Legislative Services at the Capitol is adding research notes to select bills throughout the 2016 session.

It’s a pilot program the non-partisan analysis office has undertaken based on similar programs being run in legislatures around the country. The short research notes include a summary on estimated fiscal impacts and limited background information on the bill topic. Staffers add more information to the note as committee testimony piles up and amendments are attached to the bill. Legislative Services aims to provide the notes to around five bills for each standing committee and to one bill for each interim committee. That averages out to roughly 100 to 125 bills. The office is also taking requests from legislative members to include research notes on any bill. Staffers said the new reports won’t add a lot of extra work, but that doing the research notes will more likely consolidate and spread out the work.

Currently, the office said it is only offering electronic copies of the notes, to keep costs low and allow updates to be added more efficiently. Hard copies can be produced upon request for lawmakers. “I’m a hard-copy kind of guy,” Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, said jokingly to a Legislative Services staffer at end of a committee meeting earlier this month. Beyond providing a little extra information for lawmakers on bills, legislative services said it hopes the added context will help the general public understand more about the work being done at the Capitol. So far, informal feedback has been mixed, staffers said, but they added that they think lawmakers will better appreciate the notes as the legislative session progresses and more bills begin to crowd more schedules and spread out across desktops.

— kara@coloradostatesman.com