Colorado's policymakers are looking for ways to help communities grappling with the costs of accommodating roughly 40,000 immigrants who arrived in Colorado in the past year.
The Department of Public Safety is requesting nearly $10 million in supplemental funding for organizations that offer services and assistance to immigrant families.
More specifically, the money will go toward housing and legal aid for the immigrants who came to Colorado after illegally crossing America's southern border.
"Colorado is committed to providing the resources we can for the communities and organizations working on the frontlines to support new arrivals during this crisis, and we are grateful for their work," a spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis told Colorado Politics. "This budget request is a portion of the ongoing financial commitment the state has already provided, and includes $4.9 million to support grants for legal support and community based organizations focused on transitional housing.”
Meanwhile, some lawmakers are eyeing a one-time $24 million allocation for school districts.
Thousands of immigrant students have begun attending Colorado's schools, buoying enrollment in the Denver Public Schools, for example.
In Colorado, the annual enrollment counts that determine state funding for the year take place on Oct. 1. But their arrival largely came after the count, which means the district has lost out on roughly $14 million.
Rep. Emily Sirota, D- Denver, is proposing to take $24 million from the State Education Fund and use the money for a grant program within the Colorado Department of Education. The program would then distribute the funds to school districts seeing a significant increase in enrollment due to the arrival of immigrant students.
"This is straining budgets as our districts are trying to manage in some places really extreme class sizes and provide for the services that these new-to-country students require," Sirota told members of the Joint Budget Committee during a meeting on Feb. 7.
Sirota proposed using the number of students taking English language proficiency exams in a given district to determine the number of immigrant students who recently joined the schools. No official method for counting the number of new students has been adopted.
Lawmakers are set to make mid-year adjustments to the 2023 School Finance Act via House Bill 1207 in order to maintain what's called the budget stabilization factor at the level anticipated by the original funding.
The latest data show a higher count of total pupils and at-risk students than anticipated, which translates to a larger funding statewide. Crucially, local revenue that supports school finance came in at $85.2 million higher than expected, which decreases the state share by $24 million.
It's that amount that Sirota is pushing to give to school districts.
The illegal immigration crisis has particularly hammered Denver hard. Earlier this month, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said the city would be scaling back Department of Motor Vehicle and Parks and Recreation services to cut costs in the wake of the crisis sparked by the unprecedented influx of immigrants into the city over the past 14 months.
And last month, Johnston warned council members that the city had reached a breaking point responding to the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, which now threatens the fiscal health of Colorado’s most populous city. Johnston has said that the costs could reach up to $180 million this year and instructed department heads to find 10% to 15% in cuts.
The city was sheltering roughly 3,000 immigrants as of Saturday.
Over the past 14 months, Denver has welcomed more than 38,600 immigrants from South and Central America, particularly Venezuela. Early in the crisis, city leaders decided that Denver would feed and shelter arriving immigrants and provide transportation to their final destination. That decision has come at a staggering cost: more than $42 million, and counting. To date, the state and federal government have reimbursed the city roughly $14 million, while Denver residents have shouldered the bulk of that cost.
At the same time, the immigrants — the majority from Venezuela, who have crossed the southern border illegally and arrived in Denver — have been credited with the unexpected increase in enrollment this academic year in Denver.
Meanwhile, over the past three months, the UCHealth system assumed more than $17 million in uncompensated care for the patients. From November through January, UCHealth officials estimated that the health system saw roughly 5,800 immigrants who are new patients. This represents a 69% growth in this patient cohort, compared to the same period in the previous year.
During this time, all immigrant patients accounted for 28,000 emergency department visits, outpatient appointments and hospital admissions — a 92% increase over the same period in 2022, officials said.
Reporter Nico Brambila contributed to this report.