period. And last year I know the original statute that has passed put in that we would take it out of general fund or state education fund and And we said at the JBC to take it out of it and put it in law that it would come out of the general fund and not out of the state education fund because we're depleting it too fast. And then last year we took out the provision that we would increase it by inflation, the general fund portion, which is about $146 million. So I don't understand why this program didn't double the number of kids that are in full-day preschool because it didn't. I'm not even sure it's got to the same amount that we were doing in 2022, because they can't ever give us an apples-to-apples comparison of the data and the information. But the last information that I had, it wasn't even meeting the same amount of kids that were in full-day preschool in the public setting. So I don't want to continue putting general fund money into this program until they figure out how to manage it. It is not an apples-to-apples comparison. That is the issue. The former Colorado preschool program, they used two slots to serve one child in a full-day program. So the number of children being served was different than the number of slots that were served. And the purpose of the inflationary increase was to ensure that we weren't reducing the amount of general fund THAT HAD BEEN ALLOCATED TO THE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM WHEN WE FOLDED IT INTO THE NEW UNIVERSAL PRE-K PROGRAM. BUT IT IS NOT THE SAME PROGRAM. THAT OLD PROGRAM IS NOT WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW. AND THE OLD PROGRAM WAS 20 HOURS. THE FULL DAY NOW IS 30 HOURS. IT'S JUST A DIFFERENT PROGRAM. AND IT IS ESTABLISHED WITH A DIFFERENT SET OF PROVIDERS, A MUCH BROADER NETWORK OF BOTH SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND COMMUNITY PROVIDERS THAN WHAT WE'RE PARTICIPATING IN THE OLD PRESCHOOL PROGRAM. IT IS AN APPLES TO ORANGE COMPARISON. AND SO, AND WE DIDN'T SPECIFY WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE, THE JBC, A PRIOR JBC, WE, UPON RECOMMENDATION FROM OUR STAFF, RECOMMENDED A BILL TO CHANGE. IT WASN'T ACTUALLY DISCUSSED HAVING GONE BACK THROUGH THE RECORDS. IT WASN'T PROPOSED THAT WE SHOULDN'T BE MAKING THIS INFLATIONARY INCREASE FROM THE GENERAL FUND OR THE STATE ED FUND. IT WAS THAT WE SHOULD BE CHANGING IT FROM A TRANSFER TO AN APPROPRIATION. THERE WERE A COUPLE OF OTHER THINGS, BUT IT WASN'T ABOUT THE FUND SOURCE. BUT WHAT DID HAPPEN WAS THE FUND SOURCE WAS STRUCK IN THAT CHANGE. BUT IT WASN INTENTIONAL ON MY PART BECAUSE I WOULDN HAVE DONE THAT ON PURPOSE REP TAGGERT It wasn intentional on my part because I wouldn have done that on purpose Rep Taggart Thank you Madam Chair A couple things I concerned that we using 2 here
because I thought we were going to consistently use 2.4%. And when we vary, I get confused that because that's what we use to increase. The governor's office came back to us, or OSPB came back to us, and said use 2.4% for the TABOR calculation, so I get concerned when we vary this number. So that's one. And two, I would just say in respect, I'm not enough of an expert to compare past program with today's program, but I would just say looking at the reserve, given how far we have got to go to get a balanced budget, I think is a very reasonable request. I don't see why that comes out of the full day, because it's from the reserve calculation if I'm reading this properly. No? Yes? We're not talking about the reserve here. We're talking about the appropriation to the program. Ms. Conagraja. Thank you. Yes, you're talking about the required inflationary increase, but I think the debate is what is the inflation rate that you set that increase at this year. I ran these numbers by with OSPB and they agree with 2.3%, but I think to directors.
Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we would ask for permission to make a technical to adjust it to make sure that we are consistent across all the inflation calculations.
Senator Kirkmayer. So the one point, I'm just going to sell it $1.5 million of general fund money is an inflationary increase. And it either comes out of general fund or you're right, it would reduce the reserve because it would come out of the Prop EE money, which is what's in the reserve. So you're correct. There isn't a direct correlation between this and the full day. And this program, when it was first introduced, it was introduced with 25 hours to be full day. and then the department head, executive director, went and changed it to 30 hours just all on their own. That was a problem in the first year. We had several problems in the first year. But whether it's apples to apples or apples to oranges, the reality is that the number of kids that are in full-day preschool did not double over the course of the last two, three, four years or ever since the Department of Early Childhood took over this program. In fact, the number of children that are in universal preschool or that are in a preschool program did not double either. In 2022, we spent $176 million on preschool, on the Colorado preschool program to fund, I don't know the numbers off the top of my head anymore, but I can go look, to fund a certain number of children. And that was just in the public school setting. By 2024, it should have doubled. It did not double. So I don't think the money should be coming out of the general fund period. Last year we said that we left it at the million It not like we asking to cut into the million at this point but the interest or the increase by inflation can all come out of EE And I know we had several discussions both last year and the previous year about Prop EE was put in place to fund this program and they should figure out how to fund it with those dollars. It was never intended that we would reduce our general fund obligation to what we are providing for preschool in the state of Colorado. It just wasn't. It was all statutory.
Sorry, Representative Brown. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will just say that I think that the preschool program goes a lot farther than just increasing the number of kids in preschool. It also goes towards reducing the economic burden of having to pay for preschool. I know that my kids were in preschool just a minute ago, it seems like, and it was like having a second mortgage. So I will just say that I think that the success of this program goes a lot farther than just increasing the enrollment of kids in preschool. I am comfortable with this particular recommendation in part because I think it is reflective of the decision the committee has already made, but we're just really making a technical correction to the inflation that we have already approved. So I hope that we would approve the updated staff recommendation. Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I renew my motion. With the technical updates based on the inflation number. I thought they said. Did you say that? Isn't that part of the staff rec? It would be helpful. Then with that, with the technical adjustments to the inflation number.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of six to zero.
Senator Kirkmeyer. I'm just going to say the only reason I didn't object because it would go back up to $1.9 million instead of $1.5 million, which I don't care for either of them. So we're probably not done with the discussion on this.
Ms. Conagraja. Thank you. The next item is more conversation for the committee based on your preferences. So the department OSPB did an informational comeback on an idea that had been floated during figure setting of doing a performance audit on early intervention. And this would be to essentially audit the books of the department, brokers, and evaluators to understand and develop a strategy on developing cost per child. The reason this was an informational comeback was because staff, I didn't know if the department's current contracts with brokers would give them access to the information requested. The department came back saying that the current contracts would and so they wouldn't need any kind of expansion to that, to their existing contracts. They also came back saying that they're in the process of creating cost per child themselves and looking into this information themselves. Their proposal, although they were still supportive of the audit, because I think that they were supportive of getting the additional help. Their proposal on the way to fund it would be to take 500,000 more general fund out of fiscal year 25-26 from early intervention. I think this is up for committee discussion on if you're even interested in an audit this year, but if you were, then I would recommend taking that money out of 26, 27 because that is, seems like a more reliable and less risky place to pull out money from. However I also note for the committee awareness that I did shop the proposal around to early intervention brokers and providers and other stakeholders And for the committee awareness the brokers were concerned with this proposal They concerned about the administrative burden that I could place on them to pull this information for the audit They also noted that while auditing costs would be helpful without research on the longitudinal return on investment for early intervention, that this audit might not show the entire picture of what's happening with EI. Staff still thinks that an independent third-party audit would be helpful. While those concerns from brokers are reasonable, I think there needs to be more transparency in this system of what EI is actually costing and where money is coming from. And I think that an independent audit would give the committee and the state some more reliable information faster than if it was through a department RFI. However, I also think given the general fund constraints this year, it is a very reasonable alternative to do this as a department RFI. The caveat is that the process might take longer to define cost per child and be more iterative with the department based on how the RFI for early intervention went this year.
Senator Kirkmeyer. I'm not willing to put $500,000 of general fund money towards an audit. Our experience with audits have been when we did one of HICPF, it cost us more than $500,000. It cost us like a million, more than a million dollars, and it took over two years. The one with the Department of Corrections, same thing. I think it was even more than a million dollars. So not really interested in doing that. I think they should do the RFI. I don't know why they can't get the data themselves. I mean, they have the data. They should have the data. I don't know why they can't get it together. AND I THINK THAT THEY WOULD PROBABLY GET IT TOGETHER QUICKER THAN A TWO-YEAR AUDIT WOULD TAKE. BECAUSE THAT'S HOW LONG THOSE AUDITS ARE TAKING. MOSTLY BECAUSE IT'S HARD TO GET INFORMATION OUT OF THE DEPARTMENT, WHICH IS THE PROBLEM THAT EVERYBODY ELSE HAS. IT'S HARD TO GET INFORMATION OUT OF THE DEPARTMENT. SO MAYBE THEY COULD JUST BE MORE TRANSPARENT. I THOUGHT I RECALLED READING IN THE DEPARTMENT'S COMEBACK THAT THEY ACTUALLY HAVE ALMOST EVERYTHING. WHAT IS REMAINING THAT THEY DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO?
I don't think there is much they don't have access to. I think it could take them a while. For example, with private insurance to be able to get those records from brokers, but they should be able to access it. I think it is a good question on why the department has not been able to release that information. And your recommendation about the way that Director Ferrandino presented it, I thought that he was saying that they'd be comfortable reducing the appropriation by $1.5 million instead of just the $1 million that we had reduced it by. But you suggest that we should take that out of $26.27 instead of $25.26.
You don't think that there is that cushion of half a million dollars?
I think it depends on the committee's risk tolerance. My risk tolerance on touching 25-26 further is low because I think then the chances are higher that the department comes back with a 13-31 supplemental request to get that funding back. And then that throws off the committee's balancing for 25-26. I know that the department is supposed to put in a cost containment strategy for early intervention 26-27. They projected that it could decrease costs by about $1 million. IN MY STAFF RECOMMENDATION FOR 26-27, I DIDN'T BUILD THAT REDUCTION IN TO SEE IF THAT THOSE SAVINGS WOULD ACTUALLY BE REALIZED, BUT THAT WOULD BE THE CONTRACTION. cushion in 26-27 that that $500,000 could come out of.
Vice Chair Bridges.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm inclined to keep the cushion but not pay for the audit and instead put a robust RFI that would get us the same answers as the audit would. So essentially just make them do all that work for free, which I think the department said that they are willing to do. But then the question is, do we also take a half a million dollar reduction? Well, I think the audit saves us half. Well, no, we didn't make that cut, so we could actually just save that general fund. Yes, the committee could take it.
You feel anxious about it, but you would suggest that we should take it in 27 instead of 26?
That's what I thought I heard you say. I think the committee could do a supplemental action, 26-27, to take it based on how early intervention is performing.
So don't cut it yet?
You don't have to cut 26-27 further yet. But if the committee needs it for 25-26 balancing and you have a better risk tolerance than I do, then you can take it out at 25-26. Rip Brown. I think we need it for 26-27 balancing, personally. Yeah, I think we should take the 1.5 for 26, 27.
It was 500,000.
It's an additional 500. The additional 500. That's what I meant, the additional 500. Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm very nervous about that, but if I'm outvoted, I'm outvoted. Well, no, I mean, I trust Ms. Conagoraja. So, I mean, this has been a difficult thing to predict, obviously. Director Ferrandino felt so confident about that half a million dollars, but you seem not at all. In the March RFI response that I faced figure setting on, the cushion for 25-26 was 1.4 million. I proposed taking 1 million of that. Then OSPB came back with 1.5 million. And it just seems like the needle keeps on moving, and my concern is that the needle shifts in the opposite direction.
Okay.
Yeah, just...
Senator Kirkmaier? Well, maybe because they have more information than we do. I mean, are we underutilizing the general funds that are over in HICPUF from the Medicaid reimbursements for these early intervention children? I don't think OSPB Comeback included that as part of their calculations.
It was based on caseloading costs that I realized in 2025-2026.
Senator Kirkmaier? But that's what I'm saying. Some of us probably remember the issue of where they came in at the end of session and tried to blame us for cutting them when it wasn't us, and it was the department. But that's where we found out about the underutilized general funds that are over in Medicaid that are associated with this program.
So do we know about those? Those are already included in 26-27 as taking that money that had been appropriated in HICPF and directly appropriating it to CDEC. WE DID THAT IN SUPPLEMENTALS. I'M SORRY. YEAH. YOU DID THAT LAST YEAR FOR 25-26, SO IT WAS IN A SUPPLEMENTAL ACTION, AND THEN THIS YEAR YOU VOTED TO APPROVE THAT ONGOING FOR 26-27.
SENATOR KIRKMAYER? I'M SORRY, WHAT DID WE APPROVE TO DO ONGOING IN 26-27?
MOVING THAT MILLION THAT IS APPROPRIATE TO HICPUFF THAT THEY NOT SPENDING DIRECTLY INTO CDEC OH OKAY SO THAT WHY THEY BELIEVE THERE FUNDING MAYBE THERE EVEN MORE that is appropriate to HICPF that they not spending directly into CDEC Oh okay So maybe that why they believe there funding Maybe there even more Vice Chair Burgess Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, I would, I'd hate to see services reduced because we cut that extra half a million. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised in February when we get half a million back in balancing and supplementals. So I'd rather not take the money now.
Okay.
So instead of the audit, I move for a robust RFI that includes all of the information we would have requested through the audit, but done by the department and delivered to us not two years from now. Ms. Gunnar Garage, is there a date that we would want to put on that RFI? Is it just for next year? For now, I'll say October 1st, but I'll work with the department and OSPB on a better timeline for it. Thank you.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0.
The next item is on local leads. I don't... There was some back and forth on what these memos should include today. So one version of this that I had earlier did talk about the OSPB comeback on their FTE request. Staff wasn't going to change my decision on the FTE request based on that comeback but the comeback did make me realize that there should be updates to staff recommendation on the footnote and the RFI the committee approved. The addition to the footnote is underline and it's just specifying that local coordinating organizations can access the money that is in the early childhood council's line item now that the LCO line item is getting eliminated because my understanding of the bill that consolidates these is that it gives LCOs the pathway to access that funding if the department approves it for LCOs that are transitioning for three years. And then the addition to their request for information is that in the department's response for local leads they made it clear that they are bringing in UPK enrollment work in-house within the department. It is unclear to me as staff on how that would actually work and how seamless that transition would be and so THE ADDITION TO THE RFI IS TO HAVE THE DEPARTMENT REPORT ON HOW WELL THAT TRANSITION IS GOING AND HOW MANY FAMILIES STILL GO TO EARLY CHILDHOOD COUNCIL OR THEIR LOCAL LCO TO GET HELP IN ENROLLING WITH UPK VERSUS ACTUALLY ACCESS THE DEPARTMENT. OR THE SCHOOL OR THE CHILD CARE FACILITY. YEAH. SO. SENATOR KIRKMEIER.
So there would be no change to what we did, but you would update the footnotes and the RFIs as presented in your memo.
That is staff recommendation.
Well, I would take the department's comeback, but if nobody else wants to, then we can just do the RFI.
The reason why staff recommendation on the FTE did not change is that...
It's an informational comeback.
TWO OF THOSE FTE SEEMED UNNECESSARY. ONE OF THOSE FTE IS TO WORK ON THE UPK RESOURCE BANK. THE DEPARTMENT ALREADY HAS AN FTE THAT WORKS ON THE UPK RESOURCE BANK. SO IT'S NOT CLEAR WHY THE DEPARTMENT NEEDS TWO FTE FOR AN ONLINE RESOURCE BANK ON UNIVERSAL PRESCHOOL. THE REQUEST FOR THE OTHER THREE FTE WERE TO START TO WORK ON UPDATING QUALITY AND OVERSIGHT for providers for UPK based on different care settings like school or child care providers However their duties aside from that had heavy overlap in terms of data monitoring or developing training and things like that Overall, from the department's response, it doesn't seem like they had a clear plan on how they were going to roll out and improve quality for universal preschool. If the committee were to consider at least maintaining some of those FTE, what staff would recommend is keeping two of them and then eliminating the other two. But I think the department really needs to come back with, if it doesn't have a plan necessarily right now for what it needs to do with quality for universal preschool because there's so much happening, at least define what the problem it is that it's trying to solve. I heard from the councils. They sent us all a letter, I think, that I spoke with them. And they were hopeful that we would approve these funds because they are, I guess, worried about the, you know, the loss of some funds for LCOs now means that there are certain roles, not certain things not being done, people staffed at the local level that they won't have anymore. and they said that they thought that this would be helpful at the state level.
Ms. Conagraja.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Staff recommendation didn't touch any of the money that goes to ECCs. There is a... The LCOs. So last year the committee approved a one-time action to increase funding to LCOs. Staff recommendation was to keep that as one-time only and not continue it. But what staff proposed in terms of the decrease to FTE is department's internal FTE, NOT FTE THAT SUPPORT EARLY CHILDHOOD COUNCILS. RIGHT.
BUT THE LCO FUNDING AT THE LOCAL LEVEL IS DIFFERENT NOW.
CORRECT.
BUT THAT WAS ALSO PART OF THE DEPARTMENT'S REQUEST OF WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE BILL. YES, BUT I'M TALKING ABOUT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE COUNCILS, THEY ARE NOW ABSORBING THE WORK OF THE LCOs. SOME OF THEM WERE DOING IT. YEAH, AND SOME OF THEM WERE DOING IT. but without that other LCO funding that the councils who were the LCOs will still be doing. That is their concern. But I'm happy to move on. I don't need to be laborless.
Do we need to move the stat rec?
The RFI.
We want to increase the RFI.
If I share, we just would not.
I move additions to RFI for stat rec. And updates to footnote. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 60-0.
And the final item for early childhood is also informed by the department's informational comebacks. And these are additions or modifications to RFIs. So the first one is a new RFI that staff is proposing. I think throughout this entire legislative session, the committee has asked the department multiple times on what is the plan for C-C. C-CAP. The department has iterated on its response over the course of the session of things that are changing when it comes to what the federal government has approved that they can do or ways that it might consider reallocating funding to counties. But they still don't have a very defined plan. I think they're still in the process of making it. So the first RFI that staff is recommending to add is just a continuation of that question and monitoring on CCAP for the community to keep getting updates on the department on how their plan for CCAP is evolving And then the second edition is because of the consolidation of local leads, modifying an existing RFI on how the department is using CCDF funding. And the addition is to specify how the department is using CCDF funding for quality activities and how that is split between monies that go directly to providers and money that goes to early childhood councils and money that stays internal to the department for their own initiatives.
Madam Chair.
Senator Perkwyer.
So with regard to the quality, and they're taking that out of the CCDF funds, there's a certain percentage that they can take out, and if I remember correctly, they were doing more, like by millions. And so are they stopping that? Are they doing other initiatives and taking more out of it because that affects what's going to CCAP for child care?
So, the, thanks. Senator Kirchmeier, the committee's actions on R1 this year were to decrease the amount of money the department is using in quality. And so that is to like save money to use on direct services.
In CCAP?
In CCAP.
Okay. I'M SORRY, MADAM CHAIR?
SENATOR KIRK.
SO WE'RE GOING TO FIND OUT WHAT THEIR OTHER INITIATIVES ARE AT THE DEPARTMENT?
IS THAT WHAT THIS RFI IS GOING TO DO? THAT IS THE INTENT.
GREAT. THAT'S A GOOD ONE.
THANKS.
RISE CHAIR BRIDGES.
THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. I MOVE STAFF REC ADDITIONS. I just moved the additions to RFIs. Then I moved the additions to RFIs on page 5 and 6.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 60-0.
And then this next comeback is on CDLE. This actually is one where the information presented by OSPB changed staff recommendation, but I didn't necessarily agree with the department on what they requested. So this is the sweep of funding for the Qualified Apprenticeship Intermediary Grant Cash Fund into the general fund. The original staff recommendation was to sweep the end year unexpended and unobligated balance from the Scale-Up Grant Fund and the Qualified Apprenticeship Intermediary Grant Cash Fund. At the time, I had estimated that that would be about $400,000 from both. The department come back indicated that those amounts were actually higher, but their come back also indicated that the department had awarded four grants for the qualified apprenticeship intermediate grant program that it would start to finalize contracts for in April but hasn't awarded yet. Staff is making an updated come back because I think it's better to specify the actual amount of funding to transfer because I thought the wording of unobligated left perhaps some room for interpretation that might not be helpful for balancing. However, what I'm recommending to sweep is slightly higher than what OSPB and the department request in their comeback. And the difference in what staff is recommending versus what the department came back with is on the top of page eight. So staff's total transfer recommendation is 1.8 million, and this is about $400,000 higher than what the department came back with. And the reason there is this difference is because staff is Mending to sweep the funding for those four grants that had been awarded but have not started yet. And this would require the department to end those contracts.
Okay. Okay. Vice Chair Bridges.
Hey, Madam Chair, I move staff initiated qualified apprenticeship intermediate grant fund, grant cash fund sweep. Updated staff rec. Updated staff rec.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6 to 0. Thank you. Ms. Curry.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Michelle Curry, Joint Budget Committee staff. I'M HERE WITH THREE COMEBACKS RELATED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, ALL RELATED TO OSPB COMEBACKS. SO THE FIRST IS KIND OF A, HAS MANY MOVING PARTS. IT HAS TO DO WITH A TRANSFER THAT YOU ALL HAD APPROVED FROM THE MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY FUND, AS WELL AS SOME HUTF REFINANCING MECHANISMS, AS WELL AS SOME ADJUSTMENTS TO THE MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY FUND. essentially the goal of all of those movements were to balance the HUTF off the top that is appropriated to the department. In light of some information that OSPP brought and some concerns about sweeping the funds in the Motorcycle Operators Safety Training Fund to the general fund, that sweep is likely not a great idea. and therefore the OSPB comeback was to use the balance from that fund as well as the balance from the motor carrier safety fund in order to fund the department's capital IT project request for the records utilization upgrade. Previously that request was made using HUTF, which was the cause of the overextension of their balance for that. So the staff recommendation is to approve the department request or the OSPP comeback request, which would use the Motor Recycle Operator Safety Training Fund and the Motor Carrier Safety Fund in order to finance that IT project, and then use HUTF that's remaining in the Colorado Audit Prevention Authority, use that, reduce that in order to balance out the total amount of HUTF appropriated to the department so that it aligns with their 6% increase. Aligned with that would also include staff being able to undo some of the recommendations related to other ways to reduce HUTF appropriations. I will note that this does end up meaning that there will not be $2 million transferred into the general fund from the motorcycle operator safety training fund. Again, there are some concerns about the allowability of that transfer since it comes from vehicle registration fees.
Senator Kirkmeyer. So the bottom line is we're not going to have $2 million of general fund. Otherwise we're moving funds around to cover whatever needs to be covered for the state patrol. That's right. But what about this balance the remaining HUTF need with a reduction to the auto theft prevention authority I thought they didn want us cutting that Thank you Mayor Thank you Senator Kirkmeyer So a committee had already approved eliminating that amount or eliminating that in association with a different recommendation
So the department would actually be gaining more money by allowing some of that appropriation to stay. it would still reduce a little bit of what's there currently in order to balance out their HUTF appropriation for the 26-27 fiscal year so it would be slightly more than what the committee had already approved going into that account but it would make sure that the HUTF appropriation is not over their 6% annual growth limit
Thank you Madam Chair
the bottom line would be is that we are reducing money to the Colorado Auto Fifth Prevention Authority
What is the fund source for the CATPAW at HUTF?
There is a small amount of HUTF in the CATPAW. That small amount is the appropriation that would be used to ensure that the total amount of HUTF appropriated matches the allowable amount. So the rest of the CATPAW recommendation and approval from the committee is not impacted by any of what's in here. So this maintains that no general fund would refinance HUTF, and in exchange, they would be, because of using different fund sources in order to pay for that records utilization upgrade, it would free up a small amount of HUTF to be able to fund a small amount of what was previously in the CATPA, though it would not be the extent to what's already there.
How much?
so I think it would end up it's a little bit complicated to even out exactly how much HUTF would be because of the fact that the compensation common policies haven't been made yet the maximum amount that would go to the CATPA from the HUTF would be I believe it's $600,000 that's in there right now approximately so that would be reduced in order to make sure that the total appropriation of HUTF to the department was met that 6% annual growth limit.
So how much is going to be reduced from HUTF that goes to the Colorado auto theft?
The maximum amount that was going there was $600,000.
How much are they reducing the CAC?
So it would be reduced by the amount. That is the difference between the appropriation. So in the, let me pull up the estimate that was in the OSPB comeback for that was approximately $435,000 would be part of that.
So I just want, may I, Madam Chair?
Yeah.
I just want to make sure I'm clear. So I was lobbied by several people that said don't reduce the cat paw, and here we are reducing the cat paw. And I thought there was conversation that the Department of Public Safety was going to find a way to help fund the cat paw and not take it out of general fund. And it doesn't appear that that's what this comeback is doing.
Ms. Curry.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Senator Krugmaier. This is where some of these requests and recommendations really interact with each other and get a little bit confusing. currently as it stands the committee has approved completely eliminating the HUTF and the general fund from the cat paw that is what the current decision has been this recommendation in this comeback is saying the purpose of reducing that HUTF in the cat paw was primarily because of the need to balance HUTF for this year based on their salary survey The department had requested million of general fund to balance HUTF This is an alternative approach to balancing the HUTF that would allow some amount of HUTF to stay within the CATPAW although it would be less than the 25-26 appropriation. It would be more than the current approved by the committee because of the fact that they would be using other fund sources in order to balance out the rest of the HUTF.
So that's just not what's written in number four, I think, is maybe our conclusion.
Because it says we're reducing the appropriation to Cat Paw,
but you're saying that we would actually be boosting what we've done.
Yes, that's correct.
And that's the confusing, and that's my mistake for how we expect it here.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. But overall, it's a reduction to what it is that we have to take out of the general fund. We take less out of the general fund this way with your suggestion. So regardless, there would be none appropriated out of the general fund for any of this. None of this was going to, the only, there was a transfer approved by you all that was included. There was going to be a $2 million transfer into the general fund. This would eliminate that transfer. So it ends up being a net negative in general fund. However, it has come to my attention that that transfer was probably not allowable because it was from vehicle registration fees. SO MY RECOMMENDATION IS BASED ON THE FACT THAT THAT TRANSFER CAN'T HAPPEN. SO THIS IS A WAY TO DO EVERYTHING WITH ZERO DOLLARS OF GENERAL FUND BEING APPROPRIATED TO, BUT IT WOULD RESULT IN A NET NEGATIVE IN WHAT ALREADY EXISTS IN TERMS OF GENERAL FUND.
SENATOR KIRKMEIER. I UNDERSTOOD ALL THAT AND I APPRECIATE IT AND I UNDERSTAND NOW ABOUT THE 600 VERSUS THE 435 THOUSAND DOLLARS. I MEAN, AND NOW THAT I'VE GOT THE NUMBER. That was not what my comment was based on. I understand that we said that we already voted to eliminate the cat paw. Since we did that, we had, I'm pretty sure everybody else probably had it as well, but we had several law enforcement, sheriffs, police chiefs, somebody with cysts or something, some other association. What was it? I don't know what that was now. And including the state patrol who said don't cut cat paw. And it was my understanding that the Department of Public Safety was finding other ways to fund cat paw on top of the dollar that comes off of a premium that goes into the cat paw fund, which equates somewhere between five and seven million dollars.
So basically in the comeback they're saying, yeah, well, we know you already said you were going to cut Catpaw,
but we're telling you that we're still willing to leave $135,000 in there of HUTF money. Yeah, I think I got it. They should all get their story straight when they become lobbyists.
Okay. Ms. Curry?
Madam Chair, the only thing I would add is that if a motion could also include just ending or, I guess, killing the motor carrier safety fund revenue bill, it turns out that there is just not going to be enough revenue anywhere to make that a viable bill option that is out there still.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. Move to kill that bill and adopt staff recommendation from revenue to motor carrier safety fund and HUTF refinance.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6 Thank you Madam Chair You know the one I talking about right
Page 10 has the next staff come back. This is related to the federal funding for DHSEM programming. The information provided by OSPB regarding the staff, the positions that were vacant that then were filled between when the request came out. That staff believes that it is reasonable to backfill those three filled vacancies, primarily because at least two of them were directly related to recovery projects from the floods. And so I think that would just be an increase of $237,690 general fund to what was already approved for that request. And again, that would just preserve the FTE that was hired in the gap between the request and presentation.
Senator Kirkmayer. So they put in a request that included, I don't know how many new FTE, 15 new FTE. Before we even ruled on the request, they decided to go start filling those positions. We said no, and now you're coming back and saying that we should do three of those that they filled in the gap?
Ms. Curry.
Because I'm a little ticked off that they went and filled them anyways when they had a request in. And their new FTE.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you, Senator Kirkmeyer. Those three FTE were not included in the 15 new. Those three FTE were in the assumptions of the ongoing FTE. So those were folks who had funding. They were federally funded positions that were available, but they never actually hired them in that gap. So it was, these were folks who, again, were kind of provided by the grant money that would have come in through the federal funding related to the recovery from the floods and related to other federal sources that were already there. So these are not new FTE. These were included in the department's assumptions of their ongoing existing FTE. It is correct that when they made the request, those were not actual humans who were employed, but they were positions that were currently funded that were open. And so you're accurate in that those vacancies were filled sometime in that gap. The department and OSPB explained that those positions hadn't been filled because of a hiring freeze. And then as soon as they were able, they hired, and that being able happened in between when the request was written and when the figure sitting was made. So I think it is still not suggesting any new hires at all. It is continuing the people who currently exist. I think it's totally up to you all, but that's, their role is in recovery operations down in like Rio Blanco and La Plata County right now. So, and it seemed like a reasonable amount to be able to include those from my perspective, but I can understand.
Senator Kirkman. And did we ever find out how much they staffed up because of COVID? Because they staffed up quite a bit during that time period.
That's correct.
Or staffed up additional.
Not as much as the health department, but they staffed up.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
And yes, Senator Kirkmire, that was included in a previous document, but I can make sure I send that to you again.
I don't want to do this. We looked at it pretty closely. They shouldn't have counted on it. I mean, they make a request. Senator Kirkmire. They made a request. We didn't even act on the request and they went ahead and positions when they knew they didn't have the funding for it and then just expecting us to backfill it I think is ridiculous. I think they need to go back to their department and figure out where they can get the money from if that's what they want, if that's what they need to do. I'm willing to do it. I don't know if anyone else is.
I see not enough. Why would we do it? Vice Chair Burgess?
I think the reason we do it is that it is better for public safety if we do it. And I know that I don't like when they just hire people without permission, but I also don't like it when we don't have the people that we need to solve problems in the state. What problems are they solving?
They're doing disaster management work. management work in Rio Blanco and where else? La Plata and Archuleto Canis.
So I guess if you want to let that go.
I don't want to let it go, but that's what counties are supposed to be doing and local governments are supposed to be doing. And recovery efforts is what you said they're doing. And recovery efforts are done by more than an emergency manager type position. There are a bunch of other entities that are involved in recovery, and their role in that is probably pretty small. So, again, I don't know why they went and hired people when they were requesting us to backfill them and we hadn't even acted on it. I think that's irresponsible and I don't think it should be rewarded. And they can move other funding around in their department and figure out how to fund those positions. They have the ability to do that. In fact, they could go take it out of the executive director's office.
Well, once I hear one more person speak up, it doesn't sound like we have folks to do that. So next.
And thank you, Madam Chair.
So the final comeback I have is related to the General Fund Reduction Administration. I had made a recommendation to reduce that line by a million dollars general fund based on reported reversions. OSPB came back and explained that many of those were from empty spending authority and things like that. my recommendation is I can only trust that what they are saying I don't have the information that I would need to be able to know exactly how much is in all of those funds and how that happened I think the feedback I've gotten from the department is that there's some discrepancies in how spending is reported in core and how it comes up on our schedules and things like that and so the department OSPB identified that 10 or more employees separations would occur if that reduction happened And so I'm recommending restoring that $1 million in exchange, reducing the reappropriated fund and cash fund appropriations from that line. And then also offsetting that with a $1 million transfer from the department's indirect cost excess recoveries cash fund to be included in the larger transfer bill. in talking with the department they really wanted to identify the risk that that could potentially result in future general fund increases in their administration lines because they might not have enough in that account in order to cover all the indirect costs my belief is that there's plenty of money in that fund to be able to do a one million dollar transfer in order to offset increasing this again in their administration line
Senator Perkmaier. I'm fine with that, but I'm just going to start reminding all the departments. This is one of the departments that came in. They don have a decrease in their ongoing general fund obligation They increased by substantial amount over inflation even So we can keep overspending because that what overspending is when they're increasing over inflation. So I'm fine with your recommendation.
Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move staff recommendation, general fund reduction in administration.
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0.
And just to clarify, Madam Chair, that that includes including that $1 million transfer and the bigger transfer bill as well.
Yes. Is this one going to take that long? Because I really do need it. I need it to go 20 minutes ago. Mr. Kurtz, what do you think?
How long do I think it will take? I'm not sure.
It's up to us.
I can try to be quick. Okay. There's a new estimate from the department on the utilization of non-wheelchair, non-emergency medical transportation. That new estimate significantly increases the projected savings of the JBC's original action. It also slightly increases the projected savings associated with the OSPB comeback. The OSPB comeback took into account some of the difference, but not all of the difference in utilization. So this is a new estimate of what the OSPB comeback would save. Just to remind the committee, the current rate, the pickup rate for this service is $36.40. The JBC approved reducing it to $4 based on the JBC staff recommendation. OSPB came back and said you should set it at $19.67, which was the rate in 2022. And this memo is just restating the estimated savings associated with those options. I'm also presenting a new option that was neither the JBC staff recommendation nor the OSBV request, and that is that you could go with this 10-state benchmark that the department came up with. That would set the rate at $12.40. That, based on this new estimate and the utilization, would save about the same amount as the original JBC action. in terms of general fund. So if you find some of the arguments from OSBB in the comeback compelling, that might be a compromise position where you go higher than your original action, but you still get similar savings. My recommendation is the same. I still think that $4 is a reasonable rate for this service, but OSBB has asked you to raise the rate. Okay, quick question.
The dollar per mile, does that increase when gas goes up? Mr. Kurtz.
It does not. And this does not change the dollar per mile rate. It only changes the pickup fee.
Vice Chair Burgess.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am inclined to stick with Mr. Kurtz's original recommendation. Is the committee looking at the compromise position? I think the benchmark would be good I think the benchmark against 10 other 10 other states as approved methodology Then I move the 10 benchmark as a replacement for Mr Kurtz original recommendation
Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 5-0 with Bridges objecting. 5-1. Sorry, 5-1. Bridges objected. But not because he didn't think it was high enough.
Yeah, that's right.
All right. It sounds like we will be minus some senators, so I think the Joint Budget Committee will stand in recess.
Because if two of them are big, yeah.
Thank you.
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