This week is budget week for the Colorado House of Representatives. The 2015-2016 $25 billion budget or “long bill,” – $9 billion of which is in the discretionary General Fund – was completed by the Joint Budget Committee a little less than 2 weeks ago.
Being an odd year, the budget was sent first to the Senate, where it was debated, and more than 50 amendments were proposed. During even years, the budget goes to the House first. Only three of those amendments were adopted by the Senate. This week, the House will consider the Senate version of the budget.
After each party caucuses to review the budget, it will go to the House floor to be debated. Typically, the first action of the House is to strip off the Senate amendments. Then, the budget debate will begin, and House amendments will be proposed, debated and voted up or down.
There are three members of the JBC in the House – two Democrats and one Republican. The JBC will stick to the version of the budget that it has adopted. I predict that there will be very few amendments approved by the House. After the House passes its version of the budget, it will go back to the Senate, where it will be sent to a conference committee to iron out the differences between the Senate and House amendments.
The conference committee will be the JBC, and it will adopt the original version of the budget with very few, if any, changes. The “long bill” will then go to each House where the conference committee report will most likely be adopted and the budget will finally be passed. This goes to show how important the JBC is.
There will be very little wiggle room in the budget to make changes. The majority will go to K-12 education and Medicaid, the basis for which is pretty much set in the Constitution and law. One of the most contested issues in the budget is that the JBC has chosen to use $20 million in severance-tax money to balance the General Fund budget.
This has been done in past years to the tune of $300 million, always with the promise that it would be paid back. Where is our money? This is money that comes from a tax primarily on the gas and oil industry and is intended to go back to impacted areas. One of our Western Slope members on the JBC, Rep. Bob Rankin, refused to sign on to this precedent-setting change to the budget. I applaud his courage. I will attempt, through the budget process, to find budget savings to return this severance-tax money to where it was originally intended to be spent.
The job we have before us is complicated and serious and affects every resident in Colorado. It seems to me that there is too much politics and not enough common sense in this budget process and that, my friends, is something worthy of change.
J. Paul Brown represents House District 59 in Colorado’s General Assembly. The district encompasses San Juan, Archuleta and La Plata counties and parts of Montezuma County. Call Brown at (303) 866-2914 or email jpaul.brown.house@state.co.us.
