House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst,
D-Boulder
Rep. Brian DelGrosso.
R-Loveland
Our generous did Lynn Bartels and I a tremendous solid and spent the day yesterday covering the spectacle that is a state budget debate. He did the same last week in the Senate’s rhetorical knife fight. God willing, John will bear witness to the conference committee that works out the differences between what House Democrats want and the wishes of the Republican majority in the Senate, then each chamber votes on a compromise before the session ends on May 6.
“I don’t know how they are going to do it,” venerable Sen. Kent Lambert told John .
When you punch the clock — OK, show up — at the statehouse, the scrape over the public’s money is even more interesting to read when the people offering takes on it are unbiased professionals you know and respect. It’s also a lot less work to just write a blog about it the next day. (Hey, cut me some slack, I’m writing this at 6 a.m. in my Alabama Crimson Tide jammies.)
Peter Marcus of the Durango Herald told us how the House passed a budget amendment that puts $1 million worth of incentives into the courtship of Colorado and Hollywood. Perhaps if there’s another installment of “True Grit” filmmakers will .
And there’s from Pete and the Herald:
Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose, continued his quest to secure funding for birth control, with an amendment that would add $5 million to the Family Planning Program, administered by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The Democratic-controlled House advanced the amendment.
Coram also has proposed a separate bill that would add $5 million to a program that provides the intrauterine devices, or IUDs, to low-income young women, in an effort to extend the program that has resulted in a 40 percent drop in teen pregnancies. But that bill faces a loss in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Even though the IUD funding passed in the budget, it could be removed during continuing negotiations with the Senate in the days ahead.
“Itap more than 50 percent symbolic,” Coram said. “We just got the word back (Tuesday) that Colorado is leading the nation in the lowest teen pregnancy rate. This is simply a way of putting it in.”
Ivan Moreno of The Associated Press on social media:
House only has 39 amendments on the Colo. budget, limiting how long lawmakers will talk today to approximately 4,929 hours.
— Ivan Moreno (@IvanJourno)
Expect good, thoughtufl radio on the subject the next few days from and and Rocky Mountain Community Radio.
And it’s always fun to see how the House Republican and Democratic press offices deliver the news in press releases from their partisan perches.
Let’s go first to the GOP:
Democrats vote unanimously against more education and transportation funding
Denver – Tonight, Democrats voted unanimously against Republican led efforts to direct available general fund to education and transportation. The votes came on amendments offered by House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso (R-Loveland) and Representative Terri Carver (R-Colorado Springs) to the state budget bill, SB 234.
House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso’s amendment would have directed $15 million in available general fund to the Department of Education.
“Colorado’s general fund revenue has grown by more than 43% or $2.8 billion dollars since 2009, yet Democrats are not willing take money away from their own pet projects to boost funding for education,” said DelGrosso. “Every superintendent across the state has said the recessionary cuts are still greatly impacting school districts and I am frustrated House Democrats refuse to hear their concerns.”
Representative Terri Carver’s amendment would have directed $15 million in available general fund to the Department of Transportation.
“Colorado’s roads and bridges are in a state of disrepair and yet House Democrats are unwilling to make transportation a funding priority,” said Carver. “With our roads in poor shape, we should be focusing our available resources on our core functions of government such as our roads and bridges, not new programs.”
All Republicans, excluding Representative Bob Rankin, who as a member of the Joint Budget Committee customarily votes against all amendments to the budget, supported both amendments.
The Democrats called it a short day at 7 hours of debate, though most of the morning the Republicans and Democrats divided into their caucuses to lay out the priorities and strategies. Despite an elbow here and there, the left gave the right credit where credit was due, which is refreshing three months into the session.
Short Debate on Long Bill
(April 8) – Taking only seven hours of debate and with only 12 mostly bipartisan amendments, the House gave preliminary voice-vote approval today to the state budget for fiscal year 2015-16 and its 18 satellite bills.
SB15-234, the “long bill,” includes $10.9 billion in general fund spending and $26.4 billion overall for the next budget year, which starts in July.
Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst noted that the successful amendments repurposed less than four-thousandths of one percent of the total budget.
“Itap a credit to the work of the Joint Budget Committee,” said Speaker Hullinghorst, D-Boulder. “I especially commend Reps. Millie Hamner and Dave Young, the House Democrats on the JBC, and the Republican House member, Rep. Bob Rankin, for their hard work in hammering out a budget that has stood up so well to the scrutiny of the House and the Senate.”
House Republicans, who several years ago were a driving force behind standardized student testing in Colorado, have managed a complete flip-flop and argued at length today in favor of getting rid of standardized testing altogether. Democrats were the adults in the room today, acknowledging that the testing regime needs to be eased but without throwing out the baby – and $400 million in federal funding — with the bathwater.
Other squirrely Republican amendments would have reduced provider rates for those who take care of our elderly Coloradans in nursing homes, cut back childhood immunization efforts, reduced health care in rural Colorado and eliminated the Division of Motor Vehicles’ much-needed computer system update.
Winning House support were amendments by:
· Reps. KC Becker, D-Boulder, and Don Coram, R-Montrose, to add $5 million to the state’s teen pregnancy prevention program.
· Reps. Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo, Tim Dore, R-Elizabeth, and Clarice Navarro, R-Pueblo, whose two amendments add $1.5 million for track improvements for Amtrak’s Southwest Chief line through Colorado.
· Reps. Paul Rosenthal, D-Denver, and Kevin Priola, R-Henderson, swapping $1 million from the Colorado Tourism Office to the state film incentive program.
· Majority Leader Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, and Rep. Lois Landgraf, R-Fountain, allowing the state to switch $897,000 in federal funds for monitoring of at-risk children from the 2014-15 state budget to the upcoming fiscal year.
· Assistant Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, and Rep. Landgraf to spend $683,000 to improve dental care for children on Medicaid.
· Rep. Tracy Kraft-Tharp, D-Arvada, to add $300,000 for data collection in the Department of Public Health and Environment.
· Rep. Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins, to add $270,000 for health services in rural Colorado.
· Reps. Moreno and Landgraf cobbling together $240,000 for respite care services.
· Reps. Susan Lontine, D-Denver, and Beth McCann, D-Denver, to switch $136,000 between anesthesia services and retinal services to prevent more Medicaid recipients from going blind.
· Rep. Rhonda Fields to spend $65,000 for a statewide study of cyberbullying.
· Rep. Navarro to add a footnote recommending the Department of Transportation study improvements to US Highway 50.
After third reading on Thursday, the amended budget goes to a conference with the Senate, which passed its own handful of amendments last week.
