Colorado House lawmakers on Thursday spent their day wrestling with the state’s 2024-25 budget, and there was plenty to fight about.

Lawmakers have begun reviewing the state’s spending plan for the next fiscal year in the face of tight revenues and a budget deficit – even as policymakers are pushing for hundreds of millions of dollars in funding requests.  All told, the draft budget for fiscal year 2024-25 expects to spend $40.6 billion – $2 billion more than last year, driven by bigger allocations for health care, a significant expansion in the state’s workforce and more money for schools seeing increased enrollment of immigrant students.    

The fight in the House started with some of the measures that accompanied the budget.

In particular, the attempt to use severance tax dollars to plug the hole in the state budget didn’t go over well with Republicans.

House Bill 1413 would make a series of transfers totaling $69.3 million from severance taxes, which come from oil and gas, to the general fund budget.

Those revenues are used to mitigate oil and gas activity in the local communities that are affected by the industry. It also funds activities for the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the Division of Parks and Wildlife, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center and other related agencies.

“This is local government,” said Rep. Lisa Frizell, R-Castle Rock, in advocating for a “no” vote on the measure.

The use of severance tax dollars to plug up budget shortfalls is nothing new; lawmakers started sweeping funds out of the severance tax accounts 20 years ago. 

Due to fluctuations in oil and gas prices, there’s been years when there wasn’t enough tax revenue to cover the grants that cover those mitigation activities. But that hasn’t stopped lawmakers from dipping into those funds in better years.

The amendment to leave the severance tax revenue alone didn’t succeed.

Lawmakers also tackled bills that would spend money. House Bill 1401 gives Denver Health $5 million to cover its ongoing financial woes. The hospital ran a $100 million shortfall last year, largely attributable to unreimbursed care at $136 million – and a $22 million gap the previous year, with $120 million in unreimbursed care.

The legislature provided $5 million last year to address the 2023 shortfall. 

The fight over charter schools also showed up in the budget package. House Bill 1394 repeals the Mill Levy Equalization Cash Fund, which funds institute charter school operations. The bill instead requires the legislature to put general fund or state education fund dollars directly toward institute charter schools. 

Rep. Tammy Story, D-Evergreen, who sponsored a bill to make major changes to charter schools, argued against the bill and in favor of an amendment offered by Rep. Jennifer Parenti, D-Erie, that would take the state education fund out of the bill. 

Story noted the policy change addressing the charter school funding took place in last year’s school finance act, which she called a huge shift that she claimed was snuck into last year’s bill, “hoping nobody sees it.”

Not so, responded House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, R-Colorado Springs.

Pugliese said the policy came forward last year through legislation and was signed into law by the governor.

The amendment received no support from Republicans and more than a few House Democrats. Parenti withdrew the amendment.

The main spending measure, House Bill 1430, which contains the $40.6 billion state budget for 2024-25, saw 89 amendments proposed by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The amendments focused largely on just a few areas: corrections, education and human services.

A handful addressed local projects and programs in lawmakers’ districts, such as school buses, tap fees or the Bent County jail, which has had an escape problem, according to Rep. Ty Winter, R-Trinidad.

None of the amendments was successful.

The first amendment to win approval was a bipartisan idea submitted by Pugliese and Rep. Matthew Martinez, D-Alamosa, to take $2 million from the state education fund to add to the Department of Education’s ninth grade success grant program. 

An amendment to move $1.5 million from the marijuana cash tax fund to create a marijuana entrepreneur cash fund in the governor’s office, sponsored by a trio of Democratic lawmakers, also won approval.

Among the lengthier debates arose on an effort by Rep. Javier Mabrey, D-Denver, who is an eviction attorney, to take money from a rural prosecution fellowship program in the Department of Higher Education and move it to an immigrant legal defense fund in the Department of Labor and Employment.

Rural lawmakers, including Rep. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, said the money helps young attorneys move into prosecution jobs in rural counties. 

Mabrey countered the fellowship money has not been fully used and a required report, due five years ago, was never submitted as required by law. The amendment, which moved $356,000 in general funds, passed.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan amendment from Reps. Brandi Bradley, R-Roxborough Park and Junie Joseph, D-Boulder, takes $200,000 in general funds from the Department of Human Services. While the amendment didn’t identify what that would be used for, Joseph said it would fund a bill she and Bradley are sponsoring on language access for children and families in the child welfare system.

The annual attempt to put more money into the Tony Grampsas Youth Services Program – an amendment that surfaces virtually every year – took $450,000 in general funds out of the auto theft prevention authority in the Department of Public Safety, along with $2 million in general fund dollars. Out of that $2 million, $1.55 million goes to Grampsas; the rest goes to a 2023-24 grant cycle in the human services agency.

The amendment did not identify a source for those general fund dollars – Bacon told Colorado Politics it could come from the “set-aside,” the dollars the budget holds back for legislation that is moving through the process.

That “set-aside,” however, is only $22 million, and $3 million is already committed to sunset bills that renew programs and statutes. 

But the largest commitment was an amendment to put $6.1 million in general funds into senior services in the Department of Human Services.

Reps. Mary Bradfield, R-Colorado Springs and Mary Young, D-Greeley, said the programs haven’t seen an increase in seven years. 

Lawmakers also tried two amendments to put more money toward paying ranchers who have lost livestock to the state’s new wolf population.

One of the last amendments of the day came from Rep. David Ortiz, D-Centennial, who is in a wheelchair. He said he’d work for his district until the “wheels come off.” He then withdrew the amendment.

Meanwhile, Rep. Scott Bottoms, R-Colorado Springs, attempted an amendment to reduce the legislative session from 120 days to 90 days, which he said was done to help the JBC.

By day’s end, the House had adopted more than a dozen amendments that would require at least $10 million in general funds not already committed to the budget. 

The budget and its accompanying bills will be in front of the House on Monday for a final vote. 

The bill then goes back to the Joint Budget Committee, which will strip off all the amendments and send a “clean” un-amended bill to the Senate, and the process starts anew – starting with a balanced budget.