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

Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Emily Pope, JBC staff. We are discussing the budget request submitted by the Department of Human Services and OSPB on April 1st related to resources to comply with the consent decree. We had a very long discussion with the department yesterday, so I'm not sure how much I have to add, but I do have kind of a lengthy write-up for you. I think you're in a pretty difficult position based on the timing of this request, the cost, and the overall situation. And it's difficult, I felt it very difficult to bring you a good option for those reasons. I think if you simply want to be able to quickly spend money to demonstrate compliance with the consent decree over the summer, the department has brought you a request to do that. However, if you wanted to make meaningful investments to improve behavioral health in the long term and overall reimagine the competency process in a way that would have long term impacts, I don't think you've been provided with the tools or the time to do that as part of this request. I've attempted to provide you with a compromise between what the department has brought forward and some longer-term investments that might be of more interest to the plaintiffs. But again, given the pressure and timeline, it's difficult to do something that really felt like we were making a meaningful change in this space. Just for process points, I think we need to incorporate this adjustment into the conference committee report for the long bill. And in order to do that, we essentially need to make a decision today. So we will discuss the request in my recommendation but again the time to consider this is short So your action to date is that the committee designated placeholders of million in the budget year related to the PITP bill and a separate million placeholder for an OSPB comeback. This budget request is $30 million and that was because OSPB was assuming that $10 million of your placeholder for the other bill would be used for this request. that bill once you incorporate the placeholders for both years is coming in five million dollars below the placeholder so there is a little bit of money to work there but not the 10 million dollars that ospb was planning for for budget balancing purposes for this request so i think you will have a general fund overview with director harper but the amount your ability to fully fund this request will depend on the balancing decisions you make for the long bill. So I tried to stick within the placeholder you set for this request, which was $20 million compared to the $30 million that the department asked for. So as the department laid out, they were, they're asking for multiple kinds of different beds, 16 jail-based beds, 27 competency beds, 24 civil contracted beds, and then repurposing some beds at the state hospitals to create 22 additional forensic beds, as well as 13 additional FTE. I'm recommending some of those contracted beds, a decreased amount for staff, and that instead of fully funding the amounts that they've requested, you put $4 million towards mental health transitional living homes, $4 million towards competency diversion in the BHA, and also fund two staff in the behavioral health ombudsman to provide you with research and recommendation related to system improvements for the overall statewide behavioral health system. I think I will jump in on page three to step back and reframe where this is coming from. Disability Law Colorado alleged that the department materially violated the consent decree in December. this prompted a dispute resolution and that process has not yet concluded but could conclude with mediated revisions to the consent decree including lifting annual caps on fines because of that the department is looking to quickly demonstrate meaningful compliance with the consent decree through this request my the special master involved in the consent decree has provided you with a letter of support for the request but disability law of Colorado has sent a letter of opposition. I'm concerned that the request that the department has brought forward will support some of the highest cost services in the statewide behavioral health system, and more beds and resources could be provided through lower cost options. However, the concern of the department is that those alternative options in the community are assumed to be less immediately responsive to the demands of the consent decree. I think I've provided some background on the consent degree here and the wait list, I think I'll jump to page five to show where we are at with the wait list right now. As you may recall, the wait list sort of steadily increased from 2020 through 2023. And then the JBC invested significantly in contract beds that had a temporary impact of decreasing the wait list through mid 2024. But then the waitlist essentially bounced right back up and we're now sitting at about 372. So even after those investments have been made, we haven't really seen a long-term impact from those additional contracted beds. And that is essentially the concern that Disability Law Colorado continues to bring, is that in their opinion, we cannot provide sufficient inpatient capacity to ever get the waitlist down. We have to invest in more preventative and community-based resources to prevent people from getting on the waitlist to begin with. When you are paying fines, they are paid to a fines committee who distributes those two community-based resources, and they have distributed over $60 million as of last December. And they state that those programs have served 1,700 people just in the last quarter. So they are doing significant work to provide additional community-based resources, including providing housing for 300 people, again, just in the last quarter. When it comes to what the department is asking for, the first component is, again, 16 jail-based beds. That's $2.5 million and an annual cost of over $150,000 per bed. You've had some discussion about these types of beds. The beds provide treatment in jail, so it's not equivalent to a hospital level of care. The department's point for trying to increase funding for jail-based beds is that there are some people who do not reach the health acuity level of being served in the state hospital. They have to triage the patients that they are serving off the wait list. So there are certain people who are just waiting in jail because they do not reach that level of care that's needed in the hospital. The other side to that is that it's not effective to provide treatment in jail because the jail itself is not providing an environment that's suitable for treatment. But the department's point there is that providing treatment in jail is essentially better than someone sitting in jail without treatment for what could be over a year waiting for a place for them in the state hospital. So they do believe that these beds will significantly improve their ability to serve the specific population that has high criminal charges and high behavioral health needs, but just not sufficiently high to get them into the hospital quickly. The next component of the request is 27 additional contracted competency beds. This component is $10 million in the budget year, and these beds cost over $380,000 per year per bed. Currently, the long bill includes an appropriation of almost $32 million in general fund for these types of beds. Prior to the budget request you approved a few years ago, that appropriation was only $3 million. dollars. So you have increased that appropriation over 800 percent in recent years. Senator Mobley.

beds over time and I believe that the request also include included different components so I'd have to look back at exactly what the amount of that request was and what the components were. Senator Mobley. Okay so that that does change a little bit my because I thought we were still spending 60 million dollars a year on competency beds and it sounds like that's not and that maybe corresponds

Thank you Madam Chair I don think that the contracted beds have demonstrated long improvement to the wait list And, yeah.

Senator Mowgli.

I mean, because, again, they did go down. And I don't know what would that line have looked like if we had continued to spend the $60 million a year. I'm not suggesting that's the right answer, but if we stop spending it, then it kind of makes sense that the wait list went back up.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to, my computer is not cooperating. I was going to try and pull up what the historic funding has looked like. I don't know that it's changed very significantly. I don't think it was $60 million and now we're half of that. Let's see. Well, we can figure that out later. I certainly don't think we're spending less than, we're not at half of what that has been, but we have seen the contracted beds go down slightly in recent years, more because the cost of beds is going up than because appropriations are going down. For example, you did increase the appropriation this year through a budget request by $2 million. So I think we've increased the investments through additional budget requests. And I will try to get more information for you on that. The next component of the request is $11 million in general fund to change the use of beds between the two state hospitals. So the request proposes, there's currently a youth unit at the Pueblo Hospital. They're proposing to move those youth to Fort Logan, use the Pueblo beds for additional competency patients. The youth in Fort Logan will be displacing civil patients, and they'll be moving those civil patients to contracts. So the cost associated with this component of the request includes both some one-time capital changes to Fort Logan to create a school on the Fort Logan campus to serve those youth, as well as additional staff at Pueblo to serve those higher security adult patients. And then the majority of it is $10.5 million to pay for those contracted civil beds. The department does believe that moving youth to Fort Logan will be a more appropriate placement for them because most of them will be closer to family at Fort Logan than they were at Pueblo. and the consent decree requires them to maintain their current civil bed capacity, so that's why they're proposing to move those patients to contracts. The next component is 24 additional civil contracted beds. This is another $10.5 million. The department is asking for these beds because Pueblo primarily serves forensic patients. However, those patients may continue to be served at Pueblo even after their charges are dropped, either through voluntary treatment or civil commitment. So they're estimating that currently 57% of, or not percent, excuse me, 57 patients at Pueblo are currently on civil certification or voluntary status, and those patients are taking up capacity that could be used to serve higher acuity competency patients. So they're asking to increase civil contracted beds for those patients and free up additional space at the Pueblo Hospital and expecting those civil beds to begin in January. They also asking for an additional 7 to oversee these additional contracts as well as support court processes for short certification which is associated with a bill that was passed in 2023 that provides a pathway from competency to civil certification That bill didn't include additional staff for OCFMH, and I think they're recognizing that they could better support and facilitate that process if they had some additional staff. So that's what the final component of the request is. I do have some additional information about a report that was provided by the special master, but if there are any questions about the request components, we could walk through that now.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Pope, could you, the capital construction having to do with a school then at Fort Logan, is that the $300,000?

It just seems like a relatively small number for capital construction, so.

Okay. Thank you. All right.

Senator Mobley?

Sure. It looks like that to me. Ms. Pope.

Well, and can...

Well, just I don't really understand why that is. What is the actual difference between what people are getting at a contracted bed versus the state hospital that is leading people to make that judgment.

One of the main points is not necessarily about the treatment that people are receiving. It's the expense. So it's the feeling that in the community, we're not, that our money is going much further. We can support more beds because in many cases we're receiving a Medicaid match for those beds and other funding sources. So if we were to invest in community beds, we could be supporting way more beds than we are if we're just doing a general fund appropriation for contracted beds. So it's not a difference between the contracted beds and the state hospital. It's a difference between contracted beds and community services.

That's certainly, that's the concern that I hear most often. I HAVEN'T HEARD SOMEONE EXPRESS CONCERN ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE IN TREATMENT BETWEEN THE CONTRACTED BEDS AND THE HOSPITALS, BUT I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S ACCURATE OR NOT.

THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR.

Okay. Thank you. Senator Mobley.

about the difference between a community-based placement and the contracted beds, but the contracted beds are less expensive than beds at the state hospitals because we're paying for the

Ms. Pope.

You're not aware of what the community beds are? What the difference that you're speaking to.

Well, I think we'd have to have disability law clarify what they're intending to mean by either category of those beds.

Did you ask them? I did. I asked them with all of you, and I think they wrote us back, but I still didn't exactly get it.

Please go ahead.

So at the top of page 10, I have some of the concluding remarks from the report that says, the largest impact on the wait list has been the overall availability of placement options. More inpatient beds have certainly helped, but the fines-funded housing options, mental health transitional living homes, and bridges-supported opportunities have also had a significant impact. The report also indicates a lot of concern about this interaction between courts referring people to competency, specifically to increase access to behavioral health care. And they state that expanding resources only for those in the competency system will incentivize courts to misuse the process as the only or easiest route to treatment. And I think there was some discussion about that yesterday, and it is really complicated because whether or not you are competent doesn't have anything to do with how the court is driving things. But I have attended competency courts and watched sort of how the court was handling things, and I certainly agree with this argument because there were people in the court process who say, you know, when we have a defendant, if we recognize mental health issues, we have veterans courts and we have competency dockets, and we will do anything that we can to make sure that they end up on those dockets because those dockets are doing an extreme amount of work where the judge, the DA, the PD, there's community providers in the room, there's people from OCFMH in the room, people from Bridges that are all doing everything that they can to help connect these people to treatment. SO I DO THINK THERE'S ABSOLUTELY A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COURTS RECOGNIZING THAT THERE IS A NEED AND ADDITIONAL CAPACITY FOR COMPETENCY TREATMENT AND TRYING TO CONNECT THEIR DEFENDANTS TO THOSE RESOURCES. SO I THINK IT CHALLENGING THAT AS LONG AS THAT IS THE ROUTE THAT WE RECOGNIZING TO ACCESS CARE TO SEE ANY MEANINGFUL CHANGE IN THE WAITLIST It challenging that as long as that is the route that we recognizing to access care to see any meaningful change in the wait list So next in my document, I do walk through what other states are doing, which you also discussed a little bit yesterday. There are a lot of states that are in very similar situations to what we're doing. The example yesterday was Washington, which is what the department is concerned about, where they recently were forced to pay a $100 million fine. California, their budget documents indicate that they have spent $2 billion since 2021 to respond to their competency wait list and have seen it gone down from $2,000 to $300 with that investment. One of their biggest investments is putting jail-based treatment in almost all of their jails in the entire state, which cost them $500 million. They're one of the few states that has historically had a significant consent decree that managed to get their way out of it through those investments, whereas other states are in a similar situation to Colorado where we've invested a lot and haven't seen a lot of change. One of the most frequent examples is Miami County, which I think some of you are familiar with. They have made significant investments in diversion programs where they are making an effort to connect people with treatment at the point of arrest rather than having them go through the competency process. And they assume that that has a significant impact on their daily jail census as well as their state expenditures on behavioral health. And it's often pointed out that Colorado has a similar system to that for our youth population. So there's a system within our own state to look at. But advocates also aren't always supportive of that program at CYDC. People often complain that it's not effective at connecting youth with services. But the intent is similar, that at the point of arrest, youth go through a standardized assessment, and you can determine whether it's appropriate to connect those youth to services, to have them go back home or to have them go to detention. It's just a matter of trying to set up such a significant diversion program and essentially reinvent our criminal proceedings in the state has not been something that we have been able to do. So getting to my staff recommendation, I again recognize the legal argument that the department has brought forward that the most impactful way we can show immediate compliance with the consent decree is additional contracted beds, but also recognizing the perspective of Disability Law Colorado that those beds may not be the best place for the most effective place for the state to be investing their money if the desire is long-term behavioral health treatment. I think I met with a lot of people to try and come up with a recommendation to you because what I ended up finding myself repeating is that $30 million for contracted beds to me feels like a drop in the bucket that isn't going to get us very far. But to think of investing $30 million in community-based options through the BHA feels like a transformative amount of money. So it was really upsetting to try and bring you a recommendation that felt like we were just going to spend $30 million and not see much for it in the long term once again. But when I talked to the department about it, it did feel very convincing that this was the legal strategy to directly respond to the consent decree and they themselves acknowledge that this might not be the way we would want to spend money if we had the option. But given the position we in it what they feel like we need to do to be responsive So my recommendation again decreases some of the amounts that they brought forward for contracted beds and to be able to invest in mental health transitional living homes and more diversion funding. As we discussed, mental health transitional living homes are going to need to decrease this year because the department assumes that their current appropriation will not be able to support their current number of beds. So they're assuming that the number of beds will go down from 164 to 125. I'm estimating that you'd need an additional 5.5 million general fund to fully fund those 164 beds. This seems like one level of treatment that the department, special masters, and disability law all continuously agree has been very transformative to our behavioral health system, both when it comes to addressing the wait list as well as our overall continuum of care. However, the department has not included mental health transitional living homes as part of their plan because, again, they do not feel like they are, while they have been impactful, they are not as immediately responsive to the consent decree as contracted beds could be. I think that they are better for long-term care and overall statewide behavioral health system, So I'm proposing investing $4 million to those homes, which is not fully funding to the 164, but is getting us close. The next component is $4 million to the BHA for competency diversion programs. This came about, again, from talking to people. And there are community providers who are working hard to try and set up pilot programs that would increase by 16 or more beds. and I would ask them how much that would cost and they would say for 16 beds it would cost us $360,000 which is so drastically different from the amount that we're spending on contracted beds. That's essentially one contracted bed for the cost of 16 community beds.

So is there any, I mean, if the fine money that $60 million, that $12 million a year approximately, that's going to some group who puts them out to community beds. Why can't we just beef that up? Why do we have to go through BHA or anybody else? Why can't we just say, look, if we understand this is working, why can't we just increase there?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that's my intent, is continuing to do a similar thing. The fines money is actually based on the fines that the department is really paying based on the wait times. So I don't think we could just increase the appropriation for fines. We can't tell them what to do with the money.

May I?

Thanks.

Are they considered grant dollars?

Ms. Pope. Well, Senator Mobley.

Ms. Pope.

Madam Chair?

Yeah, I think there are certainly, I would say, kind of one-off conversations.

Senator Mobley.

That's cool. Okay.

The final component of my request is two additional staff for the behavioral health ombudsman to bring you a comprehensive report about our behavioral health system. That's partially motivated because during figure setting, we were talking about the fractures in our behavioral health system. And that is something that also continued to come up when I was talking to people was just the foundational frustration that we're looking at these high cost investments when there are lower cost alternatives. We're requiring criminal justice involvement to access treatment. Those investments are disrupting other community-based options for people prior to criminal justice involvement. And as long as the state hospitals are separate from our community-based mental health system. How do we expect these systems to work together and continue to improve and reduce gaps in the systems? I think the committee and I were hesitant to look at doing a working group or something like that because we got to the BHA through a working group, and working groups in general aren't always popular. So I began to think that this was a role that the behavioral health ombudsman could take on and that they are often operating in these gaps in our systems. They have a lot of extensive experience, not only with our state health care system, but in identifying the gaps in our systems and trying to connect people with services. So my recommendation includes two additional caseworking staff so that their existing casework is not disruptive and they can bring you a comprehensive report in December. And after I turned in this document, they already provided me with what was a really intriguing plan for me. to give you some really concrete options for things to look at and both understanding what it would mean and what it would cost for our system to improve and looking at budget-neutral options and helping us identify gaps in the system beyond just continuously having these reactionary budget requests to the wait list. So all of that said, I certainly understand the position that you're in and the position the department is in. If you are interested in approving the department request, I've included two other options related to that on page 15. One is approving the request, but within the placeholder of $20 million that you approved. And that option is approving the request, but without the repurpose of the hospital beds. I do see the department's argument with moving youth to Fort Logan seems appropriate, but I'm just hesitant about reducing our state hospital capacity for civil beds and continuing to prioritize competency patients in the state hospitals. And then the final is if you're willing to go up to the $30 million is the approval of the request with standard adjustments for FTE, which would bring you to $29.9 million.

149 did not use all the money that was allocated. And today we reduced the appropriation further for that bill. And so I guess I can support the staff recommendation, but I would like us to put the rest of that money into this because otherwise I do think we are potentially going to be staring down these $100 million a year fines because we have to demonstrate to the court that we're serious about addressing the problem. So I would say I think it was a couple Anyway to put that into either civil beds or competency beds hospital beds because I know you've all heard me say it, but the lack of placements in hospital settings is creating a huge amount of misery and having all these downstream consequences. and I know it's the most expensive, but if somebody can get stabilized in a hospital bed, if they can stay for as long as they need, do what makes sense for them, then I think they leave there, and then if they can step down, like the more mental health transition living home, finding that if they have a place to step down, I think we begin to address this thing that we were talking about yesterday, which is the churn, It isn't just a weightless problem, it's just a generic big problem that our state is having and others are too. So, I don't know, I would like to put something like that forward because we did sort of put this money aside for competency writ large and PITP and ITP are completely and totally related in the sense that you can't do PITP unless you started out as ITP. I'm trying to, sorry, square, if I'm looking at your recommendation of what the ongoing impacts would be, Ms. Pope, on page 12 in that table, I mean, I guess we need to figure out what is the next year's appropriation. BUT I'M JUST TRYING TO HAVE A HOLISTIC VIEW. SO I GUESS I COULD LOOK AT TABLE 7. EITHER WAY. I'M THE DIFFERENCE HERE IS THAT YOU ARE TAKING, YOU WOULD SUGGEST DOING THESE MENTAL HEALTH TRANSITIONAL LIVING HOME CONTRACTS AS WELL AS THE BHA DIVERSION DOLLARS, BUT WE WOULDN'T move the youth from Pueblo to Fort Logan and thus then have to contract out those beds. That's what's missing from here.

There's also a portion of my recommendation that I didn't touch on was that I recommend that over time we decrease the amount of contracted competency beds and put them into civil beds, which I think would align with what Senator Mobley is saying.

It's basically an all or nothing proposition, the moving of the youth and the contracting of the civil.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have to go back to page three for a second in your analysis. And by the way, as normal, your write-ups are incredible. I am concerned about this third paragraph in the last sentence in particular that you've already discussed, but it worries me that Disability Law Colorado has sent a letter of opposition to this approach that the department is taking. And I guess my question is which but yet the special master has said they agree with it Given the fact that DLC is the group that is the plaintiff, how risky is it to go down this path when we already have an opposition letter? It just really worries me that we could sit here and go to the $30 million and plaintiff could say, I totally disagree with that. And the $100, whatever the fine potential is, is still levied on us. Any thoughts? It just is a real predicament, that sentence. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I guess the question I have is I appreciate your kind of middle way, if you will, the compromise that you've posed. And I do think that has quite a bit of merit because of the kind of, as opposed to just dealing with the symptom, we are also dealing with sort of the underlying problem, which is creating that symptom. What I'm concerned about is exactly what kind of what we're talking about here, which is how will the special master and or the consent decree view this if we go with something that isn't specifically endorsed by the special master or doesn't fit specifically within the letter of the consent decree. In other words, your proposal, where will the special master, where will the courts, and maybe there's no way to know that, come down on your particular suggestions? Do you have a crystal ball? I mean, I know you don't, but I don't know if you have any sense of, like, are we going to put ourselves in increasingly increased legal risk of gigantic fines if we deviate from what the department has presented to us Thank you Madam Chair I think the department has more experience with the legal process involved with this and they seem to very strongly believe that the request they brought forward is the way to respond.

Senator Mobley.

I'm ready to go with the request that's with the standard FTE adjustments on table 11 and here's why I appreciate everything that Ms. Pope has put in here as usual as Representative Tager said it's excellent but it's the line that the special master which by the way what a horrible name I'd never want to be called that has sent a letter to the committee

Special is fine I don't know. I wouldn't want to be called that. But anyways, he is, or she is, whatever it is, whoever it is. Whoever it is, I don't know. But anyways, he sent a letter to the committee in support of the request. I think we need to divide this out. There are some things that we need to do immediately, in my mind, so that we don't get further fines, further penalties, which don't seem to necessarily be helping our situation all that much. And then there are things that we need to continue to talk about and think about how do we plan for, budget for, and do. whether that's, you know, intervening early and diverting before they even get into this situation. I think those are all great ideas, but I don't think we have time for that today, especially where we're at, or, you know, all of the other ideas. They're there. I get that disability law doesn't like it, and they want some other ideas. That's fine. We can still keep talking about them. But right now, I think we just need to separate out. We have a situation where we are in that could mean additional fines, and we need to do whatever we can to get through that and get beyond it. And when the special master has sent a letter saying they support the request, I'm ready to go with it because I think that's the first step.

Not page 11. I'm sorry, table 11 on page 15. Sorry. It was your very last table. Sorry. But that's, I mean, we just need to separate this out. We have a decision we have to make today, and that's, I think, that's it. All the other stuff is more stuff we need to talk about. This problem is not going away. There are more things we have to do. We know that. We'll have to keep working on it. I ASSUME THE DEPARTMENT AND DISABILITY LAW WILL CONTINUE TO GIVE US MORE INFORMATION AND MORE IDEAS. AND MAYBE THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE THAT ARE GIVING US MORE IDEAS AS WELL. THAT WOULD BE GREAT. BUT WE NEED TO TAKE CARE OF THE MATTER AT HAND.

I'M NOT SURE I FOLLOW THE QUESTION. WELL IT JUST THEY IF WE JUST FUNDED WHAT THEY ARE ASKING FOR FOR MILLION THAT IS ONLY FUNDING BEDS BUT YOU MAY HAVE A Well it just they if we just funded what they are asking for for million that is only funding beds But you made us a recommendation of community more community services like the mental health transitional living homes and the BHA. Is there some combination that we could do that is meeting the, I don't, If $30 million is what is required to satisfy this agreement, and it is largely an investment in beds, but maybe some less investment in beds and something more with community-based services, could that work? It's either due this or not.

Maybe I can clarify what the $30 million is about. THE DEPARTMENT HAS SAID, TO MY UNDERSTANDING, THAT THEY BELIEVE THAT THE RESOURCES THAT THEY'VE ASKED FOR WILL GET THEM INTO COMPLIANCE WITH THE CONSENT DECREE BY DECEMBER OF 2027, WHICH IS WHEN THE CONSENT DECREE EXPIRES. I DON'T KNOW WHETHER OR NOT THAT WAS INFLUENCED BY BUDGET BALANCING, BUT THAT IS WHAT THEY'RE ASKING FOR. SO I THINK THEY WOULD SAY THAT THEY NEED WHAT THEY HAVE ASKED FOR IN ORDER TO COME INTO COMPLIANCE. and whether or not they come into compliance, they would be showing a meaningful effort toward coming into compliance. If you want to do something different, again, I'm most hesitant about the repurpose of the hospital beds. So I think you could use that amount of money for different things, which could include fully funding the mental health transitional living homes or other money into the BHA for community-based services.

Yeah, I'm sorry, the repurposing of the hospital beds is removing the kids from Trublo to Fort Logan, putting the Fort Logan people into contract beds, and then opening and using the forensic, now, the kids, where the kids left as forensic beds. So in that little shuffle, we're not actually creating any new beds? Or we are. We're creating extra contract beds that aren't reflected in the contract.

We're keeping the number of civil beds constant, just moving them from state hospital to contract. And then we're increasing the number of competency beds at Pueblo by moving the, freeing up a unit by moving youth to Fort Logan. The youth are in Fort Logan and displacing civil patients. Those civil patients go to contract beds. So it's 22 additional competency beds. So the net of all of that is 22 competency beds that we would add to the 27. So it's adding 47. I mean, I wonder if this sort of envisions the fact that we're about to shut down some mental health transitional living beds

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's why they have to shut them down, because somehow it's not working out with the raise.

Ms. Pope, I don't know how would that work, because it seems to me we'd have to appropriate money to the department. and this is how they said they're going to spend it. So unless we direct it otherwise, I think they will do this. Senator Mobley.

I mean one of the things I would it seems like Ms Pope recommendation not only kind of shifts more money out into mental health transitional living homes and also does some other things but it also sort of fits within million I mean, one way that we could think about this is we could scale up. We could use Ms. Pope's recommendation. We could increase the numbers of beds in places where we thought they were appropriate, and we could hit $30 million but still invest in the mental health transitional living homes, some of the BHA diversion programs, et cetera, that she recommends. That wouldn't get you up to the full number of beds that the department was wanting, but it would be somewhere between, I think, what Ms. Pope is recommending and what the department is recommending. That's just a, I'm just sort of coming up with that on the dais here, so feel free to.

So I don't know which beds necessarily that we should scale up, But you could imagine taking, increasing some of the, either the forensic contract beds, the civil contract beds, or even adding some back of the repurposed hospital beds into Ms. Pope's recommendation in order to get us to $30 million. But it would maintain the, her recommendations about the mental health transitional living homes, the BHA diversion and whatnot. That would differ from the department's, I guess another way to look at it would be to take some of the money from some of their contracted beds or other places and put them into some of the things that Ms. Pope is recommending at the transitional living homes and the BHA diversion. Does that make sense, everybody?

Why do your civil, why does the line of your civil contract beds for 22, I'm looking at the wrong, I am, the wrong budget year comparison. It's quite a jump that it's taking from one year to the next. Is that because we don't anticipate all those beds get filled immediately? or they won't get contracted for immediately?

That's an interesting idea. Yeah. Thank you. Senator Mobley.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Sure. Well, yeah. I agree. I think it's hard for us as a committee to try to figure this out. But I do think we have to be mindful of this looming lawsuit.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Senator Mottbele.

No.

No? Well, if we just created a line and sent them $30 million and said, figure it out, and please work with us TO MAKE SURE YOU DO IT RIGHT. I ASSUME THAT'S POSSIBLE. IT'S CERTAINLY NOT IDEAL. I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT. YOU CAN'T SPEND A DOLLAR WITH THAT IN THIS APPROVAL. IT'S ABOUT YOUR APPROVAL. TODAY WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO PUT IN THE LONG BILL CONFERENCE COMMITTEE REPORT, WHICH WOULD INCLUDE WHAT LINE ITEMS YOU WANT TO PUT MONEY INTO. YOU COULD CREATE A NEW LINE WITH $30 MILLION IN IT AND SAY SPEND IT HOW YOU WANT, AND I FEEL LIKE THEY WOULD SPEND IT THE WAY THEY'VE ASKED. YEAH. DIRECTOR HARPER.

We have lost Senator Kirkmeyer. We can't do a bill. Yeah. We could go to drafting on a bill. I don't hate the bill idea. I get why nobody wants to do it, but I don't hate it because, I mean, I just don't know what the little tweaks would be. I would take out all the money for the jail-based beds, and I would use that money to fund mental health transitional living beds.

I do feel like I, it seems as though the alternative for those folks, there isn't one, really. Well, we're opening up all these other beds, so.

No, they would go to these competency beds. Yes, but they are particular. It was described as it was written,

They are existing ones already, and nothing would change about that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

before we got to that place.

Thank you Madam Chair. I mean, I hate this as a solution, but it does seem like the most elegant way to address this quickly given the time crunch is to create a new line item and then continue the work on where it is that we place those dollars. with the understanding that once we create the line and put the money there, that the Gov's office essentially has free reign to do whatever they want with it, but trusting that they would do that in consultation and close cooperation with this committee. It is elegant, though certainly not. It requires a great deal of trust. Director Harper. uh nope I mean you all can obviously do whatever you want and we would create the new line item and put the money in And I do what the best way to put this I think OSPB has been very collaborative with our office, as has DHS on these issues. I think the level of communication between Ms. Pope and both entities is outstanding and I would expect that to continue. As your staff, I would be concerned about the precedent of setting a big $30 million line item for this and would also note that there's going to be big changes in the executive branch in six months as well. So I would not speculate about anyone's level of trust with any other entity, but there will be different people in many seats that are involved here in six months, or I guess from now it's more like eight months or whatever. But within the fiscal year that we're talking about, there will be a big change there as well. So I think as legislative staff, I wouldn't be doing my duty to caution against the kind of giving up the level of authority that you have with allocating the money. But I understand the implication there. I disagree. I just think that, well, at least many of us feel like not qualified to make this judgment here that we are being placed in the position of making as to what is the appropriate thing to do here. I don't know if taking a little lunch break will make people feel more confident in the decision or not. Thank you, Madam Chair. There were two differences primarily. If we take the $4 million for the BHA situation diversion, Ms. Paul was at $19-20 million. This is $30 million, but the key, that's one. major difference, but the second major difference was a transitional home. And if, following with what the Chair has just said, if we went back to you and the department and said, we want to get those transitional homes back to 164, so you come back to us with a recommendation that are 165, it's in that range. You come back to us within an hour of what that's going to be so that we can do this. Is that a reasonable? Do what now? To incorporate within the $30 million the transitional homes, that $4 million. Figure out how you want to spread it to do that. But that's, other than the BHA component of it, that's the big difference. I don't mind. I figure the department can come together and figure that out to some degree. I'm with you, Rep Taggart, on that. I think it seems like it's our priority, at least one of our priorities, is the mental health transitional living homes. So, and maintaining that level of support. We don't want to lose beds here. So, I'd be in support of that idea. Senator Amabile. Yeah, I just don't want to give this up just yet. I would also, like you had suggested eight additional jail-based beds. I just, I don't want to fund 16 jail-based beds. I just. That's fine. That's okay. That's fine. Fund some of them. If that's, if we cut it down to eight, We would have another $1,200,000 to put into the mental health transitional living homes. That's good. Ms. Pope didn't have anything else to do for lunch, did she? The question is, can the department come back? I see nods. We need, so what I'm hearing is the committee is committed to the $30 million. dollars. And maybe it takes a little bit of reconfiguring before we can exactly land on how all of that is going to be expended, but maybe my recommendation then is to take a little break here. We can try to figure out how that 30 million can be slightly reconfigured to incorporate mental health transitional living homes BUT THEN MAYBE WE CAN ALSO COME BACK AND FINISH OUR LONG BILL DELIBERATIONS KNOWING THAT NUMBER IS IN THERE WHILE WE'RE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE RECONFIGURATION OF THE 30, WHICH WE WILL DO TODAY. VICE CHAIR BRIDGES. THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. I JUST WANT TO EMPHASIZE THAT ONE OF THE ONLY REASONS THAT I AM COMFORTABLE WITH 30, as opposed to trying to nickel and dime this down is the unbelievable cost that could come to the state if we don't do something significant and impactful on this. And so for anyone who may be listening that's like, oh, they're just tossing out another $30 million, no problem, and they're making all these other cuts, this is to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in potential additional fines. So I just want to make sure that's clear. Okay, so we will stand in recess until 1.30 then. Later, I don't know when. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Kanagaraja, please call the roll. Senators and Representatives. Brown. Here. Kirkmeyer. Excuse me. Taggart. Here. Amabile. Here. Mr. Vice Chair. So excited. Madam Chair. Here. Okay. We have Mr. Baus here with us, And we have a draft of this first conference committee report. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Mr. Bous, do you tell us what it is? It's great. Tell us about it. This is great. Thank you, Madam Chair. Jake Bous from the Office of Legislative Legal Services. So this is House Bill 1357 concerning the TREP program. What the committee report does is it starts with the re-revised bill, which was the bill that was passed by the Senate. And largely the amendments that are included in the conference committee report reflect the changes requested by the committee that would allow the current seniors to have one, basically their first year of TREP this next year, and then the program ends so that they don't get the second year, but the door would close behind them after this first year. So a lot of what you'll see in the conference committee report is just the adjustment of dates to reflect those, to ensure that that happens. One thing I'll note is normally I like to give a little bit of buffer in bill drafting when it comes to repealing certain programs, but my thought with this particular bill and given some of the confusion that came about with the amendment and what was representative, who's being included, and for how long, I decided to include a repeal date for a lot of these TREP provisions as July 1, 2027, so that there is absolute certainty that they are just participating for year one, and then all of the TREP provisions in law go away. Okay. So I'm happy to answer any other questions, but that's what the draft committee report that you have in front of you contains. All right. Any questions for Mr. Bowes? All right. Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we adopt the first report of the first conference committee on House Bill 26-1357. Someone needs to second that motion. Second. SECONDED BY SENATOR AMABLE. MS. PANAGARAJA, PLEASE POLL THE COMMITTEE. SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVE BROWN. YES. TAGGERT. YES. KIRKMAR EXCUSED. AMABLE. YES. MR. VICE CHAIR. PASS. MADAM CHAIR. YES. THEN, NO, I HAVE TO VOTE. He passed. Mr Vice Chair really keeping me on my tongue Aye All right that passes on a vote of 5 with Kirkmeyer excused Do I adjourn us? Yeah, you've got to adjourn. We're the conference committee. All right. Can't do anything else until we adjourn. Seeing no other business for this first conference committee, the first conference committee on House Bill 1357 is adjourned. First and last. Are we, like, in the JBC and then, like, is this, like, Inception? It's like a Russian Are we like a committee inside of a committee? It's like Russian nesting dolls It's not a good time to be referring to That's fair enough Alright, Ms. Princel I guess I'll call our next committee to order The first conference committee on House Bill 1380 will come to order Ms. Kanagaraja, please call the roll Senators and Representatives, Amabile Yes Here. Whatever. Brown. Here. Kirkmeyer. Excuse me. Taggart. Here. Mr. Vice Chair. Also whatever. Madam Chair. I am here. Okay. We have Ms. Princell here to tell us what we are doing in our conference committee. Yes. Thank you. Chelsea Princell, the Office of Legislative Legal Services. This is for House Bill 1380. It recedes from the Senate and adopts the re-engrossed bill without changes. The re-engrossed House bill essentially added a repeal date for the Office of the Ombudsman of July 1, 2027, as opposed to just repealing the program entirely. Okay. All right. Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we adopt the first report of the first conference committee on House Bill 26-1380. Second. Seconded by Representative Brown. Ms. Conagor-Raja, please pull the committee. Senators and Representatives. Amabile. Yes. Brown. Yes. Kirkmeyer excused. Taggart. Yes. Mr. Vice Chair. If we use House rules, can I say aye or do I have to say yes? Aye. You could even say C. Madam Chair. Are we? Yes. May we? All right. That passes on a vote of 5-0 with Kirk Meyer excuse. And now we're done. And now the first conference committee on House Bill 1380 is adjourned. Okay. Okay. The first conference committee on House Bill 1399 will come to order. Ms. Kanagaraja, please pull. Oh, Ms. Pope, please pull the committee. Senators and Representatives Bridges. Yeah. Brown. Yes. Kirkmeyer. Kirkmeyer. Oh, excuse. Taggart. Here. Amalblay. Here. Madam Chair. Here. Okay. We have Ms. Schraub here for House Bill 1399, and we have just a small amendment here in our committee report. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Stephanie Schraub from the Office of Legislative Legal Services. The conference committee report accedes to the Senate amendment made to the, as shown in the re-review, bill, and then as it was granted permission to go beyond the scope, the conference committee report implements a three-year pause on the transfers from the general fund to the multimodal fund rather than the outright repeal as was originally drafted. And that comports with the Senate version? The... No. But that's where we're going beyond the scope. Okay. Because it's a three-year pause. I think the Senate, we put just a one-year pause. Vice Shepherd is... Thank you, Madam Chair. The ability to go beyond the scope was, you know, in this and so that we could do that three year because neither the Senate nor the House adopted three years. So this is neither the Senate nor the House version. It is our conference committee's version. Okay. All right. Any other questions? Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we adopt the first report of the first conference committee on House Bill 26-1399. Second. Seconded by Reb Taggart. Ms. Polk, please pull the committee. Senators and Representatives Bridges. Aye. Brown. Yes. Kirkmeyer excused. Taggart. Yes. Amable. Yes. Madam Chair. Yes. Okay. That passes on a vote of 5-0 with Kirkmeyer excused. And the first conference committee on House Bill 1399 is adjourned. One second. All right. The first conference committee on House Bill 1405 will come to order. Ms. Pope, Ms. Kanagaraja, please call the roll. Representatives and Senators Amabile. Here. Brown. Here. Kirkmeyer. Here. Tiger. Here. Mr. Vice Chair. Still here. Madam Chair. Here. All right. Ms. Byetti. Thank you, Madam Chair. Rebecca Byetti with the Office of Legislative Legal Services. This is for House Bill 26-1405, which is concerning transfers of money from certain cash funds to the general fund. This report for the conference committee works off of the re-revise bill, so what happened in the Senate, and it makes some changes to those amendments that happened in the Senate, So it fully removes the transfer that was happening from the Governor's Mansion Fund. So it takes that out of the bill. For the IT revolving fund transfer for fiscal year 26-27, the introduced version had 7.1 million. What came out of the Senate had 17.1 million. And in the conference committee, we're going with 10 million. Again, for the 26-27 fiscal year transfer. That is also pushing the date out of that transfer. So it's moving it from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, as well as pushing out then the repeal date of that transfer section accordingly since we're moving that out a little bit. And then the last change that is in this conference committee report is that we are changing the transfer amount from the electrifying school buses grant fund. So that now in the conference committee report that is the unexpended and unencumbered balance minus the transfer that is happening in the TREP bill So that why you see that amount there Representative Brown. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms. Bietti. And that's because I don't have the bill in front of me, but can you explain why is it $17.1 million substituted with $20 million instead of $7 million substituted with $10 million? Does that make sense? in the conference committee report on, it says page 10, line 16, strike $17,100,000 and substitute $20 million. Director Harper, did you, oh. Ms. Bande. I believe that should be 10. No. Madam Chair. Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Craig Harper, JBC staff. Representative Brown, you were starting with a floor of 10, so the bill was introduced with 10 million. We added 7.1. There was a Senate amendment that added 7.1 that took it to 17.1, and then you're adding 10 to the initial floor of 10 to get to 20. Thank you. I should just leave that everywhere. All right, any other questions? Just add another 10 across the board. Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we adopt the first report of the first conference committee on House Bill 26-1405. Second. Seconded by Representative Taggart. Ms. Kanagaraja, please pull the committee. Senators and Representatives. Brown. Yes. Kirkmeyer. Aye. Taggart. Yes.

All right. That passes on a vote of 6-0. And the first conference committee on House Bill 1399 is adjourned. All right. The, nope, I said the wrong one. The first conference committee on House Bill 1405 is adjourned because the other one was also already adjourned. Just adjourning everything. The first conference committee on House Bill 1409 will come to order. Mr. Bennington, welcome.

Oh, wait, I'm so sorry. Ms. Pope, please call the law. Oh, that's right.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Yep.

Here.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Jacob Bennington, I'm from the Office of Legislative Legal Services. This conference committee report is just to have the Senate receive permits amendments to the bill and adopt the re-engrossed bill from the House without any changes.

Oh, yes. It's the marijuana cash tax. Yeah, we took out the local cash fund.

Yeah, and we're not. It was making it temporary, and we're not doing that.

Thank you. I move that we adopt the first report of the first conference committee on House Bill 261409. Second.

Jesus. My last second Ms Pope please Maybe Senators and Representatives Amable Yes Brown Yes Kirkmeyer Aye

Yes.

Here, aye.

Yes.

Yeah.

No.

We don't even do seconds in the Senate.

MS.

SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES, IMABILA.

HERE. BROWN. HERE. KIRKMAYER. HERE. TAGGER. HERE.

VICE CHAIR. YES.

HERE. Ms. Ross. Thank you, Madam Chair. Shelby Ross, Legislative Legal Services. The report in front of you has the Senate receding from the amendments that it made, going back to the re-engrossed bill, but the amendments you see are actually undoing what the House did as well, so we're taking it back to the introduced version of the bill, which is related to the alleged payments, so we're putting alleged back in the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we allege it. No, I just move that we adopt the first report. It's important we get this right. I move we adopt the first report of the first conference committee on House Bill 26-1412. Second.

That's that. Senators and Representatives Amabile.

Brown. Yes. Kirkmeyer. Aye. Taggart. Yes. Mr. Vice Chair. Aye.

Yes.

The Parade of Conference Committee reports. The charade of drafters.

Yeah. Is that the difference in how they called the role? Sure do. We all have to sign up? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Everyone. Thank you. Here we go. And then you are top right. Here. Thank you. Thank you. On the side, this is for 1380. Is this what determines how you call the role? Because you call the role in different order every time. Yeah. Thank you. In the middle. Okay. I was wondering what that was about. There we go. I don't know what I'm signing. There you are. It's a very efficient process, this. Okay. There we go. This is the most fun I've had all day. Okay, great. It's not saying much. Nope. This is like back and forth every time. It's been kind of a shitty day, actually. Excellent. Okay. No more autographs? Oh, great. Thank you so much. Which one's 1380? Here we go. It's the chair. Oh, that's right. Thank you. All right. One last. Yep. Thank you. Yeah. Because we just did what I agreed to. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. No surprise. Senator Kedira. I did. Yeah Yeah Hello Hi. This is for $13.80. Do you want me to write over that? Yeah, you can. I just wrote everything in pencil so I can erase it. Okay. Here we go. Yep, thank you. There we go. Here we go. Nice line right there. Thank you. Thank you. So they can leave. I appreciate it. All right, same. Well, I don't know. We'll find out. Who's writing the bills? If you're all here. Who's writing the bills? All right. We'll do that now. Sorry. Thank you. I'm sure there's a couple more coming. Okay. All right. Ready?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Emily Pope, JBC staff. This is a bill draft that you requested during my figure setting for health care policy and financing. It's related to youth who are in child welfare and receiving residential behavioral health care treatment. Those payments were expected to move to behavioral health capitation. You asked for a bill draft that will push that out for additional year, so that's what this bill is doing. The issues that we have experienced with this policy is that the department has been trying to move to capitation for several years now. And providers and raise and families and counties haven't felt like there has been a plan in place to actually accomplish this. So last year you sponsored a bill to delay the movement to capitation and asked HICPF to develop policies. And people still were not satisfied that those policies were known or developed. So this bill draft is trying to go a little bit deeper and saying that the people who came together to work on this draft are going to keep meeting every month, and they're going to report to you three times by next April about what the plan is, so that hopefully they are all on the same page with what the plan is, and you all are informed before we get to the figure-setting process and need to do another bill. So we don't expect that the bill will have a fiscal impact, and hopefully we will be in a better place for this policy issue next year.

Thank you. Move to introduce this bill, LLS 0929.

Concerning the residential treatment for members in DHS custody.

Thank you. Thank you.

Well, okay, Ms. Pope. Yeah, just tell us and then I'll.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My understanding is that we'll be approving the request without funding for jail-based beds, using that funding instead for mental health transitional living homes, and adding a footnote that allows transfer authority between the line that supports mental health transitional living homes and civil committed beds so that if they don't need the entire amount for mental health transitional living homes, they could use it for civil contract beds instead. Okay, and I would, sorry, the final part would be that I ask that you approve the request without centrally appropriated line items to make my drafting a little easier.

I'm okay with that, but I'm just curious, do we have any idea what this will do with the special master and their acceptance or their you know they like to plan as requested Do we have any concerns They getting you know they get a huge fine Mm

Rep Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to make sure, though, that we're getting back to the entire 39 beds, because your number indicated it was going to take $4 million to get back to the fully $164 or $165.

No. Thank you, Madam Chair. When I was working through figure setting with the department, the numbers they provided me was that it would require an additional 5.5 to fully fund to $164. So I don't know.

Yeah. So I have a memo on that, but I haven't had a chance to read it. And I think that they have figured out a solve for this problem that they were having with the Rays and whether you needed a waiver or you didn't need a waiver. and so my understanding is that they could actually potentially fund all of the beds, the 168 beds, with the money they already have, but maybe not, and that's why there is this footnote that says if they don't have enough, or if they have excess, they can put that towards civil beds.

All right.

I mean, no. I think you have a better handle on exactly the...

Including the footnote and the elimination of the jail-based beds and the putting of that money into making sure we can open all of the mental health transitional, keep open the MHDLs that we already have, and that any other money would go towards civil beds.

Okay.

Which? Sorry, what are we doing now?

Are we using the thing from yesterday or something? Or what are we doing? Okay. I've got to go get this. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.

All right.

I move we accept. J071 even though it is an outrageous amount of money Outrageously small

All right.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't want to tie up $2, but I just don't remember the rationale behind this amendment. Does anybody remember what this was?

It's so that if we figure out a way to put some money into these nursing home placements that we have a line item to appropriate to, and same thing with the special needs parole.

I've heard enough. Well, I did too.

So we'll keep that. Moving on to the next one.

Is this the one where they don't really need the money? and it will just revert?

Yeah. No, this one too.

So I think it's fine to do it. But it would revert to the trust fund. Yes.

Which do you choose?

So we should just reject this. I would reject it.

Right? Isn't that what I just heard?

Vice Chair Bridges.

That's my general approach to amendments.

It doesn't matter?

Particularly since it will revert right back to the trust fund that it came from.

Our colleagues want it. Okay, so we should try to educate people as we do go through this process.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

WE DON'T HAVE TO. WE'RE KEEPING IT. WE'RE KEEPING IT. WE DON'T HAVE TO. NO, WE DO NEED TO... WE NEED... WE CAN KEEP THE INCREASE TO THE VETERANS STATE... STATE VETERANS TRUST FUND EXPENDIGERS LINE, BUT NOT THE MANCHIN ACTIVITY FUND LINE. YEAH. REDUCTION. THAT PIECE. I THINK THAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WE HAVE CONSENSUS ON THAT. WE DON'T NEED VOTES ON THIS, BUT... YES. THAT'S FINE. Is it clear on what it is that we'd like the conference committee report to reflect? Great. Okay. Because we vote on the conference committee report. Yes. Yes. Should we vote?

Sorry. Director Harper.

I mean, that's the best guidance that we've been able to get.

Are there any objections to the thing we discussed? That passes on a vote of 6-0. Okay. Next one. Has everyone gotten updates on this question of what to do about the veterans' treatment courts? treatment courts. Is it the same that they don't really need the money to keep the treatment courts going? So, I mean, I think we should take out the reducing the appropriation to the film office and take out the reductions because it says that the Senate amendment retained the increase for treatment course but not the reductions to other programs where did it so so what i heard director

the senate rather than cutting the two programs outlined in j51 as it passed the house the senate did not take those reductions and instead took three hundred thousand dollars from the school bus money in a separate bill. They passed the increase for the Veterans Treatment Courts in the long bill, and then it was tied to an amendment that passed in 1405 to transfer the $300,000 from the school bus money. Okay. Just so everyone is clear, because we talked on the record a little bit about what we had heard from different parties about this, is that, and when I asked judicial, they said, we have veteran treatment courts in all of the metro area districts. In those places we serve high-risk defendants who are also military veterans. Those qualifiers shrink the pool of people who are available to be served in these programs. In rural areas there's not a large enough population that meets those criteria to establish vet court programs that are also efficient for court staff district attorneys public defenders and treatment providers They say they not THEY away veterans from these programs and they think that they will be reverting funds this year But the veterans group want to expand the numbers served, which Judicial says it is a goal they share. But it's not just as simple as doing that because of the criteria that's outlined. So that piece seems to need to be worked on. So I think if we did make this, do this amendment to increase the $300,000 to the Veterans Treatment Courts paid for in that other line that was recommended. What was the specific line? Do you remember? Where else would it come out? No, it wasn't buses. It was somewhere else in judicial.

YES. THAT.

THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR.

and so we partially implement J51. So not making the reductions to the... Yeah, without the reductions, but the increase paid for in the manner that we just discussed through that other judicial fund with the expectation that it will revert anyway. And we leave the footnote. Leave the footnote. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0. Okay. Next one is for Denver Health, if I recall. Yeah. To ensure they are able to do the eligibility determinations for HR1 along with everyone else. Anyone not want to keep that? I would like to keep it. So we'll keep that. And then the next one was the increase of cash funds from the UPTF in the Department of Treasury for three FTEs. We told him no, like three times. Vice Chair Bridges.

Senator Mobley Yeah I mean I would just say if that our goal I think there a difference solved for that than hiring more people I don know I just don really have confidence that hiring more people will result in more money getting paid out

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do think they are bogged down in some archaic procedures that could use some attention within the next, say, 12 months, leading towards the latter half of those 12 months. but everything that I have heard from the Treasurer's Office is that more people working in this means more money out the door. That is what the Treasurer's Office has said to me. I have no reason to doubt that. I was a little ambivalent about this, but it did pass both chambers, and I don't know about the Senate, but the House had a lot of discussion about

it's not hurting our balancing and likely would help get more claims out the door. So I'm good with it.

I don't like the process. I brought it to you in your proposal. We said no way. And I'm going to stick to what I said then. We said no way. We're still going.

It's in there. So do we have to vote to take it out? Vice Chair Bridges.

Director Harper?

Are we going to a conference committee? We're in. We are basically making decisions right now, but direction for them to be able to bring us a conference committee report. So we not in the conference committee but we are telling giving them direction about what should go in the report So I think what I am seeing here is that this because it would have been an either version of the long bill that we started with, it's in there, and so in order to take it out, that removal would have to go in the conference committee report. Do we want to form a motion? I don't think there's any. I mean, here.

All right. Are there any objections? To reject it. Oh, you move to reject it. All right. Are there any objections to the rejection? Okay, so that motion fails on a vote of 3-3, which I guess just is clearly leaving it in there. You have to, I think we have to have an affirmative vote to remove it because it's in the bill. And the conference committee report is making changes to what is in the House version. It would be in the Senate version as well. It's still there. I don't either. There were only three of us. Okay. The next one was the same as the other one. And then the last one there was an update, a footnote, add it, and adds a new footnote in the Department of Natural Resources expressing Oh. Wait, what happened to J51? It's the same as the other one. I don't know why it's there twice. Yeah. Okay. On the next page, the last one that, oh, I'm sorry. We're now on amendments that only pass the House. So we have two different versions of, or three basically, amendments that addressed wolves. I don't know if somebody here has a preference. So J51.

Well, we're talking about Lukens Winter right now. Yeah. What's the difference between Lukens and Winter and Roberts? It should be Catlin probably.

J82 and J150, right? No, yeah, J150. I'm for Roberts because it reduces the general fund money and changes the associated footnotes. It's reducing the general fund money that is different than Roberts. I think the rest of it was going to be pretty much the same as the Lutheran's winter one.

Ms. Shen, depredation.

Services. Mitigation. Ms. Shen. I think your mic is off.

I think I missed Kelly Shen, JBC staff.

Okay.

Senator Kirkmeyer. I'm thinking the verbiage that is here for J-150. I don't know. It's very confusing because it says, because I didn't recall that the amendment 150 said that $273,000 of general fund reduced in the Department of Natural Resources for wolf introduction and management. Management of wolf introduction, but that's it? Is that what the management's related to, is the wolf introduction or just management in general? because I know that when Senator Roberts was explaining this amendment, he wasn't saying that you couldn't use general fund for the management. Because then the next line says, Associated footnotes to express legislative intent that general fund should not be used for the introduction of new wolves, but that general fund may be used for conflict minimization and producer compensation. But doesn't this just reduce, doesn't J-150 reduce general fund by $272,867?

Yeah, so can't we just say that in the footnote? Well, I think then you don't want to reduce the money.

So the first one.

I kind of like to project all of them and just go back to whatever it was we

Rep Brown?

Sorry, all of them.

Rep. Taggart.

Vice Chair Bridges.

Okay. And if we object to your rejection. If we object, then it stays. Okay. We object, it stays. Okay. That's complicated. Yeah. That's what we just did on the last one. I don't think you have to make a motion like that. I think you can just be clear about our intent, and then we'll interpret how the committee report needs to be written. Okay. Madam Chair.

Is that what we're looking for? Yeah. Just so everybody knows what we're... Three votes and it's adopted. Yeah. All right.

Oh, me too.

Stays. Yep, stays. Okay. We could have failed on a vote of three to three with Brown, Amabile, and Sirota objecting, which means that it's still in the bill, so nothing is showing up at the conference committee report.

But okay just the motion is we keeping it We going to keep it in the budget because it a 3 vote But what we went back to on the last question was that and I have to go in a second because I have to go present a bill but basically it's in the long bill and we didn't vote to do anything about the conference committee report. So it's just still there. Okay. It's still there.

Okay, I have to run. If you want to keep discussing, feel free. Otherwise, then maybe the vice chair can put us into a brief recess. I'll just go present the room right back. Thank you, Madam Chair. We just voted on it. We did just vote on it. So the Lukens Amendment will stay in the long bill. That is the result of this vote. Lukens Amendment stays in the long bill. Everyone clear? Ms. Shen?

So we can leave the Lukens amendment on and then we can then next act on this other. So what we can do right now is I would entertain a motion to add to the Lukens Amendment the ability to use cash funds. For what? For Wolf reintroduction. Because that was what was in the Roberts Amendment. Roberts Amendment included use of gift grants for cash funds. This is from what Ms. Shen is telling us.

Ms. Shen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So he said that cash funds could be used for wolves or for the conflict minimization and producer compensation?

Senator Kirkmeier. How come it looks exactly the same as the one that Lukens Winter is, and you're not saying that about that one? Ms Shen I think that the difference is how it reported here in our summary does not capture all of the differences in the actual amendments I agree The actual amendment for Roberts from Roberts allowed the inclusion of cash funds to be used in addition to gift grants and donations for Wolf reintroduction. The appropriate cash funds, what was the exact language, Ms. Shen? Yes, it says statutorily allowable cash funds. I have both amendments up right now. I would entertain a motion to add statutory allowable cash funds to the Lupin's amendment in the House. I'm good with you. Sarah Mabalai? Yeah. So moved. Are there any objections? Seeing two, that motion passes three to two. And I think with that, given that this is the long bill and these amendments are very pertinent to all of our work, I think we should have all six members here to discuss. We will stand in a brief recess. Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Order. Order. We left off talking about amendments that had only passed one chamber. Actually, I don't know where you left off. Yep. Okay. I didn't think we should talk about it without you. Which one are you on? We didn't talk about an amendment. Okay. We're on. Well, we did. Well, we didn't. Nope. Well, I don't think we need to because we just left the House passed footnote. Madam Chair. Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. So where we left off is that we had a conversation about the Wolves footnotes. That covers the last of the House, the last of the amendments that only passed the House. That's J82. Comparing them to the Senate amendments, J90 and J150, what we have not talked about yet is J152. So that is where we are, amendments that only pass the Senate, J152. Okay. Well, I might ask you. I missed the J190 thing about health care policy and financing and obstetrical care rates, blah, blah, blah. Well, let me ask you this question. Are there any amendments that only pass the Senate that people would like to take up? I would say I am open to the The last one there, which is a zero-cost footnote about the Restorative Justice Programs line item from Senators Snyder and Weissman, except that there was a request to change the word guide to, I believe the word was advised. Does anyone remember? Or no? I think that's the word. That's fine. I don't care. What are we doing about 152? 1480, 714-81, J152. $3 million through the automobile theft program. I'm not getting any corrections. Where am I? Vice Chair Bridges. Thank you, Madam Chair. Strongly against cutting corrections. We did take 10 from OIT, which gives us a little bit of flexibility here to fund CatPaw, if we would like. Actually, it doesn't. Maybe, Director Harper, you want to update us on the actions that we already took today and where you think that lands us? Thank you, Madam Chair. Craig Harper, JBC staff. This number is preliminary, and I obviously haven't had time to write up a whole new overview for you. You all did take the $10 million from the OIT revolving fund. That had given you some room. The actions that you took today on competency used basically all of that room that you had generated. Working with Ms. Pope, we aligned the amount for Senate Bill 149, which reduced the placeholder over two years by about $2.8 million. for the two years as that's as that bill stood in the fiscal note i think it probably does not include all of the amendments that were adopted today because that's a work in progress but our best estimate as of right now was about a 2.8 million dollar reduction in that fiscal in that placeholder for that bill reallocated that to the placeholder for today's discussion for budget Amendment 8. That gave you obviously $22.8 million there. You approved $30, which meant you needed an additional $7.2. You apply the reserve requirement to get from $22.8 to get up to $30. I have a more detailed number from Ms. Pope, but anyway, you really don't have any significant room left based on my preliminary estimate because of the competency actions today. Okay. So there's no $3 million for Capcom? Doesn't seem like there's $3 million for anything. Madam Chair, Senator Kirkmeyer, there is not $3 million readily available. You would need to take some other action to free it up. ANY OTHER AMENDMENTS? VICE CHAIR BRIDGESS? YEAH, THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. I'M ABSOLUTELY NOT IN FAVOR OF TAKING MONEY AWAY FROM CORRECTIONS, BUT I DO SUPPORT ADDITIONAL DOLLARS TO CATPAW I THINK THAT I MAY BE THE ONLY ONE ON THE COMMITTEE that is strongly in favor of that though We got two I shared with the folks who were trying to find the million for CISC that if they felt that it was that important, they should identify a cash fund or other priorities within the Department of Public Safety that it could be funded out of because we don't. And we just spent months cutting all sorts of crucial services for foster youth and foster families, for adoptive families, cuts in HICPF. And so if we didn't have general fund for those things, I was hard-pressed to come up with general fund for this as well. And that's why I urged them to locate another source of funding. And they didn't. I had the impression that the governor's office had worked out a way to keep funding that. And I thought somebody had said that to us, but I could be wrong. Great. No? Senator Kirkmaier? Okay, go ahead. Are you going to talk about this? Yeah. No, I mean, I think everybody knows I'd like to find, thank you, Madam Chair, I'd like Madam Chair, I'd like to find dollars to help, but it makes me anxious when I hear that the governor might be able to find the money because it just, I've run into that with DNR. DNR said to me they didn't have any more money from Keep Colorado Wild, and then there's another program that takes money from Keep Colorado Wild. I just wish people would be straight with us when they have money or don't have money. But maybe that's not the nature of this budget process. Thank you, Madam Chair. That is, that's frankly why I've been so grateful for the dramatically improved relationship between JBC staff and OSPB over the last few years, because as we've been making horrendous cuts, IF WE DON'T HAVE THE INFORMATION WE NEED TO MAKE THOSE CUTS, THEN WE END UP CUTTING THINGS THAT IT'S VERY, VERY BAD FOR US TO CUT AND LEAVING THINGS THAT WOULD BE MUCH BETTER FOR US TO CUT. I THINK IN THIS CASE, I THINK WE'VE CUT EVERYTHING FROM THIS BUDGET THAT IT IS EASY TO CUT. AND PERHAPS WE'VE CUT EVERYTHING FROM THIS BUDGET THAT IS OF LESS IMPORTANCE THAN CAPPAW AT THIS POINT. SO IT MAY SIMPLY BE THAT THERE IS NOT A PLACE TO GO FOR THESE funds, especially because J94 here is about money for the DD waiver wait list, which I would very much like to find a way to keep. If I have $3 million, that is where I would rather put that as well. Well, that wouldn't take $3 million. If we're only doing the DD waiver wait list, it's at 1.5 or something. I thought there was some other cuts in place. It could take $3 million. There was also a provision in that amendment on the self-cap on the caregiver hours. So if you only did the DD wait list, I think it was 1.5. I don't know. But I thought there was a cut someplace out to help fund this $3 million in J-94. Chairman Weissman Chair Any other projects come out the more I believe on theaissez entire place for the outstanding Thank you Madam Chair and Senator Kirkmeyer This goes back to my struggles with whether to include actions related to other bills J-94, that 7.1 million, the reason that that is so familiar is that was the amendment. This amendment was freestanding, but the 7.1 million was from the school buses. Oh, I thought it was the IT. Sorry, I'm mixing my sources. Are we using the OIT funds then to do the competencies? We're using OIT to pay for competency. So we did an amendment on a bill to use the OIT monies. We increased it, and then we moved it over to competency instead of the DD Waitler? Well, the bill was a cash fund transfer bill. So we are transferring the IT revolving money to the general fund and the competency stuff we are funding with the general fund. Okay, but there was a connection between the bill and the $7.1 million to fund this amendment in the long bill. Correct? Director Harper. And they both passed. Thank you. Madam Chair, Senator Kirkmeyer, that's correct. In the discussions on the Senate floor, the 7.1 million, the two were clearly linked. It was obviously two very separate discussions because of the two bills, but the pay for on J94 in the Senate or Senate Amendment 29 was the transfer of 7.1 million from the IT revolving fund. You all increased through the conference actions in 1405, you all increased that transfer from 7.1 here to 10. That was the discussion earlier with Ms. Bietti. But the committee's actions at this point have increased that transfer but used it for a different purpose. So yes, that was the outcome. And the different purpose was the competency stuff? Money is fungible, obviously, but the actions that you've taken that increased general fund to a significant degree have been competency-based. So I think that would be the clearest connection, yes. You've increased that transfer. The amount that you have allocated to competency today would not have been possible without that transfer from the IT revolving fund. So you've made an increase in general fund for competency, and the only way that that additional general fund was available was because of this particular transfer. And the money needed for general fund needed for the DD waiver wait list. Is that like about 1.5 million? We would need Mr. Dermody for the specific amount on the DD waiver wait list. Rep Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. But I thought I heard Senator Amobley say that some dollars got freed up from the permanently from. Yeah. Where did we use. My understanding is Director Harper calculated that into his bottom line here. Director Harper. Madam Chair, Representative Taggart. and my presentation of this, if there were time to write a detailed overview, it would probably be beneficial but you all allocated an additional million to competency for BAA relative to your placeholder So that was the discussion that you just had with Ms Pope You had a placeholder of 20 and you approved basically 30 It's 29 point something. I understand that. The changes that came to Senator Amabile's bill, Senate Bill 149, freed up about $2.8 million over the two-year period. The current year is quite a bit cheaper than your placeholder. 26-27 is a couple million dollars more expensive than your placeholder was for 26-27, so we were treating that as a two-year placeholder that you were allocating that much over the two-year period. But over that two-year period, those changes only made $2.8 million available, and you increased the competency placeholder by 10. So you needed an additional 7.2 to get from the 2.8 that was freed up from the changes to Senator Amabile's bill up to the $10 million increment in competency in BAA. If they weren't both competency, this would be easier to keep straight in my own head anyway. Rep Taggart. Thank you. I'm missing the math because I thought we had a $20 million placeholder strictly for competency, and then we took $10 million more from the revolving loan. IT revolving loan fund. That adds up to 30, so why do we need another 7.2 for that? That would take it up in my calculations to 37.2. So I'm just... Director Harper. Representative Tigard, I think that's the disconnect, is you're thinking about this as the $10 million from the transfer from the IT revolving fund going to competency, which I think is the right frame, you needed an increase of $7.2 million above the amount that Senator Mobley's changes made available to get to $30 million. And the only way you had that money was because of the OIT revolving fund. but it doesn't leave any money available for the use that Senator Frizzell's amendment had made that transfer for. She transferred it for one purpose and then you ended up needing that money to support the competency decision that you made earlier. So one thing. Rep Taggart. I know this is a totally different source, but I believe we were all in agreement that we are going to find some savings in the enrichment program. But I don't know if that's coming out of the state education fund or the general fund. State education fund? I think so, yeah. Okay. Senator Kirkmeyer. Yes, I'd like to know how much it is. general fund for the DD wait list that was in the amendment of Senator Pazelle. Mr. Dermody. Thank you, Madam Chair. Tom Dermody, Joint Budget Committee staff. General fund impact of the DD wait list, the IDD wait list, is $3.3 million general fund. Okay, that doesn't make sense here. because the amendment had a soft cap for caregiver hours, and then it also had the DD waiver wait list, and it's saying in the amendment, at least on our chart here, that that was 3.5 million of general funds for both of those items. and 3.5 million of federal funds. Mr. Dermody. Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Kirkmeyer, you had only asked me about the wait list, not the caregiver hours. The caregiver hours at another roughly just shy of 0.3 million general fund. That's where you get that 3.5. Okay, so. Senator Kirkmeyer. All right. I guess I just don't think it's right that we went through two amendments on the Senate floor. One on a bill, the transfer bill, to pull out the fine and additional $7.1 million. And then we take and use that. I mean, and then another amendment that said it was to be used for the caregiver hours and the waiver wait list. And then we take that money and move it over to competency. That clearly was not what was intended with the amendments that were made. And I think we should honor the amendments that were made. I don't think we should be moving it over to competency when it passed pretty overwhelming on the Senate floor. We had a conversation though about the importance. I'm not sure that anybody feels like the $30 million being spent on competency is where want to spend money, but we are under a consent decree and trying to prevent the judge and this active litigation from doing to us what was done to Washington, for example. And so I can appreciate your desire to uphold what your colleagues in the Senate passed, which I would say the House did not pass. But Senator Amabile. I mean, we're not taking all of these amendments in it, but there is this other thing, and I don't know if it's relevant to the discussion, but I think Senator Weissman's and mine reclass bill is netting more money than we thought it was going to. So I don't know how one accounts for that, but maybe Mr. Harper could enlighten me about that. Well, I am one of the House sponsors. That bill is set to be in committee on Monday, and I'm not sure we have landed on a confidence of where that bill ends up in the system, and that is why we budgeted the 30 to ensure that we weren't going to budget more than we felt like we could count on from that bill. I would be nervous before we finish the process. Yeah. Senator Mobley. Is that 30, though, part of your calculation? Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Mobley, yes, I'm assuming a $30 million reduction to the Tabor refund obligation associated with that bill. And the first time that we collectively talked about that particular placeholder, I had flagged that the fiscal note at that point at least was showing a $60 million reduction. And the committee's direction was very clear that keep that number at 30 for the time being. I happy to change it based on direction from the committee but at this point we assuming million of general fund available based solely on that bill So do we know what the fiscal note is now Because I did get some phone a friend from the, from somebody, I forgot who, that, that that money could be used for competency. So, I mean, it's a fungible. I don't know if it's this or that. But somebody, either it was Senator Weissman or it was from Director Farrandino, or it was Weissman telling me that Director Farrandino had told him that, or I'm not sure. But where did it land after appropriations in the Senate? Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. As of right now, and this is a relatively older note at this point, it's March 25th, but I don't know what the exact timing has been. This was as amended by Senate Finance. It was sitting at 61.5. At least on the web, this shows up as the most recent fiscal note. Rep. Taggart. Might we consider keeping this as a placeholder and finish all the others and wait for Director Harper's overview tomorrow perhaps and see what we can do? I think our intention was to give direction to staff because this takes them a very long time to produce the committee report for the long bill. So they need the time to be able to incorporate all of the changes that we are requesting. So our intention was to finish this today. And that bill is still making its way through the process. And I guess I'm just asking, as one of the bill sponsors responsible for it in the second chamber, that I'm not comfortable committing more than $30 million right now. Senator Kirkmeyer. No, no, no. Did I hear correctly the fiscal not saying it's like 60? Well, I don't know if that's the most recent. Senator Amable. Sorry. I'm not sure if that's the most recent because things change. We amended it in appropriations. I might get a different phone, a friend, to tell me if they know the answer. It's just that if there are additional amendments that come in the House, that that could change the note further. No further. Got it. Rep. Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair, but that's not the route I was going down. I wasn't including that. Where I was headed is, depending where Mr. Harper, Director Harper ends up, that if there are dollars left, that this be the priority. Not taking into account. J94. J94. If there are dollars left after overview and balancing, if there's dollars left, that this be the top priority. Well I would just say that if there are dollars left in balancing that there are other priorities that our colleagues might also want to utilize any additional dollars left But I think that there are not a lot of dollars left. I mean, we're talking about probably less than half a million dollars. And, you know, the cost to, I will say a couple things. These balancing decisions that we made, we're talking about an amendment that was only passed in one chamber. There are also balancing decisions that we made that were reductions, ongoing reductions, necessary for balancing our budget, not just this year, but because we are trying to address our Medicaid budget, and we still haven't bent the curve to the extent that we're going to be required to come back next year and make more cuts, and they're going to end up coming in Medicaid. And so I just, I have, and given the amount of one-time money that our budget is balanced on, I think that it's not that I am not sympathetic to how painful these cuts are, and they are not things that I came here to do. But they are decisions that we made as a committee to try and bring balance, not just now but ongoing in our Medicaid budget. And so I just don't think that we should take one-time savings of, I don't know, less than $500,000 to apply to something that should be an ongoing reduction. Senator Kirkmeyer. Well, with all that being said, with regard to the competency issue, I wasn't here for the remainder of the conversation, but it sounded to me like from what came up with the discussion is that you didn't like the $11 million that were going to some changing out beds or whatever, or you didn't like the money going to individuals that are in jail beds. So you actually changed the department's request and you added in some different things that you all wanted. None of which were discussed on the Senate floor. So it was discussed on the Senate floor. We have a legislator who took the time to go find the money, like I tell them to do. They gotta go find the money. You want to bring money? You want to bring money to something else you need to go find the money. Finds the money and that all passes in an amendment to a bill and an amendment to the long bill and the money's there and And now we're not going to use it that way. I don't think that's right. Senator. Yeah, I mean I'll just say I think that actually is what we do in this conference committee. We aren't taking all of the things that people wanted and we're not doing all of the things that passed in one chamber or the other. We're not even taking all the things that passed in both chambers. So I don't think that's the right criteria to apply. And we didn't change the number on the competency thing beyond what we all had discussed and said we wanted to do because we're worried about this $100 billion in the fund. So we moved to shuffle some things around, that's all we did. And I would just also point out that, yes, we all did. I heard everyone say that it seemed important that we appropriate the million for competency and there was one thing that was swapped out on the jail beds in order to do some more of the transitional community placements which also apparently the special master does agree is important and so does the litigant litigant. So I think it was a responsible choice that we made. And I would also just say that the $7 million that Senator Furzell pulled from the IT revolving fund is one-time money that doesn't actually fill this gap going forward. It just does for one year. Senator Kirkmayer.

Well, I just will say we had to take up this competency question regardless of whatever our colleagues did on the long bill in either chamber. We still were going to have to take this up. And then we might have been faced, had we not taken that $10 million, we might have been then faced with, okay, what else do we want to reduce? Do we think we should just say, okay, we're only going to give $20 million to the consent DECREE OR DO WE THINK WE SHOULD GIVE THE 30 THAT THEY SAID WAS NECESSARY TO REACH THE WAITLESS REDUCTION AND AT LEAST MAKE OUR GOOD FAITH EFFORT IN DOING SO? WE STILL WERE GOING TO HAVE TO Regardless of whatever everyone else did, I don't see any way around having to have dealt with that. So I can appreciate the frustration that you find yourself in, but it doesn't change all the things that we would have had to weigh and consider. And I think that that is something that we have to fund first. So why aren't we putting more pressure on the governor to tell us where he wanted to make other cuts to make up for the additional $10 million that he needed for this request for competency? I think the posture is still that, you know, we made reductions, we made general fund reductions in our budget to particularly a Medicaid budget that is far outpacing our ability to pay for it. And I presume more reductions are coming next year, unless everyone wants to pass the graduated income tax, which I do. But, you know, if not that, I don't know how else folks are going to suggest we pay for Medicaid next year. You know, this additional $7 million is a drop in the bucket to what I presume are future reductions next year. Rep Taggart.

DANGY, MADAM CHAIR. I MADE IT CLEAR TO MY COLLEAGUES ALL YEAR THAT IF THEY FIND MONEY, THAT'S GREAT. THE DECISIONS THAT WE'RE MAKING ON THE BUDGET COMMITTEE ARE INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT, AND WE MAY USE THOSE DOLLARS THAT THEY FIND FOR SOMETHING ELSE. IN FACT, WHAT I TELL THEM IS WE WILL DEFINITELY USE THOSE DOLLARS THAT THEY FIND FOR SOMETHING ELSE. SO I APPRECIATE WHATEVER METHODS WHATEVER MECHANISM HOWEVER IT IS THAT SENATOR FIZZELL FOUND THOSE DOLLARS WE HAVE A MASSIVE NEED INCOMPETENCY AND THOSE Senator Frizzell found those dollars We have a massive need in competency and those dollars make it easier for us to do what it is that the special master is requiring of us

I think the whole framing of, oh, it's competency versus this, or it's this versus that. I mean, of course, it is a zero-sum game we're playing here, but we've made a hundred decisions more. and so it doesn't really just boil down to these decisions that we've made here towards the end. That isn't really what this is about. So I just don't think that's a fairer framing. And I also would love to support Senator Frizzell's amendment to the extent that when we get to the end of this rainbow, we did have this idea last year and we planned to do that this year about you know making some changes at the end if we can afford to fund something then I think we should leave that option open just like we have in the past but for today I think we have to move on and what I'm hearing from Director Harper is that we don't we don't currently have that and there's a lot of moving pieces still and including the the the reclass bill and including you know other bills that are out there that and other things that are have yet to happen there are bills that have savings in them and I'm not sure that we've accounted for all of those in what we're doing and so I I'm open to just putting that aside and saying let us come back to it if at the end of the process we can fund that.

Senator Kirkmire. This will be my last statement on this. So the thing is, I just want to know why the process isn't the same for the department and the governor's office. They came in with a request saying that they need a $20 million placeholder. We put in a $20 million placeholder on top of all the other stuff that we did with regard to competency. and we put those placeholders in place. They come back to us with a request that is $10 million than the $20 million placeholder. Why didn they have to go find the money We told our colleagues I mean I don know what you all told your colleagues for sure but I know I think we were all fairly close to the same that if you have something that you want to increase money to you need to go find the cut We have a colleague on the Senate floor that went and found the cut to increase the program that she wanted to see have happen. And not only did she get that done, she's in the minority and had to go find several Democrats on the other side, which there were several. It wasn't like there were only six. There were several on those amendments that she got them to sign off on to support her amendments, one, to a bill, and two, to an amendment to the long bill. So why isn't the process the same for the governor's office and the department? They had a $20 million placeholder. They came in with a $30 million request. We're sitting here finding the money for it. Why didn't they have to find the money for it? And the money that we found for it was taken away from a colleague of mine, ours, that went and found it to fund a program that she finds extremely important. She told her story about her neighbor and the child and the DD wait list and how important it is not to be on the wait list. And she got everybody, she got Democrats, to sign on to her amendment coming out of the minority. I think that's a pretty big deal. She did exactly what we asked them to do. If you're asking for additional dollars, you've got to go find it. She did it, and now it's almost like, you know, I mean, I'm sure she's going to be just probably more ticked off than I am. But why didn't the governor's office have to do the same thing?

Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. The amendment that Senator Frizzell ran on the floor, she did find money for this year. It is one-time funding, and when we look at the costs, particularly for providing additional hours for parents, those are ongoing costs that are having not just ongoing but dramatically increasing, one of the places that is increasing the most in our budget. And so I did tell her at the time that it was unlikely that this change was going to stick, and I know that that upset her a great deal. But I think your points about the governor's office coming in with a budget that is 50% higher than originally predicted without providing those cuts is fair. I think that that is generally the approach they take, and I'm not sure why it happened this time the way that it did. I don't know that they were relying on us to cut, to use these funds for that. But I think in the balancing that we have to do here on this committee, we do our best, and we try and make cuts with the least harm. and this particular piece, this competency piece, could have dramatic consequences in future years if we don't do what it is that the special master requires us to do on this. So I hear you, and I also very much wish we could find ways to keep the DD, at least some piece of the DD waivers in place. As I shared on the floor, I have both a cousin and an uncle who are on DD waivers. I know the challenges for families I know how hard this is And I know what the wait list looks like because we were on it The Gov office likes to talk about the wait list as like not being real because by the time someone name comes up they don want the services anyway and that is not the experience in my family at all So I would love to find some way to do that, if possible. I don't know if we're going to be able to do that today, in this minute, but I also share that and would like to. We also just don't have money to do that. We don't have ongoing cuts that I see easy to make here.

Director Harper. Madam Chair, Ms. Conagharaja had flagged for me earlier. There was discussion of Senate 37, J120, the restorative justice footnote. And you all had discussed it, and it sounded like there may have been support for adding it, and we would need a motion because it was a Senate amendment. If you want that footnote, if you want that restorative justice footnote added, we would need a motion and a vote because it was discussed but not voted on and it's not currently in the bill. Although a clear indication would suffice based on all of the confusion that we've discussed about whether a motion is needed or not. But I think we would appreciate their guidance on whether you want that Senate footnote added.

DIRECTOR HARPER. I'M SURE I CAN'T SPEAK TO THAT ONE BUT TO CLEAR UP REPRESENTATIVE TAGGERT'S QUESTION ABOUT 120 AND THE COMMITTEE'S DISCUSSION WE HAVE MS. BICCLE IF YOU WANT A BIT MORE INFORMATION. And obviously as staff, we don't really attempt to speak to sponsors intent, but our understanding of the situation with the restorative justice piece is that there is some concern among some stakeholders that the department is playing too large of a role in the allocation of these particular grants and that this restorative justice council, it should be clear that it's their responsibility to do the allocations. That's my 30,000 foot view. that's kind of our assumption based on the amendment that we received, but obviously we can't really speak to intent, but that's the implication here is that some folks are concerned about the process for allocating that money. And that judicial had asked for a change from the word guide to the word advise, and that Senator Snyder was fine with this, and apparently Senator Weissman said he needed to consult at the source, and I don't know what the result of that consultation was.

Ms. Bickle. Amanda Bickle, JBC staff. I would say the specific language would be my language in my attempt to interpret what the members wanted in the footnote. but as far as I'm aware, there's not anybody else who particularly said that they wanted that guide language.

It was not that I was given the specific language by anybody. So the particular word guide that is in the footnote was something that I came up with, and I think insofar as Senator Weissman was asking what the origin of the language was, it was in fact my attempt to interpret a request.

I think he was wondering what judicial's aim was by changing the word to advise. Then I misunderstood.

Ms. Bickle?

Rep. Brown. Madam Chair, thank you. I would like to ask the committee to add an additional footnote to the long bill related to the shift relief factor pilot program that we authorized as part of our figure setting. And I'd like the footnote to say that DOC will use the funds for improvement of the correctional relief factor in the Canyon City area. Funds will be used for the hiring of FTE within the facilities with the intention of reducing cross-posting of non-security staff and avoidable overtime, and these funds will be tracked and monitored. And this is language that comes to me through the Colorado WINS, and they would like to make sure that this money gets used in the place where it's needed the most. Which, oh, Mr. Brackey.

We did make the appropriation, and that is what was described in the proposal, but I don't think that there's anything that requires them to spend it there, so this is just ensuring that that is where it happens. Thank you, Mr. Brackey.

I have not moved anything, but I asked that the committee do it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move adoption of J172 that's just been distributed to us by Mr. Bracke. Are there any objections? That passes on a vote of 6-0.

Senator Kirkmire. Are we getting all the codes, the correct codes put in with regard to the maternal codes and the NICU codes and the primary care? Mr. Kurtz.

I just want to make sure for the last time that we were getting the codes correct, because they were missing several. Vice Chair Bridges.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For some reason, and I may be absolutely wrong, I thought we put PBT in this code evaluation as well. And I don't want that to go away. I don't think that one is in question. Okay. I just got nervous because it didn't get raised. So there are no questions on that one. That's settled.

Senator Kirkmeyer.

THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. AGREE, AND I'D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT THAT ADDITIONAL COST IS. ALSO MY UNDERSTANDING IS I MEAN, I THINK THAT WHAT MAY BE HAPPENING, AND I CERTAINLY, THIS IS, ONCE A DOOR HAS BEEN OPENED, A CRACK, THAT FOLKS TRY AND FIND DIFFERENT WAYS TO FIT THROUGH THAT CRACK. And so I would like to know what those codes are for as well. And I'd appreciate your take on how relevant they are to, I think, the NICU and maternal care codes that we had initially talked about. And I think the cost that you gave us for those codes just included that medium size and not the extra large.

Vice Chair Bridges. No It fine

I've made no motions. You just asked a question.

I think the fundamental problem here is that, is one of terminology, that there's not really a definitive list of what is a maternal and NICU code. And there are some definitions that we can point to out there that are external, but those definitions are not all consistent. And even if you point to those definitions, what one person perceives as a maternal or NICU code may not be the same as what a different person perceives regardless of what that external definition might say. And the codes, I can put together estimates on additional codes. I'm just worried that if the committee decides to include those codes, THERE WILL BE MORE CODES THAT ARE ON THE GRAY AREAS, ON THE MARGINS. THIS IS IT. OKAY.

CORRECT.

I MEAN, WHEN WE WERE CUTTING THIS DEAL, OR HAVING THESE DISCUSSIONS WITH REGARD TO ALL THE BUDGET BALANCING, I'M THE ONE WHO SAID MATERNAL HEALTH CODES. I DIDN'T SAY JUST CERTAIN ONES, I SAID MATERNAL HEALTH CODES. AND THAT WAS WHAT WE HAD ALL AGREED TO. SO THAT'S WHERE I'M AT. I DON'T KNOW WHO DECIDED WHAT WAS MATERNAL HEALTH CODE OR NOT THAT YOU BASED EVERYTHING ON WITH THE FIRST PLACE. SO THESE ARE THE ONES THAT THE HOSPITALS ARE TELLING ME FALL IN THIS CATEGORY.

I will try to pull those numbers as quickly as possible. Do you want me to talk about where the numbers or where the codes came from? It was a initially a list that was provided by some lobbyists. I have to go back and look at which ones that was provided to me by Senator whatever, by Senator Bridges, and that was.

That was the basis for the cost estimate that was what the committee approved for the dollars. Those codes came from the folks who represent NICU docs here in town. And I believe that the hospitals were involved in that conversation. IN THE MATERNAL CODE PIECE, I DON'T RECALL WHERE THOSE CAME FROM, BUT I BELIEVE THEY COORDINATED WITH FOLKS WHO REPRESENT ITS PRIMARY CARE DOCS THAT THE MATERNAL CODES CAME FROM. I believe, I'm just not certain on that. But it was, the hospitals were included in those conversations. So I think maybe the initial codes they gave, again, I said, as I mentioned, there was a small number of codes and then a slightly larger medium-sized

Thank you, Madam Chair. That really doesn't get to it. It's not how we're spending the money. It is how are we achieving standards at a national level that are, that would indicate that our program is putting out a quality program I DON NEED them to detail the dollars against the particular I just it was just alarming how low we were

And I just, do we need RFIs about all of this, or can we just, like, follow up with the department? Because I kind of feel like they're very willing to answer our questions.

I'm absolutely fine. I would just leave it that I was a bit startled how low we were and concerned. So perhaps, Ms. Kanagaraja, you could communicate to the department on our behalf THAT THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS ARE VERY INTERESTED IN BETTER UNDERSTANDING WHY THIS ARTICLE MIGHT REPORT SUCH QUALITY LEVELS AND HOW THAT COMPARES AND WHAT METRICS THEY'RE USING JUST SO PEOPLE CAN HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF WHATEVER IS LAID OUT THERE AND HOW WE COMPARE. BUT I'M NOT SURE WE NEED TO AMEND OUR FI'S. MS. KANAGAR AJA. WOULD THE COMMITTEE LIKE THAT INFORMATION

Probably sooner than that. I would expect folks would want, yeah. Whenever they can get back to us and that means like sooner rather than later. Okay. Madam Chair.

I know. Yeah, they're not going to give us a good answer on that. I'm just in past experience from our RFIs that they don't like. Yeah, they're going to say the plan is terrible. Not going to work. Well, that was kind of what they told me, too. Okay. Anything? Rep Taggart, you had something you wanted to change?

Representative Taggart, actually, thank you for that. This is actually the one I should have highlighted up front on the memo. this red text that you see here on page 11 is alternative language to that first RFI. Let me start over again.

Director Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to clarify process a bit, I think we definitely would need votes on these. These are well outside of the sort of conference committee report process where the informal assent is helpful. So if the new RFIs are wanted or amendments are wanted, I think we would appreciate motions in order to.

I like the alternative.

The alternative is just more detailed.

Page is not on again.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just say the alternative for me has a great deal more specificity, and I like that. The original one is pretty broad. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but I like the specificity that's in the alternative. And if we're going to do the alternative, I'd just like to see the word program or pilot program in that last sentence, because I think that's what you're referring to, unless I'm wrong.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, I have a question directly for Mr. Kurtz on this. We had spoken before about alternative language, and it was your opinion that the alternative language sort of directed a particular outcome. It sort of implied the answers to the questions that it was asking. And I'd like to know if your take on this alternative to that alternative still sort of drives in a particular direction, or does this get us essentially THE SAME INFORMATION THAT THE PREVIOUS QUESTION DRIVES AT, BUT WITH MORE SPECIFICITY ON SORT OF EXACTLY WHAT IT IS WE'RE LOOKING FOR. IS THIS AS BIASED AS THE LAST POTENTIAL PROPOSAL?

to look into under this alternative version. Okay. Senator Mobley. Yeah, I want to support this alternative with more specificity.

Senator Mobley. I'd just like to have a little rundown of what's left for us to do and when we think we might be doing this.

No, no, no. Can we finish the RFI? We're not, because we have to, do we not have to adopt these,

Sorry.

I think to wrap everything up in a bow and for delivery, a vote on the finalized RFIs or RFIs as discussed and amended. to be finalized would be appropriate. And then the last step is I find you and have you sign some transmittal letters for the governor and the independent agencies as well.

Move to adopt the RFIs as outlined here and discussed today.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In terms of the immediate priorities, finalizing your long bill decisions, convening us the conference committee on the long bill, officially giving us direction to draft the report as you've outlined it through the discussions that will go up through that moment, presumably, and then conferencing on the two remaining orbitals, which would be 1363, the reserve bill and 1411 changes to cover all coloradans again i think whether those interact directly with balancing is is depends entirely on what you do in that long bill conference committee if you were going for example if you were going to spend additional money given that my preliminary estimate had virtually no money left for 26 27 if you were going to spend more without cutting then Presumably you would need to adjust the reserve bill to reduce the reserve requirement a little bit. And I think you could, as is demonstrated in 1411, that is a self-contained balancing mechanism at this point with the amendment that passed in the House did in fact adjust the long bill. So you could contain that discussion within that bill. But if you want all of these things to interact directly, then the order of operation there would be up to you all. But if you want to do 1411 and that's going to affect balancing for the long bill, then you would probably want to conference 1411 first. If you want to keep it self-contained, my assumption had been that you would close the long bill and then you would conference 1411 separately. separately, but I think that's the question before you all.