Scrambling to find enough money to avoid deep cuts to higher education, Senate Democrats expressed support for eliminating tax exemptions on cigarettes and capital gains and raiding money meant to build water projects.
Those ideas came as Democrats met for hours today in a Capitol hearing room. Just across the hall, Senate Republicans proposed pay cuts and furloughs for state employees and shifting some money from public schools to colleges and universities.
The budget has already been delayed this year by weeks to allow lawmakers more time to work on it, but Senate President Peter Groff, D-Denver, said even more time might be needed.
“What we’re getting ready to do to higher ed is very concerning,” Groff said. “If we need to slow this down, then that’s what we need to do.”The spending plan recommended by the bipartisan Joint Budget Committee would tap Pinnacol Assurance, a quasi-governmental agency that provides workers’ compensation insurance, for $500 million to help balance the budget. If the plan doesn’t work, higher education would face $300 million in cuts on top of other decreases already planned, an action that officials said would shutter multiple community colleges and cause tuition hikes of double-digit percentages.
Pinnacol officials have hinted at a potential legal challenge to the proposal, and Democrats Wednesday said a compromise plan might be to borrow money from Pinnacol instead of taking it.
A spokesman for Republican Attorney General John Suthers said Wednesday the office was looking at “serious legal issues” surrounding the Pinnacol proposal.The Senate is set to take up the budget for floor debate Thursday, and members from both parties looked for ways to avoid $300 million in cuts to higher education if the Pinnacol deal doesn’t work.
Democratic ideas included sweeping $40 million from a fund controlled by the Colorado Water Conservation Board and used for loans to build water projects. Another plan included eliminating the sales tax exemption for cigarettes, which would raise as much as $30 million. They also leaned toward eliminating an income-tax exemption for capital gains from Colorado assets, which could raise as much as $32 million.
Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, said that last idea wouldn’t fly with Republicans.
“I think that would be a tough sell to raise taxes on businesses during a recession,” Penry said.
Senate Republicans spent hours Wednesday turning over stones in the budget, hoping small cuts would add up.
Their proposal includes several decreases to prison inmate recreation and anti-recidivism programs; slashing the governor’s office’s marketing and international trade budgets; and nixing an $4.5 million bioscience economic development program.
It seems like a pretty easy place to get money when we’re scraping for funds,” said Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs. “It’s a giveaway.”
Among the GOPs so-called “big-ticket items” was Colorado Springs Sen. Keith King’s plan to further reduce public school funding and give the $100 million to higher education programs like remedial courses, pre-collegiate curriculum and teacher training.
Even with the $100 million cut, K-12 schools would receive a 2 percent increase in state dollars over last year’s level and can expect about $486 million in federal stimulus money in the next 2.5 years.
Senate Republicans also suggested furloughing state employees and issuing 5 percent pay cuts for themselves and state-funded higher education positions earning $100,000 or more a year. They estimate the proposal would save up to $85 million a year.
Republicans said their cuts added up to $246 million, part of an omnibus cuts package offered as an amendment to the budget today. They also plan to offer an amendment to reduce budgets by 2.9 percent across the board as an alternative.
“We are the party of less government, and we need to be showing that with what we do here,” said Sen. David Schulteis of Colorado Springs.
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
