The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee voted Tuesday to take $2 million from a cash fund in Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office, money he had wanted to keep and spend in his own agency.
Former Secretary of State Bernie Buescher, a Democrat, last year had offered up a $3.5 million surplus to help balance the state budget.
But Gessler, a Republican, reversed the transfer, saying he wanted to keep at least part of it to fight business-identity theft.
The JBC, though, still had the power to sweep the cash fund. A compromise offered by Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, to take $2 million passed 6-0.
Gessler saw the vote as at least a partial victory.
“This is a pretty good result,” Gessler said in a statement. “I’m glad the JBC recognized that, ultimately, business fees do not belong to the General Assembly but to Colorado’s businesses.”
— Tim Hoover
