Gov. Jared Polis: My priorities for this session are around reducing housing costs, improving public safety and upgrading the relevance and success of education. To increase housing opportunities — like allowing for single stair building, which will save Coloradans money and create more units, make it easier to build modular housing, and tackle the rising costs of homeowners insurance. We’re also focused on continuing to build on our investments in public safety. Crime has gone down in Colorado over the last two years, and I hope that the Joint Budget Committee shares our goal of continuing to make Colorado communities safer. I’m also laser-focused on increasing per pupil funding for Colorado students, while bringing our state in line with the rest of the country on averaging to ensure we never have to return to the budget stabilization factor and making it easier for new schools to start and innovate in education deserts.

 

CP: Given the state’s budgetary constraints, how will you manage lawmakers’ expectations? What message do you have for lawmakers who are likely to seek funding for new programs in 2025?

 

Polis: I’m focused on ensuring that Colorado uses our funds as effectively and efficiently as possible to deliver real results for the people we serve. I’m confident that we will deliver a balanced budget with strong reserves. If the legislature has ideas for how to do that, I’m happy to discuss and want to hear ideas from both sides. If they have ideas for new spending, we have to find ways to offset that within the budget.

Polis: I hope to make progress on saving people money, improving education, and public safety, and making government more efficient among other issues that hardworking Coloradans care most about.