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Colorado House OKs roads, schools spending

DENVER – With less than two weeks to go in the legislative session, Colorado’s Democrat-led House finally debated – and advanced – a proposal to boost spending on underfunded roads and schools by removing a multimillion-dollar Medicaid fee from the state’s constitutional taxing and spending limitations on Thursday.

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper called on lawmakers when the session began more than 100 days ago to set aside the fee to avoid refunds under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, free millions of dollars in future budget years for Colorado’s roads and schools, and give the Legislature more flexibility in the budgeting process.

It took months for the House Democratic leadership to line up some Republican votes to give the proposal a long shot at passage.

Even if it fails in the Republican-led Senate, it could give momentum to pending ballot initiatives that would ease TABOR’s 23-year reign over state budgeting.

TABOR requires refunds whenever total state income surpasses a cap that’s based on inflation and population.

House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst’s bill would provide at least five years’ flexibility to spend more on schools and roads. It also would help restore severance tax revenues that have been used to balance the budget in recent years, as was the case with the $27 billion budget approved this month.

Those revenues are supposed to compensate communities affected by mineral extraction.

At issue is a hospital fee that raises money – some $750 million – that is matched by the federal government. That doubled sum is sent back to those hospitals to care for the needy.

This year, budget writers cut the hospitals’ contribution by $75 million to help balance the 2016-2017 budget and avoid TABOR’s refund trigger. The bill would restore that contribution and, consequently, matching funding.

Republicans insist TABOR, approved by voters in 1992, requires voters to approve any tax increase.

They’ve consistently called the hospital fee a tax subject to TABOR.

Hullinghorst’s bill was opposed by Americans for Prosperity and others critical of rapid Medicaid expansion in Colorado, which they blame for the state’s budget woes.

But a host of business groups endorsed the bill, concerned about the impact of deteriorating roads and underfunded schools on the economy.

The bill’s Senate sponsor, Republican Larry Crowder of Alamosa, insists hospital needs in his rural district outweigh politics, as did GOP Rep. J. Paul Brown of Ignacio during Thursday’s debate.

The House passed, again by voice vote, a companion bill spelling out how newly available state dollars would be spent if Hullinghorst’s legislation passes, over and above current and future budget amounts:

For the next fiscal year, $50 million for highways, $16 million for the severance tax fund, $40 million to K-12 schools and $50 million for higher education. Each area would be fully funded in that order if there’s not enough revenue for all of them.

For the next four fiscal years, 30 percent would go to K-12, 25 percent to higher ed, 15 percent to highways, 10 percent to severance taxes and 20 percent to the general fund to help budget writers who, by law, must craft a balanced budget annually.House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso strongly objected to a proposed list of transportation projects that would get priority funding.

The House must pass the bill before it goes to the Senate.

The session ends May 11.



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