The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

Monday, May 4 is the day offices could reopen for up to 50 percent of their workforce, according to the Safer at Home order issued by Governor Jared Polis a week prior.

It’s also the day that budget writers for the Colorado General Assembly got to work to figure out how to cut $2 billion to $3 billion out of the 2020-21 State budget. At $3 billion, that’s just under 10 percent of the total budget, but that includes federal funds, which make up just under one-third.

And that’s in addition to the order Polis gave on April 30 to cut $228.7 million from the 2019-20 budget, most of it from Medicaid funding.

In that order, Polis declared that “there are not sufficient revenues available for expenditure during the FY 2019-2020 to carry on the functions of the State government and to support its agencies and institutions such that the suspension of portions of programs and services set forth in this Executive Order are necessary.”

The move to cancel or suspend programs has been in the works for more than a month. It follows a March 30 memo from Lauren Larson, the Governor’s Budget Director, which asked State agencies to figure out how to cut five percent across the board from the 2019-20 budget. The memo also directed agencies to hold up on filling new or vacant State positions, delay contracts and program implementation, grants and delay capital or information technology projects.

Departments need to prepare for a minimum of three years of revenue reductions, Larson told agency heads, based on the experience of prior economic downturns.

The 2019-20 cuts ordered by Polis on April 30 may portend what is in store for K-12 education as the Joint Budget Committee begins its work on the next year’s budget. Joint Budget Committee Chair Representative Daneya Esgar, a Pueblo Democrat, told reporters last week that the budget for 2020-21 was 90 percent complete when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Colorado.

Among the cuts for higher education that directly impact K-12: $500,000 for the educator loan forgiveness fund, $200,000 for the Colorado Second Chance Scholarship, $1.125 million for the teacher mentor grant program and $330,000 for teaching fellowships.

Speaker of the House KC Becker of Boulder told reporters last week given that 36 percent of the State budget goes to education “it will be hard to avoid cuts to K-12.” She also said the State will have to cut services for vulnerable populations, including those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, child welfare, seniors and support for pregnant women.

Three days after the General Assembly recessed for what has become a two-month break, a March 17 revenue forecast began to tell the bad news. Compared to the December forecast, the State’s general fund revenue had plummeted by $800 million, which was what lawmakers were counting on for spending on new programs in the 2020 session.

That was only the beginning. By last week, the estimate was up to $2 billion to $3 billion and could be even higher. On May 12, State economists will present an updated revenue forecast, which will be the final guidance drawn on by the JBC.

The General Assembly is scheduled to return on May 18 for what is expected to be two to three weeks of work, with the primary focus on the State budget, the School Finance Act, bills that reauthorize existing programs, known as sunsets; and bills that help balance the budget.

Becker has said that any bill outside of that, or bills that don’t deal directly with the pandemic, and which carry a cost to the State, are dead in the water.

The pandemic’s impact to the State budget has meant some of the major legislation on Democrats’ agenda is over and done for 2020. That includes paid family and medical leave; last week, the proponents of that legislation threw in the towel and endorsed a ballot measure proposed by Colorado Families First to set up a “social insurance” model. That model would be a State-run plan. Colorado Families First has proposed three ballot measures and will pick one to put out for petitions in the coming weeks.

Also off the table: the so-called “public option” bill that would set rate caps for hospital services and which has been steadily opposed by Colorado hospitals and insurance providers. House Bill 1349 carries nearly $1 million in start-up costs in the 2020-21 budget. The public option may not be realistic right now, Becker said, given the focus on coming up with a balanced budget, which is mandated by the State Constitution. The bill’s sponsors announced Monday morning that they are in fact withdrawing the bill.

One of the decisions the JBC will make is what to do with $2.23 billion in money from the federal government, through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act. According to a memo from the Congressional Research Service, the State would get $1.7 billion and the rest would go to counties with more than 500,000 in population. That’s Adams, Arapahoe, Denver, El Paso and Jefferson counties.

However, state and local government advocates also are clamoring for money to go to smaller communities, including municipalities and that will be under consideration by Congress in the coming weeks.

Colorado lawmakers are under the gun to get the State budget finished and signed by June 1, in part to allow school districts enough time to approve their budgets for the 2020-21 school year.

Once the legislature has finished the budget, there’s indications that they will not be done for the year.

An April 1 decision by the Colorado Supreme Court allows the General Assembly to take long recesses in a State of emergency, as has been declared by the governor, and that meant that as of March 30 there were 52 days left in the 120-day calendar.

Becker has indicated lawmakers may have to come back after they’ve finished the budget to work on pandemic-related legislation.