Colorado Speaker of the House Dickey Lee Hullinghorst will not delay efforts to move the state’s hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund. She wants to get started now while working to get the Republican-controlled state Senate on board.

Hullinghorst, D-Gunbarrel, said during a news conference Tuesday that the recent opinion from Republican Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, coupled with the opinions of former Attorney General John Suthers and lawyers from both the Bill Owens and Bill Ritter administrations, should end arguments about the plan’s constitutionality.

“The (Coffman) opinion was very tight,” Hullinghorst said. “Where we go from here — the goalpost seems to be changing on the other side, from constitutionality to how do we reset the base, to maybe this isn’t appropriate or the time to do it.

“My major concern is that we have a budget crisis coming and we need to find a way to solve that problem to ameliorate the damage that will occur to the people of Colorado,” she said.

House Majority Leader Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, said waiting to act in the House would be shirking the responsibility to lead.

Hullinghorst said a bill to convert the fee to an enterprise fund would be presented after March 18.  She said she hoped the preponderance of legal opinions which have found the move constitutional would help Democrats win a compromise in the Senate.

“I hope they understand the critical nature of our state budget. If they don’t know, I think they will soon, and I hope that will lead them to working with us to try and find some solutions,” Hullinghorst said. “If they have (a solution to the budget), I’m all ears. But to just let the budget go, and take the cuts … then I don’t believe that is leading the way.”

Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, said Monday that, even if the fee could be classified as an enterprise fund, the state budget base on which spending caps are calculated would have to be reset. He said it was unclear how much room the move would free up in the state budget, controlled as it is by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. He has called it a temporary measure that avoids a larger spending problem.

Hullinghorst said she believes the move would not require lawmakers to reset the budget base.

— ramsey@coloradostatesman.com