The Joint Budget Committee comes to terms on budget and averts a stand-off. Bill restores some education funding and scales back some PERA contributions.
A tentative budget agreement was struck between Senate Democrats and House Republicans this morning after Democrats agreed to satellite legislation that has been the sticking point for Republicans.
The long bill, scheduled to drop over a week ago and again expected to hit the floor of the Senate Monday, is still hung up in the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) where Senate Democrats say House Republicans have been unwilling to budge on tax breaks.
The Senate pulled the plug on the struggling HJR 1007, leaving the General Assembly out of compliance with state law and the Joint Budget Committee with no consensus revenue projection by which to budget.
The partisan feud over a largely symbolic budget resolution spilled over into the Senate today, where Majority Leader John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, amended Joint House Resolution 1007 to effectively remove a Republican amendment that lowered revenue expectations by 2.7 percent.
Rep. Cherylin Peniston, D-Westminster, said she scrambled but succeeded in introducing a bill today that would provide $124,000 to pay for school breakfasts for the needy after the funding was denied by Republican members of the Colorado Joint Budget Committee (JBC).
The Colorado Senate finally gave an initial OK to an $18 billion state budget late Thursday night after approving a plan over vehement GOP objections to lift $500 million from a state worker’s compensation fund to avoid massive cuts in higher education funding. But not before things got mighty testy.
Senate lawmakers on the left and right came together Thursday to fund more schools in Denver, passing Senate Bill 256. It was a remarkable feat but it may be overshadowed by the big-time poker game the Joint Budget Committee began dealing out Wednesday, which could cost already strapped higher education in the state roughly $400 million. The committee threatened to cut $300 million in state funds, which would automatically disqualify Colorado for $100 million more in federal stimulus cash.
The State of Colorado doesn’t have enough money to support services such as education, health care or transportation because of its low tax base and complications from constitutional and statutory requirements that dictate how money is spent.
In an…
Colorado Confidential has been running a series of articles about the $17 billion dollar state budget from the perspective of the Chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, Sen. Abel Tapia.
We’ve asked Wade Buchanan, president of the
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