When the Colorado Legislature convenes on Jan. 12, money will be on the minds of senators and representatives.
“We have a lot of one-time money, and we have to be really cautious about where we put that money,” said House District 59 Rep. Barbara McLachlan, who represents La Plata, Archuleta, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Ouray and San Juan counties.
“We still have some big pockets of money for homelessness and mental health,” McLachlan said Wednesday during a visit to The Durango Herald offices.
During the next legislative session, Colorado politicians will begin to decide how the state uses funding from the CARES Act and President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan.
“We put aside a big chunk last year,” McLachlan said. “We spent what we thought we needed right away, and then we put (that money) aside so that we could have a lot of meetings about where we think it should go.”
In 2021, the Colorado General Assembly created new interim committees, including the Behavioral Health Transformational Task Force and Affordable Housing Transformational Task Force, to identify and begin addressing some of the challenges Coloradans face.
While no definite bills will come out of the interim committees, lawmakers have been working to agree on how the influx of federal money should be spent.
“This is stuff that we all thought was important, but we needed a deeper dive into,” McLachlan said.
Also on the docket: education.
McLachlan, the chairwoman of the House Education Committee, plans to introduce a bill that would allow rural educators, bus drivers and cafeteria workers who have retired with benefits from the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association (PERA) to go back to work without harming their benefits.
Currently, those with PERA benefits are limited to 110 days of work each year.
McLachlan is also considering a bill to help students get back on track with standardized testing. Colorado was the first state to receive a testing waiver from the federal government in March, allowing students to take fewer standardized tests during spring amid the pandemic while maintaining federal funding for schools.
“This year, we want to take it up a little notch,” she said. “Not go back to full-time testing, but maybe take a step in the right direction because kids are just coming back into school and teachers are catching up from last year.”
“We just want to give a little break to students (and) teachers and say, ‘A little more testing, but not the full board,’” she said.
Among many other educational initiatives, McLachlan identified broadband access and programs to help people enter the workforce without going into college debt as priorities.
McLachlan, who also sits on the House Agriculture, Livestock and Water Committee, said this year will be another busy year as legislators try to find solutions to Colorado’s growing water problems.
“I think people in Denver don’t really understand that water is a really huge thing over here, so we need to kind of keep pounding it into their head,” she said.
One of the issues the House Agriculture, Livestock and Water Committee is hoping to address is how people buy and sell water rights, McLachlan said.
At a Colorado Water Congress meeting in Steamboat Springs this year, attendees received the results of a study that looked at how hedge funds were buying water rights.
“Nobody could come up with the idea of what to do about it,” she said.
“It’s an issue. Everybody’s aware of it,” she said. “But how do you tell people who are going broke that they can’t sell their farm or their ranch or even just their water rights?”
Money underpins much of McLachlan’s agenda, and ultimately, spending decisions will consume the 2022 legislative session.
“We’ve never had this much one-time money before. This is huge,” she said. “All you think about is all the stuff you can’t use it for, so we have to get rid of that and think of all the things we could do with it.”
“It’s like a big, giant puzzle,” she said.
ahannon@durangoherald.com
