Joint Budget Committee

The Trump administration continues to take aim at Colorado.

If the legislature and then voters sign off on the plan, every dollar of the surplus used for a tax credit over the next decade or more would be a dollar that could have otherwise been used for the general fund.

This now threatens funding for programs supporting thousands of Colorado families with children with disabilities.

Nonpartisan staffers told lawmakers this month that the way they spent billions of dollars in one-time federal funds given to Colorado during the COVID pandemic contributed to the state’s budget shortfall.

The shortfall means two major things: The General Assembly will have to make funding cuts and it also has no money available to spend on new programs. Those two realities will shape the legislature’s entire 120-day lawmaking term.

The federal government shutdown delayed the release of key business and labor data, leaving forecasters in the dark about the true state of the economy.

Gov. Polis is asking lawmakers to slow spending on Medicaid and to privatize Pinnacol Assurance.

Colorado’s prisons are understaffed and overcrowded, pushing inmates into county jails. The state’s emergency plan is now active, but local leaders say it’s only a temporary fix.

One reason is that the state is paying out more to lower income residents through targeted tax credits.

Providing the same level of government programs and services next fiscal year is predicted to cost $850 million more than the legislature will have available to spend.