Stung by criticism over how the Joint Budget Committee attempted to balance the budget this year, two lawmakers on the panel have fired back at their colleagues with a challenge:
Show up, or shut up.
Sen. Moe Keller, D-Wheat Ridge, and Rep. Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, are co-sponsoring a measure that would require all lawmakers who don’t sit on the JBC to attend a minimum of five of its meetings in November and December. Those are the months prior to the January start of session when the six-membercommittee hears from state agencies about the budget.
“Legislators complain that they’re not a part of the system and that they are not informed,” Keller, chairwoman of the JBC said. “I’m calling them on it.”
Keller said lawmakers who don’t sit on the committee get paid the $100 per day expense allowance if they attend the out-of-session JBC meetings. But they still don’t come, she said.
“I can’t get the legislators who complain the most to come any other way, so I’m trying this,” she said.
The JBC’s meetings can run all day and frequently involve complex information about the state’s budget. This year, successive economic forecasts showed the state’s revenues plunging ever further, creating a $1.4 billion hole in the budget over two years.
The JBC redrew the budget for the current fiscal year, which ends in June, several times to stanch the bleeding, and had to find a way to fill an $800 million hole for the year that begins in July. Their plan included transferring $500 million from a state-chartered workers’ compensation fund to avoid $300 million in cuts to higher education, a gambit the full legislature ultimately rejected in favor of other revenue-generating measures and cuts.
Along the way, some lawmakers complained the JBC was too powerful and ignored the wishes of other committees. House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, has agreed to allow an ad-hoc committee this summer to examine the budget process and the JBC’s structure.
Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, a frequent critic of the JBC, has called for expanding its membership and giving other committees a greater say in the budget.
He said required attendance at JBC meetings wouldn’t address his concerns about the budget process.
“Just because you require someone to go to church every Sunday doesn’t make them a believer,” Gardner said. “This is the typical Joint Budget Committee trying to avoid looking at the problem.
“We need a fundamental overhaul of our budget process.”
Gardner suggested JBC members be required to attend the meetings of other legislative committees.
But Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, called Keller and Ferrandino’s proposal a good idea. Curry also has been critical of the JBC’s power, and as chairwoman of the House Agriculture Committee, pushed back against cuts to agriculture programs.
“I don’t blame them,” Curry said. “They’re raising a really good point. It’s not fair to be critical and not have participated.”
But Curry, who did attend a number of JBC meetings this year, said, “Five meetings is kind of a lot.” It’s a four-hour drive to Denver for her.
Keller knows the measure may not pass, but says it’s not about that.
“I’m just making a statement,” she said. “If it passes, it passes.”
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
