Much of the painstaking progress Colorado has made in the last couple of years is set to be disassembled by deep state budget cuts.
The list of victims in this year’s state budget is long and troubling: full-day kindergarten construction, expanded health care coverage for poor children and higher education.
Why, oh why, didn’t lawmakers stash away a meaningful amount of cash in a rainy-day fund when they had the chance?
For reasons of politics and policy, the much-discussed idea of putting aside something on the order of 8 percent of the state budget never came to pass, even after voters allowed the state to keep more tax revenues by passing Referendum C.
And now the state, mired in the grips of a deepening recession that has sent revenues plummeting, must whack away to make ends meet.
Part of what Gov. Bill Ritter no doubt considered his legacy — better funding for colleges and universities, more access to all-day kindergarten — could vanish. Also on the chopping block is half the tourism promotion budget, a particularly counterintuitive move, since such studies show tourism promotion spending brings back $13 for every dollar spent.
Late last week, the state’s Joint Budget Committee kicked around scenarios in which state employees would be forced to take unpaid furloughs and not get pay raises.
The situation is dire. For the budget year ending in June, state government is expected to receive $600 million less in revenues than expected.
Although there was some dispute — and, we suspect, wishful thinking — over revenue projections, the budget folks from the executive and legislative branches appear to have come to rough agreement on the magnitude of the problem.
Of course, the budget problems won’t end in June with the fiscal year. Over the next 18 months, the state is expected to see a shortfall totaling more than $1 billion, a large sum in any context, but particularly so when you consider this year’s general fund budget was $7.5 billion.
Referendum C, approved by voters in 2005, created a perfect opportunity to build an adequate rainy-day fund. After the severe budget cuts of 2001-03 recession, lawmakers should have committed to the fiscal restraint necessary to build a cushion against recession.
We weren’t alone in making that case. State Treasurer Cary Kennedy pushed for a larger reserve. In 2007, the House passed such a measure 64-1, but it died in the Senate. And when the governor first pitched his budget in November, it included additional money for reserves.
It was a laudable effort, but was too little, too late.
It’s unrealistic to create a credible rainy-day fund now. But when the economy is good again, and surely it will be, state lawmakers must remember times like these.
Unfortunately, today’s cuts will echo far into the future.
