DENVER – Although thousands of Coloradans remain worse off than before the recession began in 2008, a slow recovery is starting to gain momentum, state economists said Friday.

Colorado is doing better than the nation as a whole, and Southwest Colorado is better than the state average, according to reports by the top economists for the Legislature and the governor.

“There’s only certain pockets of the economy that I think are doing well,” said Jason Schrock, chief economist for Gov. John Hickenlooper’s budget office.

The recovery is strongest in states with energy development and high-tech industries, he said.

“We just continue to see more evidence that Colorado is one of the bright spots,” Schrock said.

Clusters of technology companies are springing up in Front Range cities, creating an “ecosystem” that lets companies feed off each others’ knowledge. The phenomenon is spreading, too. Schrock called out Durango and Crested Butte as two smaller cities with emerging entrepreneurial cultures.

The Southwest Colorado regional unemployment rate fell to 6.3 percent so far this year, down eight-tenths of a point from last year.

The forecasts from the two economics offices do not take into account the effects of last week’s widespread floods, whose costs are still being tallied.

Politics also is creating uncertainty and slowness in the economy, said Natalie Mullis, the Legislature’s chief economist. Congress is fighting over whether to shut down the government and raise the nation’s debt ceiling, the national health insurance law is causing worries and war in the Middle East is always a fear, Mullis said.

Still, for a Legislature that has become accustomed to cutting budgets, Friday’s news was welcome. Mullis predicted the state will end its 2013-14 fiscal year with a $145 million surplus, in addition to the savings account that is already built into the budget.

And the state finished the 2012-13 year with $1.1 billion in the bank. That money has been transferred to the State Education Fund, a savings account for schools. House Republicans already are calling for some of the surplus school money to be spent on flood relief.

jhanel@durangoherald.com

State to help pay local share of flood recovery

DENVER – Gov. John Hickenlooper wants the state treasury to pay half of the local share for recovery costs from last week’s Front Range floods.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency usually pays 75 percent of the costs, with the rest paid by the affected counties and cities. “Soft” contributions, such as volunteer labor, count toward the local match.

But Hickenlooper thinks the disaster is so widespread that the state will have to help counties with at least half of their share, his chief of staff, Roxane White, told the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee Friday.

The governor’s office might be back at the JBC as early as next week to request extra funding for staff members involved in flood recovery, White said.

The big costs are not yet known, however.

Jerre Stead, the governor’s newly appointed chief recovery officer, said 75 percent of the damage assessments have been completed – a number that pleasantly surprised him. He did not have a dollar figure, though.

The rest of the damage assessments will have to wait for waters to recede.

jhanel@durangoherald.com