Gov. John Hickenlooper.(The Denver Post)
Gov. John Hickenlooper presented his to lawmakers Thursday, but his pitch focused more on what it didn’t include — a remake of the hospital provider fee.
Hickenlooper made a priority in his remarks to the Joint Budget Committee, juxtaposing it against the roughly $370 million in cuts to education, capital construction and hospital reimbursements in his proposal.
The way to avoid the cuts, he said, is a another look at a bill Republican lawmakers rejected in the 2015 session that would have converted the hospital provider fee to an enterprise fund — exempting it from the state’s TABOR revenue caps and making room for more spending.
“By converting the hospital provider fee to an enterprise, we can ensure that we can use the money we have for the essential priorities most Coloradans expect from us,” Hickenlooper told lawmakers. “What I find most compelling about why this change is the right one for our current situation is that without the fee collections, state government revenue growth has been below population growth and inflation.”
Rep. Millie Hamner, D-Dillon, made a similar point to start the meeting. “Unfortunately if we had been able to find a compromise during the last legislation session, these cuts are unnecessary and would not have had to be made,” said Hamner, the new committee chairwoman.
Hamner repeated referred to the need for the state to “find a new revenue source” in the meeting — an allusion to excluding the hospital provider fee from the TABOR calculations. But it’s not likely to sit well with Republican budget writers who hold three of the six seats on the split committee.
Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, pointed sharp questions at Hickenlooper’s budget director, Henry Sobanet, about the governor’s budget proposal to reduce the amount hospital provider fee in the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
Lambert, who voted against the bill that established the program in 2009, made it clear he considers the fee charged to hospitals a tax — an issue in .
To move the hospital provider fee to an enterprise fund, it would require separate legislation that further complicates the budget process.
In an interview after the meeting, Hamner said the potential for budget cuts puts adds urgency to the hospital provider fee issue.
“I think that it elevates the issues around what needs to happen to balance this budget and it forces the conversation about whether these cuts are palatable or not,” she said.
