Faced with a $1 billion state budget deficit over the next 18 months, Gov. Bill Ritter today proposed closing two prisons, slashing spending on education and furloughing state workers, who also wouldn’t get a pay increase next year.
That was the grim proposal Ritter’s office presented today for balancing the state budget in the 2009 fiscal year, which begins in July.
“These reductions, along with the latest unemployment figures released this morning, should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind about the seriousness of the problems we face and of the collective effort it will take to chart a Colorado way forward,” Ritter said in a statement.
Cuts in Ritter’s 2009-2010 budget include:
In addition to the pay freeze for state employees, Ritter’s budget proposes that they take five unpaid furlough days between July and June 2010.
The governor also proposed closing the Rifle Correctional facility; a women’s correctional facility in Cañon City; a 20-bed hospital at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo; and a children’s therapeutic hospital at Fort Logan.
