After several failures in recent years, an effort to create a felony drunken-driving charge in Colorado is finally on its way to becoming law.

But House Bill 1043 comes with a price tag that will only increase in the coming years, which could impact future legislative priorities, warns a key budget lawmaker.

The bill would create a felony for drivers who receive their fourth DUI conviction. Current law counts a DUI as a misdemeanor, regardless of how many offenses a driver racks up.

“We are finally sending a signal to taxpayers and victims of DUI that we’re finally taking DUI seriously in Colorado,” said Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono, a bill sponsor.

The bill received overwhelming bipartisan support in both legislative chambers this session, most recently on May 6, as it passed the Senate on a 34-1 vote. Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs, cast the only no vote. It previously passed the House on a 64-1 vote, with Rep. Justin Everett, R-Littleton, voting no.

The governor has made the creation of a felony DUI a priority and is expected to sign the bill once it gets to his desk.

The bill beefs up penalties for repeat DUIs, but it also gives offenders opportunities to avoid long jail terms along the way.

Current law requires an offender to forfeit his or her driver’s license upon receiving an initial DUI conviction. For a second conviction, the new law would mandate the use of an ignition interlock device – a device that requires the driver to be sober before operating a vehicle – for at least two years.

A third conviction requires significant community corrections involvement. On a fourth conviction, a judge could sentence an offender to up to six years behind bars.

But jail time is the last resort because a judge would be required to first “consider whether all reasonable and appropriate alternative sentences have been exhausted,” according to a state fiscal analysis of the bill.

Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, who is also a bill sponsor, said the bill ensures several layers of intervention prior to a repeat DUI offender receiving significant jail time.

But Johnston stressed during a May 5 Senate floor debate that justice demands stiffer penalties when all other options have been exhausted.

Johnston referenced last year’s death of 17-year-old Juan Carlos Dominguez-Palomin, who was killed on Colfax Avenue in Aurora after being struck by a drunken driver. The man accused of killing the teenager, Ever Olivos-Gutierrez, had multiple prior DUI charges and allegedly was driving at a very high rate of speed prior to the crash.

“If that person decided to get drunk on a Friday night and walk outside and shoot a shotgun down the middle of Colfax, they would be facing, on their first offense, 24 to 48 years in jail,” Johnston said.

“This offers us a balance to say we want to make sure all interventions are exhausted, we want to make sure we do everything we can on treatment, on interlock devices and community corrections,” Johnston later said. “But if you are someone who persistently continues to demonstrate that you are going to put high school seniors with their whole lives ahead of them or two or six-year-old kids with their whole lives ahead of them (in danger)… we need the ability to say, ‘You don’t have the right to put those families at risk any longer.”

During the floor debate, lawmakers shared stories about how difficult the issue of drunken-driving is and how it can impact families.

Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, talked about an accident that occurred near his Weld County home, where a car-full of family members were struck by a drunken-driver.

Cooke said the driver was a seven-time DUI offender. A father and his two young children died in the crash.

“I wish that this bill would have been passed a couple of years ago,” Cooke said. “Maybe this family would have been alive today.”

Sen. Lucia Guzman, D-Denver, said alcoholism plagued her family, including a brother of hers who was arrested multiple times in Texas for driving drunk.

Guzman, who supports the bill, said her brother never received alcohol treatment or counseling while behind bars, which she believes needs to be a part of any sentencing equation.

“It is about a disease and it’s about death,” Guzman said. “And the only way we can add the third dimension, which is life, is to take the step and make a decision like this bill moves us toward.

“Hopefully this bill won’t imprison their soul and mind so they don’t get better, but prevent them to be in a place where they harm someone.”

While Democrats and Republicans support the legislation, one lawmaker reminded his colleagues about the financial reality that will come with a felony DUI law.

During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last year, Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, cast the deciding no vote on a felony DUI bill. This year, Steadman voted for the effort.

That’s in part because of the reduced price tag of this year’s bill. The bill would cost the state about $1.4 million this fiscal year, which is a lower cost estimate than those of previous efforts.

But the cost to the state will rise every year after, as more people go to prison as a result of the new law. The bill’s fiscal analysis estimates that the law will cost the state more than $4 million in the 2016-17 fiscal year and nearly $8 million the following fiscal year.

Steadman said that money will impact how lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee do business on what is expected to be “a particularly tight budget” next year.

Steadman also said that alcohol tax revenue should be used similarly to how taxes are collected from the sale of recreational marijuana.

Much of the revenue collected from pot taxes is specifically marked for drug treatment and law enforcement programs, allowing the drug to pay its own way, Steadman said. However, alcohol excise taxes go to the general fund and do not directly offset the financial consequences that can come with alcohol consumption.

“Our taxes on alcohol are wholly inadequate,” said Steadman, who pointed to several other states that have much higher alcohol taxes than in Colorado. “I think we need to start talking about this”

While there remains uncertainty around the bill and its cost, those who have long-backed the effort are feeling a sense of accomplishment.

The bill has failed numerous times in previous legislatures. Former Minority Leader Mark Waller, a Republican from Colorado Springs, has been at the forefront in recent years in trying to get this bill through the General Assembly.

Waller said the passage of the bill “is the culmination of a lot of hard work from a lot of people” and that the measure is necessary to public safety.

“Protection of Colorado citizens on the roadways is one of the most important priorities in any legislative year,” Waller said. “And if we don’t pass the bill now, with Colorado having a record budget, it will never, never happen.”

– Twitter: @VicVela1