Joint Budget Committee [Mar 23, 2026 - Upon Adjournment]

. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.

THANK YOU. PHOEBE KANAGARAJA, JBC STAFF, YOU'RE STARTING ON PAGE ONE WITH THE FIRST BILL, WHICH IS FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD. And this is a bill based on what the committee approved based on swapping funds between safe care and the nurse home visitor program so that safe care can draw down about 1 million more in federal funds. So there are two things, and there's a cover memo for this bill because there are two things I wanted to highlight for the committee. The first is that this bill replicates the change being made across the street in House Bill 26-1075 to eliminate the COCAP trust fund's repeal date. And the reason why the bill, this bill before you does that is because the general fund that is being swapped from the nurse home visitor program into safe care is being deposited into the COCAP trust fund. And whatever additional federal funds the department is able to bring down will also get deposited into the COCAP trust fund. However, it wasn't an explicit policy decision that I had asked for the committee when I was presenting this recommendation and so I wanted to make you aware that if that bill across THE STREET DOESN'T PASS, THEN THIS BILL WOULD MAKE SURE THAT THE COCAP DOESN'T GET REPEALED IN 2027. AND THEN THE SECOND THING THAT I WANTED TO NOTE FOR YOU ALL IS JUST A CHANGE. DURING STAFF RECOMMENDATION, I HAD RECOMMENDED THAT THE LEGISLATION AUTHORIZE THE USE OF THE NURSE HOME VISITOR PROGRAM FUND FOR PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CHILD MILTREATMENT SERVICES. FROM TALKING TO THE OLS DRAFT OR IN THE DEPARTMENT, THAT WASN'T NECESSARY, SO IT'S NOT IN THE BILL. The big packet that you have your hand on, I think.

All right. 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, and in the Senate, Amable and Kirkmeyer, co-sponsors Bridges and Taggart. Okay. So the next item starts on page 10. This is the longest bill draft that you probably have in this packet. This is the bill that creates the special purpose authority that moves the grant making functions and most of that historic license plate funding from the Colorado Disability Funding Committee into a special purpose authority. There is a memo for this bill draft because OSPB and the department did a comeback on it last week and that did update staff recommendation.

Senator Mabley. Thanks. So had we decided to reduce funding, like what is the net, is there any net change here to our balancing work that we've done?

Brett Brown. Thank you, Madam Chair. So the disability support fund, is that part of the new special purpose authority or is that a continuing fund that somehow, okay, it continues to have money in it and we would use that money going forward but there would be nothing coming into that fund going forward?

WHAT'S THE SPLIT YOU RECOMMENDED?

AND WHAT WAS THE BASIS FOR THAT SPLIT AGAIN?

Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. The savings outlined here with the OSBB comeback, though, assumes that we would fund the CSDB capital project. And I think this year we're talking about even potentially cutting control maintenance, which to me would say that perhaps we're not going to fund the CSDB capital project. And so if we don include that this is actually a delta to the general fund in the wrong way This costs more general fund by using their suggestion instead of yours Correct?

THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR.

Senator Kirkmeyer?

Yes, you can.

Ms. Kanagaraja.

Senator Kirkman.

Yes. Yeah.

Ms. Conor Rasha.

And then I thought we were saying that the 4.1 million would go on for four years. So essentially that would be a 16 million, 16.4 million dollar offset of our general fund over the course of four years. AND WITH THE OSPB COMEBACK, WE'RE JUST GETTING A 13.8 MILLION OFFSET OF GENERAL FUND. IF WE MOVE THE, IF WE WERE TO, IS THE DEAF AND BLIND SCHOOL ABOVE THE LINE RIGHT NOW?

OH, SO WE WOULD GET 13.8 VERSUS OUR 16.1. WHY CAN WE DO BOTH MS PENIGARACHE THANKS MADAM CHAIR SENATOR KIRKMAR I DON THINK THE DISABILITY SUPPORT FUND HAS THE BALANCE RIGHT NOW TO SUSTAIN BOTH Thank you Ms Panagraja Thanks Madam Chair Senator Kirchmeier I don think the Disability Support Fund has the balance right now to sustain both

Senator Kirkemeyer.

Ms. Culling-Garashman.

SENATOR KRIKMARER.

SENATOR KRIKMARER, THAT'S CORRECT.

Well, I don't know that we're ready to, I don't know. Do people have, know what you want to do? Senator Kirkmeyer?

Madam Chair, I can't assume right now that it would be the $4 million, but I think that there could be some amount of money next year. I think the committee and staff can analyze that next year and present that as a committee as an offset. But right in the bill for now, the ability for the Disability Support Fund to Fund ILCs, and then that leaves the door open next year.

So basically if we said that in 27-28 that it would be 4.1 million, the spa then would get 13.4 and the community living centers would get 4.1. Because the community living center is getting grants anyways at this point and we're just going to guarantee it because it makes sure and helps us to reduce general fund obligation in the future.

Ms. Chairman Kirkemeyer, so what is offsetting general fund here? is the cash fund that goes to the Department of Labor Employment. What goes to the Special Purpose Authority isn't being touched by the state. So it's not that Centers for Independent Living would get that amount of donation money. It's that they're pulling in from the $2.50 that goes to CDLE. And so that's the amount of money. Any kind of, like it's not an offset essentially between the SPA and the ILCs. It's an offset between what C.D.U. and CDLE can spend versus ILCs.

Whatever the 250 brings in.

Why can't we give direction as to what the spa has to spend on? We do that in statute with other spas. They are eligible recipients and do receive some of those grants, yes?

And then in the bill itself, it does specifically call out centers for independent living as being eligible for these grants, but they still have to competitively apply because the SPA has authority to make grants.

Senator Kirkmeyer.

Thank you, Senator Kirkmeyer.

Doesn't it sound like we necessarily have consensus on what we want to do here? So perhaps tomorrow.

Okay. We'll come back to this then. Thank you. All right, Ms. Bickle.

Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I MOVE TO INTRODUCE 0884 REDUCED APPROPRIATION OUT OF SCHOOL TIME GRANT PROGRAM ARE THERE ANY OBJECTIONS 0884 reduced appropriation out of school time grant program Are there any objections That passes on a vote of 6 This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. House sponsors will be Taggart.

And in the Senate, Bridges and Amable. And co-sponsors will be Brown and Kirkmeyer.

So the next one is also mine, and I've got a memo for you just describing a little bit more what your two choices are here. You've seen one of these bills already, and that one was as you had requested to strike provisions related to the local accountability system grant program. However, when I followed up with the department more about this, they said either please, as per our comeback, extend the program for one more year and then repeal it, or repeal the whole local accountability system rather than just the grant program because at the moment they have only been allowing certain kinds of flexibility in the accountability system to entities that have received those grants and they think it's not workable for them to open the local accountability system to everyone as this is currently written. I think it's quite likely that there might be something that happens next year that might make further accountability system changes that might bring in some of the ideas that came from this local accountability work. But I would stand with my original recommendation that I do think that you can take this $506,000 back. I think that the grant program has sort of served its purpose in terms of allowing local entities to experiment with local accountability systems.

I would say yes, because I think the department, if you just eliminate the grant program provisions, the department will probably come back and say, and we need some of that money to keep running this program. So I think if you eliminate the whole thing, you definitely can capture all of the money.

I mean, I think from the departments, assuming you don't delay, right? If you delay, then you obviously don't get savings. I think from the department's perspective, if you don't eliminate the whole thing, then they will probably try and come back and say, but we're still going to have to spend money, and now there's going to be more entities that would possibly be eligible for this program, and that's going to require staff work. So I think given the choices they prefer you delay it but if you don delay it then they would prefer that you eliminate the whole program I for eliminating Vice Chair Bridges Thank you Madam Chair This is the second cohort of grantees

Like, is it informed the way that they conduct evaluations, or that they suggest evaluations are conducted across the state, or is this just sort of like, we're giving some money to locals, they do their own thing, and they continue doing their own thing?

Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm aligned with Senator Mabley. Let's just cut the whole thing.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We don't have a bill on this. This is just deciding on how to respond to the comeback.

So that is on page 63. You actually have the bill draft. Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move for the introduction of LLS 0885, repeal local accountability system grant program. Are there any objections?

And Madam Chair, just for the record, I wanted to say that this is 885.02, because there are two drafts here, and you're doing the second one. Okay. You told us the first, but that's why he read that one. But we all, I think, were intending to do the full repeal, not the partial. So whichever bill draft that is, that's the one we voted on.

Madam Chair, Ms. Bickle-Lews, can I ask her a question?

It's not related to this bill. It's actually related to the healthy school meals. So I was reading on OSPB's revenue outlook on page 82, and they have this chart with regard to healthy school meals for all, and it shows in figure 62 that in 2526 it's forecasted to have, and it says, funds left over after all HSMA expenses and reserve. And in 2526 it has 99.1 and 119.6. So I'm wondering, and I know this isn't related to legislation, so sorry, but I'm wondering if on the 99.1, does that include or where does the transfers repay the SEF, the $31 million and the $8 million, and then where does the $2.5? Is that still supposed to come out of that $99 million?

But my understanding from looking at OSPB's forecast is that they didn't include your transfer back from HSMA to State Ed Fund, but I think they have already in their assumptions eliminated the transfers from State Ed Fund to HSMA. So I think like half of what you've decided to do is built into their figures.

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Page 66.

No. We're going to make the direct payment to AHEC.

I can clarify. It's the same way we did it last year. Mr. Kim. THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. SO, REV TAGER, YES, AS A BUDGET DECISION, AS A PART OF FIGURE SETTING, MY RECOMMENDATION WAS WE DO A DIRECT GENERAL FUND APPROPRIATION TO ORARIA. AND WE'RE BASICALLY JUST LEAVING IT AT THAT BASE LEVEL. We'll likely still bring a comeback that will adjust a few of the compensation pieces, but we will likely do that in a budget-neutral way with those institutions so that it won't cost additional. I will get that. But this piece specifically addresses the service-level agreements, the agreements between the institutions and AHEC for the services that are being provided.

Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to the introduction of LLS 0949 Appropriations Heraria Higher Education Center. Are there any objections?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Kelly Shen, JBC staff. I have a bill draft for you today on the health disparities grant program, and it basically removes the requirement for a third-party evaluation of the program and changes it instead to still require the department to evaluate the program. They just plan to do it in-house, and they're saying that this will save about $500,000.

Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to introduce LLS number 0904, Health Disparities and Community Grant Evaluation. Are there any objections?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Michelle Curry, Joint Budget Committee staff. I'm presenting a bill draft that would change the Motorcycle Operator Safety Training Fund to annual appropriations. It's currently continuously appropriated. There had been thoughts that potentially other funds could be included in this bill. It seems like this is the only fund that our staff has identified as being the switch without some other mechanisms. So this bill just changes that one fund and then includes an appropriation for the amount that the department anticipates needing for the upcoming fiscal year. This is the only one.

Vice Chair Bridges. Sure. I move the introduction of 0909, change motorcycle operator fund to annual appropriation. Are there any objections?

Senator Kirkmeyer. I'm sorry. And so the appropriation, they're just, we're leaving it in the Department of Public Safety for the State Patrol to use where? Oh, is this their salary kind of the offset stuff?

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Senator Kirkmeyer. It actually creates a new line. So there will be a new line in the Colorado State Patrol for the Motorcycle Operator Safety Training Fund that this appropriation will add to their full budget It is an amount that they had already been spending just it had been continuous so it was always off budget Now it will be on budget.

THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. SAM RICKMAN JOINED BUDGET COMMITTEE STAFF. SO FOR THIS LEGISLATION, IT'S BASICALLY TO GIVE PARA MORE FLEXIBILITY and how they allocate the $225 million direct distribution. Yeah, right now they allocate it based on total payroll. This would allow them to allocate it based on not triggering an AAP automatic adjustment provision. Thank you, Madam Chair.

This bill will start in the House and run with the long bill. Sponsors will be Sirota and Taggart, and in the Senate, Bridges and Kirkmeyer. Damn it. And co-sponsors will be Amable M. Brown. The candidates. We're getting ahead of us, Judy. That's okay. How are we doing? Everyone staying even or Amable is ahead? Pretty close. Take it to head by a couple. Mowgli, Bridges, and I are all within one of each other. So we're good. We're doing pretty good. Bridges usually like mine. No, no. Take it to four ahead of Therota. You're two ahead. I'm a servant leader. Let other people take it. No, no. You're going to do your fair share. All right. Miss Yule.

Go ahead. Don't raise your hand for a while. There'll be more time.

Yeah, 79.

I'm just curious if there is any way to add in that the CDC always has to come to the JBC for the meeting. I've been getting comments on the floor. I don't know if that fits in this title. Bummer. All right.

That would settle a bunch of conversation on the Senate floor. Okay.

I move for introduction of LLS. 0889, repeal capital construction funding requirements.

We're not going to go against you, not with that presentation.

You're welcome. You're welcome. Clarence, kindness. Could you hold on some spending $200,000 on the city? Okay. Okay.

Alfredo Kemp, JBC staff. So what I have for you, first bill up in packet 10, this is LLS 260848. These are my recommendations as a part of statewide compensation. This is to increase reporting related to future partnership agreements, requiring that the cost estimates into future years of that partnership agreement be estimated and shared with the JBC. In addition, I have requested one other piece that is a little bit more substantive, and this is to require that as a part of the bargaining process, some group of occupational classes should undergo system maintenance studies, and that should be agreed to within that partnership agreement. That would help to adjust to better align specific positions and occupational series with market rather than doing what we been doing for years which is adjusting everybody by 3 every year So this is a more targeted way to make salary adjustments to occupational classes. Those are the two pieces functionally that are in this bill draft.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think given the delicacy of the co-wins agreement, and I think sort of the, the, we're still unsure what that total comp is going to look like coming from this committee, that we should hold off on this for now.

And next up in here is LLS 260946. This is a limited gaming fund transfers related to history Colorado. Basically, this moves $1 million additional that would otherwise go to Colorado Travel and Tourism Promotion Fund, diverts it to the operations account for History Colorado. This, as I mentioned when I spoke of this during figure setting, this was the agreement on the executive branch side to shift this revenue source for History Colorado. Vice Chair Bridges.

This passes on a vote of 6-0. We'll start in the House and run with the long bill. House sponsors will be Brown and Sirota, and in the Senate, Kirkmire and Bridges, and sponsored, or sorry, co-sponsored by Mable and Tiger. We're pretty well caught up now. Thank you. You guys are getting pretty close again.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms. Pope, for this draft. So this is essentially your recommendation from before, but now the counties, so it's the counties, the departments, and you've been working with those two. Obviously, there are other sort of stakeholders that would be involved in that. I wonder sort of what other conversations have been had about this policy to date. Ms. Pope.

Senator Imabla? So my recollection of the conversation we had was that by not providing the funding for non-certified, we would motivate families to get certified. And I just wonder, is there some language in here, or could we put something in here that expedites the certification process for a family that's currently providing this as a non-certified family? Or, I mean, is that beyond the scope of what we should be doing here? It just seems like there ought to be a way to help these families make this transition.

Senator Kroegmeyer Yes and then if they would have gotten certified they could take it directly out of the block So this was my bill with Senator Zenzinger And I'm the one who thought of using the long-term reserves in the TANF program to try and fund it for a couple of years to see if we couldn't figure out how to get more families to move from non-certified to certified kinship because it is a higher rate that they would get paid. Obviously, that didn't work, and obviously we don't have the general fund to fund it. So unfortunate, but they can still go be certified.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I certainly discussed other options like that with the counties, and I think where we all came out was essentially that we can't afford it. one thing that did feel important to me that I can get the exact data and send it to you all, but I do think that the data is showing that non-certified placements are pretty short-term. So even if we came up with a, it didn't seem like it was maybe as necessary as initially thought to come up with an option like that.

TEN. FIRST OF ALL, THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. AND FIRST OF ALL, I'D JUST LIKE TO SAY THANK YOU TO EMILY. SHE'S DONE A GREAT JOB IN MARSHALLING THIS THROUGH AND WORKING WITH ALL PARTIES. THIS HAS BEEN AN ISSUE WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT NOW FOR THREE YEARS WITH REGARD TO WHERE DOES THE FUNDING COME FOR THE NONCERTIFIED. AND SO COUNTIES HAVE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY, THEY HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO TALK TO THOSE FOLKS WHO GET A CHILD MAYBE DUMPED ON THEM AT SOME POINT, BUT THEY HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO BECOME CERTIFIED. Sometimes people don't wish to become certified because they don't want to stay in their business. So they're like, fine, we'll just take care of it ourselves. They still have opportunities at other times to go get certified. And I don't believe, I mean, I don't ever remember hearing that becoming certified is a difficult thing to do. So I am sure that counties, when they, they already know about this. I'm sure that at least I know in a few counties, they're already starting to talk to folks and letting them know, like, you need to get certified if you want to keep up the payment. So they're working on it. Ms. Pope.

All right. Vice Chair Bridges. Sorry, Madam Chair, if I could talk about how to handle the appropriations clause. So I think, again, we have some problems because this isn't necessarily fully accounted for in your base budget. What I've discussed with counties is essentially there's the $5.5 million from the TANF reserve, and we would, as part of this bill, eliminate that, but not make any other adjustments to the child welfare block. The fiscal note assumed that about a total of $8.4 million would be going to this program. So this year your budget is reflecting about $5.5 from TANF, the remaining $3 from general fund. So technically you could take a $3 million general fund reduction. That's complicated because of this dynamic where some families may be switching to a more expensive form of care and kinship is vastly underaccounted for so far in the child welfare block. And I think I have a number in here. Yeah, the child welfare general fund expenditures are expected to be $26.9 million over your general fund appropriation. So we're not recommending a general fund reduction as part of making this change. I think you can choose whether you would want to reflect the TANF reduction in the long bill or the appropriations clause of this bill. I think I would prefer to just make that change in the long bill because we don't necessarily want to risk carrying that TANF impact forward if anything were to happen with this bill. But it's, I think, up to you how you prefer to account for and reflect this change.

All right, that's it. Vice Chair, I move to introduce LLS 0856, eliminate non-certified kinship foster care 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 Sirota and Taggart. And in the Senate.

Amable and...

Co-sponsors will be Brown and Kirkmeyer. Thank you.

Mr. McClure. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Department feels pretty adamant that roll forward is necessary given the nature of the program and that you're, you know, the testing is being done and then there's remediation being done and when all the timing of this happens presents a challenge for an annual appropriation. I don't know what it means if you appropriate something annually but there isn't roll forward so what does that mean for the you know expenditures in some gap? So the the if we were doing appropriate the entire balance of the fund annually, that this would alleviate that problem. They would be able to spend the entirety of the fund balance. What would end up happening is that

MS. So if I understand you correctly, then if they can spend the whole amount, they don't necessarily need the Roll Forward Authority because they can just spend it all. If they only spend $5 million of the $8 million, then the next year they're going to tell us, well, we've got $3.00 whatever million. We need to spend all of it as well. So they get to keep spending. We just get informed. But we would be, it's a reimbursement-based program, which spans fiscal years. So, I mean, presumably then, though,

it would be contingent on that future appropriation. And this could also be the case that the roll-forward authority can be undone in the future as well. So in this way, it would always be subject to the kind of budgetary decisions of future General Assemblies. Senator Motley.

Well, I totally agree with you that tracking seems important, but what are you going to get from the tracking if it's a reimbursement-based program that, you know, that may end up spanning a fiscal year, so you're not going to have something showing up necessarily on one fiscal year's balance sheet that would end up on the next fiscal year's balance sheet based on work that a school is doing and then going to await, like, they're not timing this to a fiscal year. So to some extent you would know, but I guess not completely. Senator Kirkmeyer?

What if we did something like that?

Yeah.

I would think that would be fine.

I THINK WE HAVE A DIFFERENT APPROACH. SO IT WOULD BE AN RFI WITH ROLL FORWARD AUTHORITY AS OPPOSED TO THIS BILL. WELL, NO, NO, NO. YOU NEED THE BILL. AND THE BILL SO YOU PUT IN CHANGE THIS TO ROLL FORWARD AUTHORITY IN THE APPROPRIATION AND THEN YOU BRING US AN RFI AND WE CAN DEAL WITH THAT So you put in change this to roll forward authority in the appropriation and then you bring us an RFI and we can deal with that later Or do you need to put that in the bill?

In that case, I move for introduction of OLS 0906, Safe Drinking Water and Child Care Centers and Schools. 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, and in the Senate, Kirkmire and Imoble. Where have you been? Well, too bad. There will be more. Sponsors, co-sponsors Taggart and Bridges. Thank you, Mr. McLeary.

Thanks. Okay. Okay. Is that all the bills? Okay. Round is gone.

Was this in Friday's packets? No. It was in my year for Friday. Okay. It's now. No. It's not. Oh. It's all. It's not. I think I just need to go get one. I'll get one. I don't know where it was. It may not have actually had that. I didn't make it. I don't know where it was. I can just have it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

John Catlett, JBC staff here with an overview of marijuana tax cash fund solvency. I guess first, if you're looking for good news, There is a little bit of good news in here, which seems to be in short supply here lately. But when you look at this, you are currently, according to the OSPB forecast that you balance to, you're in balance. So based on that forecast.

Senator Mobley I think we generally discouraged you from sort of picking and choosing among the forecasts however you have acknowledged in the past that you were balancing to one forecast but then targeted a more conservative approach for a specific fund source namely this one so that option is available to you to to target the amount that would be available under lcs i think it gets you to the same place but um i mean really and mr catlett will go into this, but I think this is the forecasts are you're in balance under one and definitely not in balance under the other, and so you are risking going through the reserve pretty quickly, I think, if LCS happens to be correct.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I wonder, you talk about intoxicating hemp in here, and I just wonder if we've done anything to mitigate that, And then if I haven't heard whether this hemp beverage bill has gotten introduced, but if there's any idea about what the impact of that might have, if you can just go to 7-Eleven and buy hemp intoxicating hemp beverages.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Senator Mobley.

But you're saying hemp is still a problem for the marijuana market, even though we've effectively banned it. I'm not exactly sure how that – so is this just a black market for intoxicating hemp?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

understand there's some diversion happening where you say that you have plants that you're growing but then you make product out of hemp and you sell that product and you you say that this was came from the plants and then you sell the plants elsewhere or the marijuana that comes from like the flower elsewhere because you can make these concentrated products from the hemp that you can buy on the black market I know that was something MED was looking into, but I'm not sure what happened with that.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. So moving on, Steph, I don't feel like you're going to have a bottom in this industry until you have price stability, and you currently don't have that. The price is still dropping. It dropped 5% last year. It's down 20% since the pandemic peak. I apologize. It's down adjusted for inflation. It's down 50% since the pandemic peak. So prices have continued to fall, and until you have a floor and some sustained normalcy in the pricing, I don't see a bottom in the near future.

Sorry, just really quick question. The apologies if you said this. The little asterisk, the $131 million is in the table on the bottom of page 5. That is actual revenue?

OKAY. Go ahead.

according to OSPB, and about $9.8 million, according to LCS.

So was this the good news? Sorry, I mean, I'm just circling back. We still need to then cut this, make some cuts here to get this to zero, or no?

No, in this budget year. No, that's where we're okay.

All right, I got you. Thank you.

Yes.

Just so we're clear, we've done a lot. Absolutely. So, Madam Chair, we're at the bottom of page six. These are the MTCF balancing actions to date.

Madam Chair, thank you, and thank you, Mr. Catlett.

What's that? You're a big, one of big tax guys.

Mr. Catlett.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Taggart, you are correct. It is often taxed at the local level. I know in Denver in addition to the 15 special sales tax the state levies there is a 10 local tax levied So if you add in the impact of the excise tax it is about 28 to 30 tax levied on marijuana with 10% of that going to local jurisdictions.

and maybe that's enough. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'll briefly highlight balancing actions to date. The first at the bottom of page six is in higher education. The committee denied the governor's request to eliminate $2 million appropriation to the school of public health for regulating marijuana concentrates. The next action was also in higher ed. The committee denied the governor's request to restore $725,000 appropriation to the Institute of Cannabis Research at CSU Pueblo. This action maintains the funding at $3.1 million, the same level as fiscal year 2526. In the Department of Transportation, the committee denied the governor's request to restore $500,000 of the appropriation to the Marijuana-Impaired Driving Campaign. This appropriation had been reduced as a balancing action from $950,000, and there is currently a $450,000 appropriation in this line. Moving on to page 7 in the public health and environment, the committee did not approve the governor's request to restore funding for the public awareness campaign. During last year's budget balancing, the committee reduced this by $800,000, and the governor had sought to restore $200,000 of this funding. The next action in health care policy and financing, there was a reduction in the screening brief intervention and referral for treatment by $500,000. The governor had sought to reallocate this $500,000, but the committee took action to just reduce that appropriation from $1.5 million to $1 million and take that as MTCF savings. Next, the governor had a supplemental proposal which requested $1.5 million in TCF annually for two fiscal years to support the continuation expanses of youth mental health program. It was intended to be budget neutral with reduced funding from Department of Education, I believe, but the committee took action to deny this request. Next, in Department of Education, the committee chose to approve staff-initiated recommendation to reduce school health professional grant program by $3 million, reducing the appropriation to $12 million in fiscal year 26-27. In Human Services, the committee denied the governor's request to increase NTCF appropriation for the Tony Gramps' youth services by $200,000, thereby maintaining the 25-26 appropriation of $2.2 million. In the governor's office, the committee denied the supplemental request, which requested $1.5 million for mental health core program. The budget amendment was intended to be budget neutral, which had an offset in the early literacy program.

Yes, it is.

I apologize.

This is the same as the one up underneath the other governor.

I finished this.

Yes.

Next, we have the offset for that was in the Department of Education. This was the denial of the supplemental proposal. That was the offset to the expansion of the Youth Mental Health Program. And finally, the committee approved drafting legislation to reduce funding in the Behavioral Health Administration repeal substance use program, which would result in $3 million reduction. And then committee decisions table that requested in the Gov's request, and Senator Mobley, this circles back to your question early. The committee has not yet taken action on this, but the proposal would be to transfer any MTCF revenue exceeding the statutory reserve for fiscal year 26-27 to the state education fund. if the year-ending fund balance was projected to be low the statutory reserve requirement, then no transfer would take place. So to be candid, when I first saw this request, I was very dismissive of it. I'm skeptical that those funds will be available, but it is, in staff's view, I think a very prudent way to manage the potential year-ending fund balance because as you're about to see, there's about $8 to $9 million left on the OSPB forecast above the statutory reserve requirement. That money does not exist on the LCS forecast, which as we've already discussed, for the last five years, the forecast has not only... Year-ending actuals are not only significantly below SPB, but they've also been below LCS. So there's been a systematic upward bias in the forecast of both. So I think this allocation is a great contingent to earmark these funds and prevent the money from going to other programs. And then at year end, if the funds are available based on either the March or June forecast, you could do a year-ending transfer to the state education fund.

Mr. Catlett.

Senator Mobley, your year-ending fund balance is well below for fiscal year 25-26 year reserve requirement. So on page 6, we're looking at the current year, and you're about $5.7 million below the reserve requirement in the current year, and 9.8, according to LCS.

Oh, I'm sorry. So for 26-27, if you're talking about the budget year, then according to OSPB there, it would be $9.8 million. I sorry I thought you were talking about the current budget year as in right now you were looking to transfer money at the end of fiscal year No I just mean we cut their budgets going forward and I think that what we did and

Amable, the one clarification that I would have is that the request in the Governor's office for the Youth Mental Health Corps wasn't really a cut to their budget. They were asking to move money out of one place and put it there to backfill federal funds that were lost. And the advice that we've gotten from council is that they don't have the authority to spend state money on that program within the lieutenant governor's office. So I think there's some murkiness there. You may need a bill for that one or find a different place to put the money if there is another place that could do it.

Senator Kirkmeyer. Okay, maybe I missed something, but in this next budget year, we're either 5.8 million under what we need with regard to the reserve, or basically 10 million. In the current budget year. No, this is, I thought this was for next year, no?

from the March forecast on page 6 where it says we're 5 million, 5.8, I'm just going to say 5.8 million or 9.9 million. Is that for budget year 26, 27? That's for fiscal year 25, 26.

In this year, but next year they're projecting that there will be extra money.

That's why we went with the LCS forecast.

So, Madam Chair, maybe this was real quickly. On page 8 and 9, we have the two forecasts and their impact in the out years. So, very quickly, on page 8, you can see, according to the OSPB forecast, you have $8.1 million above the statutory reserve requirement. And like we've seen for the last three years, on the next page, you can see a very different projection. Based on the LCS forecast, you are $5.5 million. below the 15% statutory reserve requirement. So as we saw earlier, there's about a cumulative $13.5 million difference between the two forecasts, and that's where those differences play out. $8 million above it in one, and about $5.5 million below it in the other.

Mr. Catlett.

So my understanding, and Director Harper can correct me if this is inaccurate, but my understanding is the appropriations this year have been made. They flow through how they will. As long as you don't touch the $100 million Tabor emergency reserve, then the year ending balance is what it is Obviously if you well below the however you end this year is how you begin next year So if you have a significant deficit balance it going to flow through in fiscal year 26 And you can see that on page 10 with the year fund balance projected in fiscal year 26 the cumulative impact of the difference between those two forecasts. So again, you're fine in the current budget year. You're not going to encroach on the $100 million Tabor Reserve. And according to OSPB in the 26-27 budget year, you've taken enough action that you are in balance according to OSPB, which is your forecast selected for balancing. According to LCS, you're going to finish next year deficit, which again, I'll circle back. I think the plan allocating any surplus balance at the end of next year to the state education fund, I think that kind of hedges your downsize risk, having that contingent upon those funds actually being there because I've only seen for four years those funds have not been there.

Madam Chair, if I understand you correctly, you're saying you're wondering if at year end you can appropriate things contingent at the end of the fiscal year on the funds being there? Well, I guess we're talking two fiscal years here.

But if we're projecting to be above the reserve in 26-27, then we could appropriate more this year and expect to be closer to the reserve. We've done it at the end of the fiscal year, not in the forecast so the fiscal year is over. No, next year.

I just think it's pretty dangerous to count on that there's going to be 8.2 million dollars in reserve additional above the reserve in 26-27 given the track record that we've seen for the last four years. We've always been going the other way and spending out of the reserve and then we have to make it up again the next year. So it's pretty dangerous. I mean, I like the idea that if we left everything the same, I mean, and if we were over, then at least that money would be safe somewhere in the state education fund. And then at that point, I guess if you wanted to put money into a program, you could, but that wouldn't be until next year. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am disinclined to take the OSPB forecast on this. I think LCS has been more accurate, and for folks that I know who work in the industry, they think that flat is optimistic. And so I would be very disinclined to adopt a prediction here that said that somehow things were going to turn around in this industry. I think there are some things we could do legislatively to shut down some bad actors and perhaps influence that curve to go back more towards the red dot than the black dot but I think my take on this right now is that we are more likely to end up in the LCS space than in the OSBB space and so I would be very hesitant to spend any additional or assume that there's going to be any additional money in this fund. That being said, perhaps there are things in this fund that we could cut and we could use the money that we save for something else, but I know we looked through this pretty thoroughly last year and didn't come up with any good options besides the few that had already been suggested. So I know we did a pretty deep dive on that last year and just didn't find anything. So unless there are suggestions on things to cut. It'd be if we wanted to try to get as close to possible to the LCS forecast for fiscal year 27, and that's another $5.5 million in reductions we'd be looking for in addition to what we've done. That's correct.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I come back to the same suggestion. I would take the 3.5% that's going to local and I put 1.5 of that towards the general fund and the other 2%, or you could take the total and put it into the marijuana tax cash fund. I'm not one way or the other. If you took it totally to the marijuana tax cash fund, that makes up that total $5 million difference. I just feel like the localities are taxing this, and I don't see why we should be supplementing that.

Senator Farkler? Senator Farkler?

Yeah, $6.5 million.

Screening.

Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm fine with the increase. I don't know that SBIRT is necessarily where I would put it, but I don't think that's a bad place to put it. I just think we should be thoughtful about what it is that we do with anything extra in here. But I know that we cut them. We cut them last year. We're cutting them this year. that seems like a worthwhile place to continue investing.

Yeah.

THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. I SHOULD HAVE INTRODUCED MYSELF BEFORE. Craig Harper, JBC staff. Two just sort of thoughts in response. One is you could go ahead and move to draft on a bill.

And then obviously we would need six to review the bill, but all of this, the change would definitely require a bill. So that's point one. And point two, I think Ms. Ewell came into the room. She and I both, more importantly, her opinion, agree that it would probably make your thoughts on school finance easier going forward if you put the extra money in the state public school fund rather than the state education fund. for school finance purposes those two are interchangeable but the layering more money and an uncertain amount of additional money into the state ed fund would mess with the projections that legislative council staff and Ms. Ewell put together for school finance purposes. So I would recommend substituting that other fund rather than the ed fund. They really are the same difference for school finance. And she can speak with more information than I am just off the cuff.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Andrea Ewell, JBC staff. Yeah, just to elaborate, so the state public school fund is kind of the first thing we decide how much to pay out of because we always spend as much as we can out of there, and that has several fund sources coming in that are also volatile and hard to predict. Like, it already has part of the marijuana excise money, federal mineral lease revenue, now revenue coming from the best cap. and so we like use that more short term just whatever comes in than we appropriate for total program. The state ed fund is a much longer term projection and right now the only money coming in there is based on income tax diversions, the original one and now the kids matter is a sub account. So I would prefer to let all the kind of other fund sources flowing through that may be put towards total program funding to go through the state public school fund just for forecasting purposes. But it accomplishes the same goal that OSPB and Mr. Callad are recommending.

Vice Chair Brindes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Move that. Do we draft for introduction a bill that would keep the local share of that tax? I think it's 3.5 right now. Instead, direct that all back to the marijuana tax cash fund. Eliminate. Yeah, that's right. Just straight up eliminate that distribution. I think where it goes doesn't have to be outlined in this bill, though. Well, if we eliminated it, it would just be in the MTCF. Come into the marijuana tax cash fund, and then we can appropriate it.

Senator Hercmeyer?

Well, I think there's two. Let's move to draft and determine and, like, have a more fulsome conversation about where we think this extra money should go, whether that's the public school fund or SBIRT or some sort of workaround to get it to the youth mental health services thing. We'll fill that blank in later, but let's get a bill drafted right now to start taking those dollars back. Senator Kirkweiler?

I don't know if we're cutting the governor's office. I don't know why they need to keep doing an evaluation. Policy making. Why does the governor's office have to keep doing a policy making evaluation? Mr. Catlett, do you feel like you have any direction for drafting or not? We haven't voted yet, but I want to make sure everybody is clear on what we're asking you to do. I'm not sure that's the case.

Theoretically correct.

SO THAT'S MY UNDERSTANDING OF WHERE WE ARE. I GUESS THE ONLY CLARIFICATION IS ARE YOU LOOKING TO INCREASE THE APPROPRIATION TO THE SCREENING, BRIEF AND PREVENTION, REFERRUAL TO TREATMENT IN THE LONG BILL CURRENTLY, OR DO YOU WANT TO WAIT AND DO THAT IN THE LEGISLATION? HOW DO YOU WANT TO HANDLE THAT?

YEAH, EXACTLY. AND THEN IN THIS BILL, WE SAY THAT THEN IF THERE'S ANYTHING OVER AND ABOVE THAT GOES to the school, whatever that was. Public trust. Public funds. State public school funds, which is very different. Yeah. Okay. So we don't actually have to decide on the long bill appropriation right this second. You can do that after this if you want.

Mr. Catlett.

I would prefer to divert it as well, because it's not like everyone doesn't listen to these JBC meetings, and they're all thinking, God, I need a million bucks for something, and they're going to go try and grab that whatever it is, a million dollars or 500,000 or whatever it is, and try and act like they can spend it. If we need to transfer it back out of public schools fund, we can. Is there anything that would prevent us, Ms. Yule, from reversing said transfer if we needed to next year?

We don't even know that there's going to be any money left over.

You're sweating this. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't like saying that we're just going to do something with these dollars that we maybe don't have to do, given the fiscal reality we may be facing next year Having extra money in that pot may not be the place that we want it and sure we can move it around but it seems like having it anywhere other than where it should be is not a great way forward.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Bridget, to be completely candid, I think this has been parsed back pretty hard in recent years. I mean, you've had to make significant reductions over the last three years, and I think last year's cuts were significant. Off the top of my head, I don't. I mean, I cover the Department of Revenue. They get money to fund the Marijuana Enforcement Division, and I would say given their state, they definitely cannot absorb or should not absorb a cut. But outside of that, if you would like me to, I can talk to analysts who have expertise in these departments and get that. We've done that in the past, and we've taken reductions. I don't see a lot of fat left to trim.

I'm going to be an ask class. You're not the analyst?

Thank you, Mr. Catlett.

Yeah, I mean, evidence-based policymaking, what the heck? That's just to hire a staff. That's just a hire staff. Oh, okay.

MTCF. Thank you, MTCF.

MTCF. It's like nails on a chalkboard.

We're done for now. We're done for now. We're all done. With MTCF, do you want to cut more? Big garbage.

We are going to get a new governor, so I don't know if the new governor will care or not.

I mean, I think it's a good question. What is the evidence-based policymaking evaluation and support? I mean, I have no idea. That does sound.

Good idea.

Poor Mr. Catlett. You're back. You might have been in transit when the vice chair made that recommendation. Just a thought. It was just speaking out loud. What's this line item that's just the governor's office? Under governor. It's just a staff person, probably. So what's the difference between the evidence-based policymaking, evaluation, and support, and governor's office? These two lines in the governor's budget.

Vice Chair Britches?

Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a question for Director Harper, perhaps, and maybe not one that he would like to answer on the record. So we can push this if we need. But, you know, I know that Mr. Burmeister has left and that the evidence-based budgeting was in part something that he had a great deal of interest in. I'm curious if the evidence-based analysis that is done on these proposals is helpful for staff as they make their recommendations. More often than not, what I see from staff is a paragraph they have written disagreeing with the governor's evidence basis, which seems less helpful to me than it seems like a paragraph that you would rather not write.

Would you be less inclined to accept a request if it didn't have evidence?

Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. It seems to me that perhaps we keep these people on for the remainder of the current administration, but then this is a place we can save $1,500, an ongoing $300. Just a...

Sorry.

They'll be fine. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we've poked the hornet's nest enough on this one to stir things up and see what it is that comes back. Sometimes that's what we do with bills. Sometimes that's what we do with comments on the mic. I think that the comments have stirred, and we will be hearing back. So thank you.

I do.

Yeah. Both of them add up to about $4.5 million.

Right. He thinks they both high Those are pretty high Indirect A lot of money in services though Okay Well so Mr Catlett Director Harper

I'm not going to opine on whether the 25% seems exorbitant. I think one thing that would drive that number up is if you have an agency that's got significant numbers of staff on this, then it's showing both indirects and centrally appropriated amounts. So that would be where your health life dental costs are showing up. If you've got FTE that are paid from the MTCF, then health life dental is also being, for that staff, is also being paid with MTCF. And that's going to jack up your centrally appropriated amounts. Okay. Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The memo that I just handed out to you all, I also emailed to you over the weekend. Subject line is Ref C and general fund exempt allocations for fiscal year 25, 26 and 26, 27. This is my recommendations for the allocation of general fund money from the general fund exempt account in the current year and next year as adjusted by the March 2026 OSPB forecast. Just as a reminder, the general fund exempt account captures the money that is between the TABOR cap and the referendum C cap. So you've got the original TABOR cap, voters passed referendum C in 2005, and the gap between those two lines, any money that comes in above the TABOR cap and below the REFC cap goes into this general fund exempt account. And you all allocate that each year based on statutory guidance. If you go to page two, you can see the table showing my recommended adjustments for the current year. It goes to five departments, health care policy and finance and education each get the same amount of general fund exempt. So we're in the middle column here that's showing the GFE account. Those two departments end up with the same amount and higher education is a little bit lower based on the way that the statute guides it. I'll note that that's fortunate because we've had years where it was becoming challenging to find enough places to offset regular general fund with general fund exempt in higher ed. Then there's much lower amounts in local affairs and you have a transfer to the Department of Transportation there at the very bottom. That transfer of $500,000 is, the committee brought that up previously. you'll see that I've included the $500,000 transfer in both years for both the current year and fiscal year 26-27. The committee had asked questions about eliminating that transfer to transportation and the legal guidance is that you can absolutely eliminate it for 26-27 if you want to. It would get reallocated back up basically between health care policy and finance and education and offset of general fund up above So that option is available to you The rest of this is very formulaic in that you see that in the fiscal year 25 amount the bottom yellow bar there, so I'm on page two, the table one, total adjustments, you'll see that the GFE amount is going down by $229 million in the current year. That's because when we set the budget or when you set the budget for fiscal year 2526 during the 2025 session, the expectation based on the March 2025 OSPB forecast was that we would be above the cap. We now expect to be below the cap. That $229 million is the amount that OSPB expects us to be below the cap in the current year. So instead of allocating the full amount between TABOR CAP and REFC, we're allocating, this recommendation is allocating $229 million less than that based on the OSPB forecast. For the current year, that number would be quite different if you had selected the LCS forecast because they expect to be farther below the CAP. For fiscal year 26-27, it's actually a different story in that both forecasts expect you to be above the cap. So if you go to page three, you can see we're going up $123 million above the current allocation for 25-26 into 26-27. Total allocation from the GFE account is $3.946 billion, and that number is actually the same regardless of which forecast you pick because both forecasts have you above the cap in 26-27. So they both have the same taper growth rate, and they both have you above the cap, which means that that gap is the same under both forecasts. And this is the same methodology that JBC staff has used to recommend this allocation for as far back as I've been able to find in the records. So this one is largely a formality as you move towards closing the long bill, but it's a decision that you all need to make before we can close the long bill, and it's entirely forecast dependent, so it felt like a reasonable time to bring it in.

I definitely don't remember this from last year, So, but I did read it last night and I concluded that this is accounting, but has absolutely nothing to do with actual gravity, like Newton's law. Is that right, Director Harper?

Senator Mobley, I'm somewhat hesitant to answer that question because Ref C makes it very clear that the amount of money that comes in above the Tabor cap needs to go to these places. And once it comes in, this is how we've allocated it. I think it ends up, for the purposes of your staff, other than previously it's had its own column, you approved a change this year to drop that column out of the long bill, which is going to help us fit larger numbers in the long bill going forward without them wrapping. It's going to show up in letter notes at this point as of this general fund appropriation, this much is from the general fund exempt account. For staff purposes, this is truly a formality because general fund is general fund, and this amount needs to be allocated to these uses. The thing is that particularly if you look at K-12 education and healthcare policy and finance, the... The need is large enough that we end up allocating this and then whatever else you need to hit the target that you've hit is going to be general fund regardless. So it doesn't necessarily work out the way that one might have pictured at the beginning that this is gravy on top of the general fund that they're getting. It's just one big pile of general fund, in part because those particular departments have gotten so large.

I believe that the $500,000 is still going to, I mean, it's going into the HUTF, and the guidance is that it's for strategic projects. I don't, I'm not aware of it being specific to Avalanche, but we can get back to you.

I'm being told, I guess I was incorrect about the HEF. It gets spent from the capital construction, so it goes to the capital construction fund and then goes into asset maintenance for regular transportation projects. Avalanche happens to be one that they did at one time.

Yes, you do. I went ahead and kept it based on current practice for the last several years. I think it's completely a policy call. It's not a number that's going to move the dial a lot in CDOT's budget, and it's also not going to exactly close your gap for general fund balancing either. So I think this is a policy call for you all whether to stick with keeping it in CDOT or not.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to approve staff request as outlined in the memo from Director Harper titled Ref C and General Fund exempt allocations for FY 2526 and 2627.

Yes, Madam Chair, the binder from Friday had two packets in it, and we've added another one today if you wanted to get to it. Those are still available.

PACKET 10, THE CANARY PACKET.

Amanda Bickle, JBC staff. So this is some cleanup on the ARPA funds decisions that you have made so far. SO YOU'LL REMEMBER THERE WAS 3.8 BILLION YOU RECEIVED FROM THE AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT, WHICH WAS SUBJECT TO APPROPRIATION AND IT BEEN BEING SPENT DOWN OVER MANY YEARS NOW YOU HAVE ALREADY VOTED IF YOU LOOK AT THE ON PAGE TWO THERE A TABLE THE ACTIONS YOU TAKEN SO FAR ARE IN THE years now You have already voted If you look at the on page two there a table The actions you taken so far are in that left column 33 million I recommending some additional amounts and changes, which will add another 1.1 million to the total. You've already authorized bill drafting for this bill, but there's a few additions that I WANT TO CLARIFY FOR YOU AS THIS IS GETTING DRAFTED. I AM GOING TO NOTE THAT THIS TABLE DOES INCLUDE THAT 9.9 MILLION DOLLAR TRANSFER RELATED TO BURNHAM YARDS. I KNOW THERE WAS A COMEBACK ON THAT. I KNOW THAT THAT MIGHT STILL BE OUTSTANDING IF YOU CHOOSE TO REVISIT THAT. THE AMOUNTS THAT I WANT TO ADD TO THE BILL TODAY, THIS ADDITIONAL 1.1 BILLION, IS ALL RELATED TO FUNDS WHERE THE SPENDING AUTHORITY HAS EXPIRED. SO THE MONEY IS SITTING IN A CASH FUND. IT'S REFINED, IT ORIGINATED AS GENERAL FUND. IT'S SITTING IN A CASH FUND. THIS IS JUST TO MOVE IT BACK INTO THE GENERAL FUND. AND SO THERE'S SOME EXPLANATION ON PAGE THREE OF WHAT THOSE, WHERE SOME OF THOSE FIGURES CAME FROM. I WOULD SAY THAT THE ONE THAT WAS MOST INTERESTING TO ME They were the state highway fund reversion amounts, which are the bottom two ones on the table. You provided some authority in the last ARPA bill to tell the governor's office, spend the ARPA funds and free up general fund if you can. And there are some situations where the ARPA funds, the actual federal ARPA funds, were encumbered, and then the encumbrance didn't work out for some reason. And apparently the federal government has allowed us to then reencumber the funds on some other allowed purposes, and so we have apparently been doing that in some projects in the state highway fund. Again, it's just freeing up general fund, which you're then going to transfer back to the general fund. So there's nothing, like, inappropriate here. It's just they found a way to do this, and I was pleased the federal government allowed us to do that, and we didn't just lose those funds. Based on your previous decision with Director Harper, I'm going to recommend that all the transfers be done June 30th, 2026, so we get them into showing up as a 2526 transfer amount. These are all one-time funds, so it seems appropriate to put them where you know you have really big one-time balancing problems, which is 25-26. There's a few additional statutory changes I've listed on page three. So one of these is we continue to have difficulty getting that project at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan done. It's a capital project that was a 2022 appropriation of $35 million. Based on discussions with Ms. Pope and the governor's office, The recommendation is that the bill includes changes that allow for spending of those dollars through the end of 26-27 rather than December of 2026, which is when under current law most of these projects turn into a pumpkin and all the money goes back to the general fund.

I'm sorry, page three.

Yeah.

I thought you'd already moved to four.

So anyway so this is an extension to that for that one project and making changes to the bill to allow that The governor office also asked would you just extend the discretionary account through the end of the fiscal year instead of June 1st I wasn't feeling all that charitable, so that's not in my recommendations. But just so you know, the governor's office would like that. I think they'll manage either way. I don't think that this is, they understand that everything was from the discretionary account was expected to be done by June 1st. And so that's what they're planning on at this point. I'm also anticipating that for a couple of projects where the money is still active and there may be an appropriation clause adjustment as we've done in the past. That is, anything where it's just reverted funds, meaning the spending authority has ended, we're not going to go back and change those appropriations. But if the appropriation is still active and is good through at least the middle of 26-27, we'll change the appropriation clause as well to say, actually, there's somewhat less money available for this project than the amount that was originally set aside for it. And that's the governor's office has also has requested we do that as well. And it's not very many changes. So and then I've just got some additional background for you that is on page three and four sort of. For Brett Brown who hasn't lived through this again and again and again, kind of what is the history here. I did think you might be interested as well in the status of spending. So the current sort of ARPA wrap-up, everything was originally written, and this is generally not changed to end December 31, 2026. And then everything goes back in the middle of 26, 27 to the general fund. The one exception is the discretionary account, which is a few extra months

Rep Taggart. Madam Chair, Ms. Bickle, my one concern on page three, and I know you're already over on the background, is that bullet under additional statutory changes. Are we confident we have given extensions on the neuropsych facility at least two or three times? Is this it?

Correct. Is that what you're asking for? Yeah. Are we, I mean, this has been crazy.

So you made the comment that they need the discretionary account and the extension of spending so that they can keep staff on to finish up any closeout process. Is this for all the departments? Because it seems like, so they have their own staff that are closing out and then we have other departments that are having needing staff to carry on to to close out you know three staff here four staff there kind of thing thing Ms Bickle Essentially if you remember the discretionary count was basically seated with like million

Rep Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. and I've said this before and I'll say it again, I think we should sweep it and force them to come back with a comeback. Because, you know, we've seen these big unencumbered and it's always the same answer, but there's lots of programs in this and et cetera, et cetera, but we can't give you the information. Well, if you can't give the information, let's take it and force it. Because I don't accept that when these funds were supposed to be completely spent by December of 2026. For them to say they don't know at this point, to me, is a ridiculous argument. Sorry. Ms. Bickle.

So with regard to page five, can we actually sweep the governor's discretionary account? I didn't think we could. Aren't those custodial funds and we can't really sweep them?

Thank you. And in the legislative appropriations, so that wouldn't be over in O-edit. Those would be over in the governor's discretionary account, or would those be over in O-edit, some of those? You know, like the IIJA stuff where we moved money over there and did a bunch of different things?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Forgive me because this is newer to me, but your chart indicates that $70 million in that discretionary account is unencumbered. I assume now that was as of December 31st. And you're saying through this presentation and your write-up that all that money goes back to the general fund on June 1st. Is that right?

Got it.

Can you tell me, I mean, do we have any better sense of, like, how much of that money has since been encumbered or is expected? Like, I can't imagine there's $70 million worth of staff in there, obviously. I don't think that's what you're saying. But I wonder how much of that money is like planned for staff versus and encumbered now since even since December 31st or if there still 20 30 million dollars in there that we could take I can definitely tell you sort of what are the projects that they had as of the last set of data they gave us

so you do have an idea of where these these monies are that are unencumbered um absolutely senator Kirk Meyer I mean I

I think we should look at it. Okay. Because I'm with Rep Taggart. Maybe some of those funds should be coming back now. They're not encumbered. They're not even encumbered. So I don't know how they're going to get it spent before the end of the year either. Right?

WELL, IN THE MEANTIME, YOU SAID WE'VE ALREADY APPROVED DRAFTING AUTHORITY, SO WHAT YOU ARE ASKING FOR IN...

Is that the?

So it would be helpful if you would vote for staff recommendation. And, you know, if you later decide that you don't want to do the Burnham Yards and that should be pulled out of the bill, we can certainly do that. But this way I can bring you a bill that's reasonably complete, and then you can adjust it in whatever other ways you would like to adjust it. Vice Chair Bridges.

Okay. I would agree, but with regard to the Burnham Yard deal, I mean, I would agree taking it out of this transfer bill is fine. But there needs to be some kind of provision that when they do sell the property, that we get that approximately $10 million back to the general fund, and that it doesn't go into the HPTP or HTPE, whatever that enterprise is called now, the CTIO. That money should come back to the general fund. It shouldn't go to the enterprise. And I don't know that that could be in this bill, but I think there should be something that makes that clear. It possibly could be I need to consult with Ms Bova and others about what else could be added in here But it possible that could go into this bill Okay Senator Mobley

Why can't what be?

You mean encumber it that way?

I honestly don't know if it's in their encumbered or their unencumbered column here. Obviously it wasn't spent. I think it's unencumbered, though, and I think that was part of why you thought you could take it. But now I'm getting over my skis, so there we go. Ms. Bova.

$9 to $12, but we took $9. It was $10, basically.

Okay. Senator Kirkmeyer?

MS. THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. SENATOR KIRKMAYER, YEAH, THE ENTERPRISE IS THE HIGH PERFORMANCE TRANSPORTATION ENTERPRISE. THEY RENAMED IT TO CTIO. AT THIS POINT, IT'S VERY COMPLICATED, BUT THEY ARE UNRELATED. CTIO TOOK ON THE LOAN, AND THAT WAS FOR $50 MILLION. AND THEY HAVE THEIR FIRST LOAN PAYMENT DUE, I THINK, THIS UPCOMING SUMMER, AND THAT IS WITH A PRIVATE BANK. AND THEN THESE WERE FUNDS THAT THE GOVERNOR'S DISCRETIONARY ACCOUNT HAD GIVEN TO DPA TO DO PART OF THE CLEANUP, AND DPA IS SORT OF SERVING AS A PROJECT MANAGER ON THE SITE, BUT CDOT AND THE HPT STILL HAS THAT LOAN. AND REGARDING PUTTING THAT INTO A BILL THAT THEY WOULD HAVE TO GIVE THAT BACK, I'M NOT SURE HOW THAT WOULD WORK SINCE I think they will have to, they don't have an agreement yet with the Broncos basically. So I think it would intersect with the agreement that they have with the Broncos if they choose to buy it, but there's no formal agreement yet. It's kind of like an understanding that when we do buy this property from you, we'll give you enough money for it that you'll be able to repay your loan. So I just don't know what we would put in a bill like that to recoup that $9 million.

It's the $9.9 million that we're putting in to do the cleanup. So I want to recoup that back to the general fund and not back to the enterprise. And if they made a bad deal, then it's on them, but we're not going to spend our money on their bad deal. That's how I look at it. So, I mean, I'm not trying to hold up anything where they can sell the property or where they get it cleaned up. And I'm not sure why DPA is in charge of the cleanup when I thought I heard that they needed to remove rail lines and do all this stuff. Most of that isn't done through the Department of Transportation and probably have to go through the PUC on some of that as well. So what I would like to know is if we're putting in $10 million worth of what essentially will be general fund money into this project to do the cleanup, that's fine. but when they sell it, I want the $10 million back into the general fund and not into their enterprise to go use on a transportation project or wherever they going to use it Does that make sense Rep Taggart No Thank you Madam Chair It makes perfect sense, but that means that the deal has to be $60 million as compared to $50 million.

Say that again.

So who's going to pay? With what money?

Oh, okay. It just, I would keep that asset as pledged against that note. Well, is there any equity in this thing or not? I don't think so. So they lost money? Oh, yeah. They lost all the money. Yes. Yes. It's not a good deal, but I would bet that. That property, it has to be pledged. That's putting it mildly. It has to be pledged against that note. So all the money is going to just pay off the money? Yeah. And we're out $10 million. I think so.

Can we just check into that and make sure? I mean, is there any reason why the HTPE or the CTIO, whatever, the enterprise, can't pay off the loan if they don't get enough? I mean, what if they didn't get enough in the first place and had a short sale and they couldn't get it paid off? Wouldn't they have to pay it off through the enterprise anyways?

I think they would. I think the issue is related to the amount that they plan to sell it for. And I think there's going to be lost cost either way. whether that falls on the Department of Transportation or the P3 office.

We could definitely agree on the transfer stuff here. We need to have more discussion on this. For this transfer bill. We did that. We just need to include the changes to the transfer. Move to include changes to the transfer bill as outlined in Ms. Bickle's March 18th memo, statewide ARPA refinanced ARPA funds, minus the dollars for the Burnham Yard cleanup.

And that includes the statutory changes proposed in said memo.

In that same packet 10, on page 6, you have another comeback related to part-time enrichment funding in school finance. During my figure setting presentation, I had an option in the original, the additional balancing options section at the end related to part-time enrichment funding and the committee decided to authorize bill drafting on that concept at the time, but I didn't have any specifics for you at the time. And I still don't actually have a bill draft for you, but I have a lot more information for your consideration. The boxed part on page 6, there was the original information. The simplest way to explain this is that basically the state is paying half-time funding for about 18,700 students that are actually enrolled in closer to what is a quarter time hours that full-time students take. On page 7, moving on to new information. So this was brought up to me last year by CDE because there was a very specific situation with just a couple districts where they started looking into the way some students were being counted and found some issues with these types of programs. And since then, CDE has continued to look at it, and they have brought a lot more information forward, and they did a presentation at the state board's January 16th work session, which is where I got a lot of this information. So basically, the General Assembly determines the funding for school finance, but the state board through rulemaking are the ones who set the minimum hours, and for a full-time student it's 360 per semester that they have to be scheduled to take. And the state board through rulemaking also determined that to get halftime funding, you only have to be scheduled for 90 hours, which is a quarter of that time. Those students are submitted through the authorizing district. So every student that's counted comes in through a school district, but what we're seeing is oftentimes the districts are contracting out these programs to a BOCES, and then now the issue that CDE is really looking at is that the BOCES or the districts are contracting these out to other subcontractors or multiple layers of subcontractors using contracting statutes. The students are, the funding they're paid for is based on that district's rate, though. And so the halftime funding ranges from about $5,500 to $17,000, and that's based on district per pupil funding ranges from like $11,000 to low $30s. And the 90 hour requirement is about one hour per day, five days a week or five hours one day a week. So really it's the growth in the contracted out parts that is, I think, concerning to CDE and where there were a lot of specific schedules found by the CDE school finance audit team. A lot of those schedules that I would say are rather concerning, they think are coming from sort of the contracted out. Programs. Districts have the ability to contract out for any service they would offer, and it's supposed to be of comparable quality and meet the same requirements and standards that would apply if it was performed by the school district. And right now, CDE does not have a way to really ensure that these programs meet any of those requirements or standards. CDE doesn't authorize these programs, and the only information they really have is coming from audits, which are happening after the fact. On page 8, it talks about the enrollment trends. So the enrollment in part-time enrichment programs has more than doubled since fiscal year 19, and the state is now spending $100 million a year on these programs through the formula. There are several programs and a lot of students attending brick-and-mortar programs with public school kids for some classes There are other districts that have what they call option programs where the campus or the district or the school has certain facilities where kids come in and take like several classes. Usually that's the model where it's like a whole day, one day a week. But then, and then there are a handful of districts enrolled in part-time multi-district online schools, which is kind of a separate but related issue that Ms. Bickle's looking at. But then the fourth bullet point on page 8, that's really where CDE thinks all the growth is and where they think it's most concerning is the students receiving part-time programming from private individuals or entities. So CDE's issue is that right now, due to kind of a lack of rules around this, the rulemaking really has not kept pace with the innovation that CDE is seeing in these types of programs. and the auditors found several interesting course schedules, but the auditors aren't really, they don't have the authority to decide, like, what should be fundable as and counted as attending public school for a portion of the day. So on the bottom of page 8, the bullet points have some of the examples they found, and those were in the presentation of the state board. So there were some schedules where it was mostly a lot of one-time classes, field trips, evening and weekend events. There was one schedule that was almost entirely sports, including evening hours and weekend hours. And there are also circumstances where CDE thinks that, so private school students can also enroll in these programs. they think some private schools are just kind of merging the part-time enrichment funding in the middle of the day so students don't even really know that they're technically taking a public school class right now and CDE thinks that there may even be some cases where tuition is getting offset because the schools are asking parents to enroll their kids in like a public school enrichment or like a public enrichment program for a portion of the day. So there's a lot of concerning things. And I think from that aspect of what can be counted, that's something that CDE is very much asking the state board to look at. I think the General Assembly could look at it, but that will require more nuance than just simply cutting the rate of funding. Because regular schools do offer PE and sports during the day and stuff, but the question is how much? Like how much does the General Assembly want to allow for an enrichment program? it seems like there should be a limit on counting some of these types of things towards the minimum 90 hours. Keep in mind, they're doing all this just to reach the minimum to get the halftime funding. And CDE's original kind of explanation to me was that if you just, because CDE anecdotally thinks that a lot of these programs are being built around the minimum 90 hours. I've seen a couple examples of brick and mortar ones where it's over 90, but then I've also heard from some brick and mortar district programs that they do only require the 90 hours. And I even heard from one program in a big district that said we're not allowed to offer more than 90 hours. And I verified with CDE that that's not true. There's not a limit. The only condition is when you become a homeschool student, the parent has taken responsibility for that child's education and pulled them out of school, but they can enroll them in these enrichment programs for up to half time if they want So I also heard conflicting things about whether or not the districts who submit the counts are taking money off the top always or not at all That's a question. I am hearing that from even the brick and mortar providers, which are the more traditional types of programs that CDE wasn't really intending to get at with this presentation, but they are saying that we cannot operate on a quarter time funding. Our fixed costs are too high. I think there's some question of if that's true, can students go and get more than at least the minimum 90? I think that depends on the model. And if you have a program that's a brick and mortar program, like a trade oriented topic, the students, you wouldn't necessarily want the student to be committing 180 hours just to that one topic. So if they don't offer multiple topics, that could be an issue. And let's see, so the initial savings that CDE estimated for me of 24 million was based on just if you cut the rate from 0.5 to 0.25 and said that's what these programs are getting paid at, CDE thought you'd save around 24 million or potentially around 40 if you make those changes count in the averaging that's used for prior years. After talking about it with some people more, I think it would probably be hard to say for sure what the savings would be. Some people are asserting there won't be savings because half of these kids might go back to being 100% homeschooled and half of them might become public school students. But that, I think, leaves the General Assembly with a philosophical question of would you rather have those kids full-time in the districts being subject to the state's coursework and academic standards and reporting and all of that. I'm also hearing conflicting things about what the original intent of allowing these programs are. CDE asserts that it was to have students come in and take calculus or physics or something maybe the parent couldn't teach or like art or band. But some advocates are saying the idea was just to socialize the kids. So, you know, sports, music, field trips, whatever. So I'm hearing kind of conflicting things about what the original goal was, and I can't weigh in on that. So I think it would be better suited for the state board to more carefully look at both the funding and what can be counted in those hours. It's just schedule-wise, based on how long rulemaking takes, it's too late for the state board to really do anything for the upcoming school year. Some of these programs are probably enrolling kids already. But the General Assembly could choose if you would rather act or you don't trust the state board to act, you could make changes that impact next fiscal year. I think, again, we wouldn't really know the savings right away. You'd have to kind of wait for the student count numbers to come in. So after looking at all of that, I don't think there's a perfect solution where no legitimate or kind of in-person large providers get harmed. I do think that the General Assembly could create a quarter time category and say, if you are closer to 90 hours, so say like 90 to 135 hours, split the difference, like round down from 135, you're providing quarter time education, you're getting paid a quarter time for those students. Students if you over 135 sort of close to halftime you can have funding That is a way to do it Though there are still some providers saying we can offer that many hours and we can survive on that little funding So that was my best attempt to determine if the General Assembly wanted to do a bill, though. It would be something like instead of leaving the required hours and the rate up to the State Board, you would put that in statute instead. I think it would take it would be a lot more complicated for the general somebody to also start putting in statute the requirements around what can even be counted as hours. So I think at this point I'm kind of looking towards the committee to see like do you want to continue going down this road looking at a potential bill to do something about it or defer to the state board for now see if they act. this can always stay on the options list in future years if the state board does not do anything to address this issue. And I understand what some of the providers are saying about their fixed costs and not being able to survive at a quarter time, but I think in our current budget situation, right now I think it's fair to say that most people think that public school students aren't being adequately funded. Meanwhile, we are, I think, generously paying for part-time enrichment students and multi-district online students, which is something Ms. Bickle is looking at. So some things to think about.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for this work on this thing. I mean, I got tons, I think we all got tons of outreach. and I was just shocked to see that there were all these private companies that were engaged in this work, which at your first presentation, I thought it was just, hey, they're showing up at the school to participate in intramural sports. And that doesn't seem like what's happening at all. I mean, it's way more than that. And if the Board of Ed has known about this for a long time and had some concerns, and I just wonder why haven't they done anything, about it. And I think many of us were totally caught off guard by what's happening. And I feel like we need to take action. And I don't know whether it sounds like a fairly complicated policy decision, but it doesn't seem like a very complicated appropriations decision. And so I would like for us to pull back some of the funding and then they can start to figure it out and then maybe we leave the more complicated policy decision to to the General Assembly or to the Board of Ed or I don't know. Any other takers? Vice Chair Bridges? Thank you Madam Chair. I have heard from a number of folks about

Well, I would be amenable to that as well, because $100 million spent on this particular program is staggering to me and that some of these funds are going to fund kids who are in private school. I mean, it just, I'm shocked at how out of control this is and that it seems to be taking the board and CDE this amount of time that they know this and now they're not going to be able to do anything about it for the coming school year. So, you know, to your point about how underfunded our public schools are currently, and that we are directing this vast sum of money to such a program, which sounds very nice for the kids who are receiving it, but it seems very unfair to me. And especially in the context of all the cuts that we are contemplating everywhere else in the budget, that we would continue to direct this vast sum of money to a program that is clearly being abused. I would be open to at least rectifying the amount funded depending on quarter time or half time.

I just don't know how to put a dollar figure on this. For instance, those young students that have a disability, that are being homeschooled, where this enrichment program is truly critical to them. I'm fully in support of helping those students. But I don't, you know, I honestly don't know what dollar amount makes sense. And I guess I'm just like the rest of the committee, how this got so out of control to begin with, with the school board just baffles me. But I don't know how to put a dollar figure on this. I know how you calculated it initially and I respect that, but I, you know.

I heard Ms. You'll say she couldn't, but that we could make that policy change that might make some changes, but we wouldn't know until the count came in.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just add a couple more thoughts. CDE did find data showing that only 31 districts offer these programs, but the 65% of those students are coming from three districts. SO THERE ARE, YOU KNOW, A LOT OF THOSE DISTRICTS ARE, I THINK, OFFERING THE OPPORTUNITY TO THE KIDS, BUT IT NOT LIKE SET UP LIKE THESE BIG KIND OF LIKE PROGRAMS LIKE THERE DEFINITELY LIKE A CONCENTRATION OF ENROLLMENT IN CERTAIN PROGRAMS AND CDE ALSO THINKS THAT YOU KNOW like these big kind of like programs like there definitely like a concentration of enrollment in certain programs And CDE also thinks that at a quarter time that like some districts would still offer the opportunity for maybe back to the more what they thought of as traditional sense where the homeschool students can go into the school and take some classes instead of kind of like going to a big center or, you know, these specialty programs being run that may look more like a sports camp. And CDE also thought that some districts will probably continue to at least offer the opportunity because they feel that it's an important part of their mission and something they should offer. But I think there's been like an evolution of these models where just based on the number of times money is changing hands, it's like people are trying to get into the business of providing homeschool enrollment. But, yes, it is hard to predict how, you know, these programs would kind of behave, I think. And then, again, like what is the right number? I, you know, I can't say for sure that was my best effort. It could be .4. It could be .3. It could be a flat rate. But I think that's something we just don't know right now. And because CDE isn't, they're not the authorizers of these programs, so they can't really, like, even take a look at all this stuff they're relying on. the four-person auditing team for all of school finance to kind of pull these examples for them.

Okay, I guess I don't understand why they can't look more into it as CDE. I'm not understanding that, so maybe you could explain that. But the audit was done for the 24-25 year. They just got a presentation, and the school board isn't going to, the state board isn't going to do any rules. Like they're just punting and thinking this is okay and just like we're supposed to take care of it when they clearly have rulemaking authority. Isn't that what they're there for?

Senator Kirkemeyer, this presentation was January and it, you know, they meet once a month and it hasn't been back on their agenda. And then just based on the, like the posting and required time for school finance rules, at this point, it's like they, yeah, are not acting fast enough to get, to do anything for the upcoming school year.

Senator Amabile?

Spaghetti.

Vice Chair Bridges.

I'm concerned that there are some of our maybe smaller school districts or more rural school districts that are using it appropriately, and they're going to get penalized because other school districts are deciding to contract whole days out at a time, I guess. I don't know. And I don't know how much we would say we were even saving. I don't know what that would be. Why can't we just make the State Board of Education actually go through and do some rulemaking and do their job? It sounds like they are doing it slowly. They've known about it.

That I would have to continue to look at because I've never worked on a bill before trying to tell the state board to do something. So I'm not really sure how we could force them to act faster.

Yeah. Vice Chair, it is.

Maybe.

I didn't hear that the whole committee would agree to that.

Is that what it is? Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 5-0 with Brown excused to go to draft on quarter time pay for quarter time hours. But also there should be some requirement that the State Board of Education needs to have rulemaking done by, I don't know, June.

Yes.

Ms. Huell.

Yeah.

Enrichment program.

It takes 90 days to get a rule passed. Rep Taggart. Anytime you do notice and follow APA.

Well, it should hopefully not be very complicated drafting just to talk about the hours. and then I don't know what about the rulemaking but Ms. Ewell

Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I think, you know, the issue is it wasn't on their agenda this month. I don't know if it is next month, but even if it was, they would have like one work session for them to come into agreement and try to, you know, do the rulemaking process before the end of the fiscal year. So like theoretically there is time, but time for them to agree and make a decision, I think that's what I'm being told is not possible.

Rep Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. So they say it's not possible, and so they make us the bad guys. It is possible. I'm not buying that.

Thank you, Ms. Ewell. It's state ed funds. Yes, we should do it. That's why we got a ready date. Okay, we have, how many more come back packets do we have, Director Harper?

All right. Now? All right. That's fine. We'll proceed with the four of us until 5.30. So, Mr. Kim.

Senator Mobley. I'm sorry. I didn't read this ahead of time. There's not a lot to read. I don't understand. And so is the expectation that we take these, where does the cash, where does it go? If we take the cash funds, if we true them up, where does the money go? And if we don't do it, what happens?

OKAY. NO.

AND SO WE DON'T REMEMBER APPARENTLY. YEAH, THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. YES, AND THIS, SO THIS WAS NEW TO ME. MS. BICKLE ALERTED ME THAT I NEEDED TO DO THIS TRUE-UP, AND THIS IS SOMETHING THAT SHE REGULARLY DID. SO IT IS BASICALLY JUST A TECHNICAL TRUE-UP. SO IT HAS NO, SORRY, JUST TO, IT HAS NO IMPACT ON THE INSTITUTION'S FINANCIAL SITUATION.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Mobley, no, best as I understand, we're just getting our numbers included in the appropriation of that spending authority closer to what they're actually going to pull in. It allows us to set the 26-27 rate and know what the actual increase from 25-26 looks like.

Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 4-0 with Bridges and Brown excused. Thank you.

Senator Mobley. I thought we had decided that this was only going to be done through gifts, grants, and donations. or am I talking about something else?

And if we don't do a separate line item, then what's the appropriation?

Senator Amable. If you spend more money on new wolves, then you have less money to spend on all those other things that you just mentioned. So by separating it out, are we saying, I mean, does that mean this is the most you can spend on that, or this is the minimum you have to spend on that, or like what does that mean?

Rep. Brown. I guess in reading your write-up, and I thank you, Madam Chair, and I just appreciate your write-up a lot. I don't know what we're gaining by doing this necessarily. It seems like a lot of the transparency that we would need is already covered in various RFIs, and if other money is flexible and can be used anyway, I don't know that it necessarily gains us anything in terms of the ability to track this. So I guess I consider myself skeptical at this point.

But we didn't get rid of the RFI that required a pause on any more introduction of rules until they've met all their management requirements. Did we?

And where's the footnote again?

and also references that January 8th commission meeting from last year. Senator Kirkland? So if we don't put them in separate lines, how do we know that they've met all of their management requirements and that they aren't just still spending money on introduction before they've met their management requirements?

But I guess my question would be also, how would we know that even if we had the two lines? Ms. Shen. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Senator Kirkmeyer, I think it's just two different ways of trying to get more information from the department. So, one way is to create this new line item, which I think is what you discussed during figure setting. and then the other way would be to request that information through an RFI. And I mean either way it's sort of based on the department's actions and their reporting on what they're spending.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So Senator Kirkmeyer, I mean like legislation is one way. I mean you could change statute. I think there is language in statute currently that basically says that not having appropriation doesn't necessarily stop wolf reintroduction in management or new wolf reintroduction. So I think, I mean, the bill during special session added certain restrictions on to sort of what the money could be spent on and which money could be spent. and you could certainly adjust statute to achieve that. I did explore, like, I mean, adding other footnotes to, like, the current sort of long bill. So, like, on the wildlife operations line, like, if you wanted to specify the General Assembly's intent to not use this for XYZ until all sort of conflict minimization reporting to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were completed, but I feel like that's kind of similar to the existing footnote that already exists, And it is just like the General Assembly's intent at the end of the day. So, I mean, I think those could be your options.

Rep. Tagg. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not comfortable with the premise that they'll accept a new line item if we take it to $450,000. I feel like they're bargaining with us. And they set the for SB005 AND NOW TO COME BACK TO US AND SAY WELL THAT WAS THE BEST COST SITUATION AND IS NOT REALLY REALISTIC I SO And now to come back to us and say well that was the best cost situation and is not really realistic I sorry That just doesn't hold water to me. You put that up as a part of that bill during the special session. You need to live by that. So I'm like Representative Brown. and I just want to go back to the footnotes and the RFIs and not give them this because I'm not prepared to give them to double that number in a period of less than seven months. That doesn't make sense to me.

Senator Amabla. Okay. I move on the Wolves memo, staff come back, that we stick with the RFI and update the footnote.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So the next item is on page six of the same packet. And this is quicker. It's an RFI for Colorado State Forest Service cash funds. I think most cash funds in the department both annually and continuously appropriate submit a schedule nine cash fund report. And the Healthy Forests and Vibrant Communities cash fund, which came up during supplementals, does not, as well as sort of the continuously appropriated funds in the Colorado State Forest Service. So I'm just proposing an RFI that would basically have all those continuously appropriate funds have a schedule line.

Can I just ask?

Thank you. Where does this cash fund come from again?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Kirkmeyer, there's a large amount of general fund. Yes.

Thank you Madam Chair. Senator Kirkmeyer, currently there are no adjustments in the long bill to the amount of general fund that this fund is receiving, but it is on the additional balancing options list that I proposed in the department.

Thank you. Thank you.

I forgot I had another department on this packet.

Yeah, I think it's pretty fast.

Just an RFI. Just an RFI. Yes.

I think I proposed it. I proposed an RFI if the committee were to approve any portion of the request. You all approved a portion of the request. I tried to work the department on RFI language. They indicated they're open, but I haven't gotten any feedback, so I'm just proposing this language for the RFI.

I move staff rec on staff comeback public health and environment laboratory RFI and that Ms Shen will continue to work with the department on the boarding of it if she needs to Are there any objections That passes on a vote of 5 with Brown sorry Bridges excuse Brown here

Senator Mobley.

Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 5-0 with Bridges excused. Senator Kirkmeyer.

Ms. Shedd.

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU, MS. SHEN. THANK YOU. OKAY. THE JOINT BUDGET COMMITTEE WILL STAND IN RECESS UNTIL TOMORROW.