The 2022 General Assembly adjourns for the year on Wednesday, May 11, having worked on 655 bills, including 100 introduced in the session’s final month.

Among the actions in the last full week: the House reviewed Senate Bill 230, a bill that would affirm in state law the right of county workers to engage in collective bargaining.

House Republicans were prepared to offer more than 500 amendments to the bill for the May 6 debate, including exempting most of Colorado’s counties, one at a time, or exempting other county elected offices, such as coroners, sheriffs or clerks, also one at a time.

However, hours of negotiations on the bill on May 6 appeared to produce an agreement on a couple of amendments. 

The House made major changes to SB 230, including exempting counties with 5,000 or less in population, which affects 143 counties. That includes six counties on the Eastern Plains, including Phillips, Sedgwick and Washington counties in northeastern Colorado. An amendment that would have raised that exemption to 7,500, which would have exempted most Eastern Plains counties and offered by Representative Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells, failed.

Another amendment incorporated into the bill made dues to a union voluntary. While the bill was watered down to allow county governments to reject contracts, among the big issues remaining are the bill’s language on strikes, which county commissioners opposed to the bill say is unclear. The bill’s supporters, including House Majority Leader Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo, convinced the House to reject amendments to clarify that language.

The bill currently says “exclusive representatives,” which opponents say refers to union leaders, cannot encourage county workers to go out on strike, sickouts or other work stoppages, but opponents believe county workers themselves could make that decision.

Another sticking point is the bill’s unfunded mandate. SB 230 does not cover the counties’ cost to hire human resources specialists or attorneys who specialize in labor negotiations. Colorado Counties, Inc. and its supporters point out that unfunded mandates to local governments violate state law. 

One amendment, offered by Rep. Dave Williams, R-Colorado Springs, said that contracts would be voided if membership dues were used for organized crime Rep. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial, said as a nearly 50-year union member he was personally offended and appeared to challenge Williams and several other Republicans to a fight on the House floor. The debate wrapped up shortly thereafter.

The bill is expected to pass the House and then would head back to the Senate for review of House amendments.

The bill requiring schools and school districts to come up with policies to allow medically necessary treatments for students in K-12 public schools is on its way to the governor, after a very quick trip through the Senate in the past week.

House Bill 1260 says schools and school districts must adopt policies to address how a student, often on the autism spectrum or with other behavioral needs, and who has a prescription from a healthcare provider would receive that treatment during the school day.

Those policies must be in place by July 1, 2023. School districts must report to the Colorado Department of Education by July 1, 2024, and annually, the number of requests for access by a private health care provider and whether that access was allowed. 

The issue has been the denial of care, particularly for children on the autism spectrum, who have been prescribed treatment, such as feeding therapy, assisted communications or pediatric behavior therapies, including applied behavioral analysis.

While the bill struggled in the House, the Senate Education Committee didn’t even debate the bill, agreeing to send it to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which also approved it without debate. The bill then went on what’s known as a consent calendar, reserved for bills that are likely to pass unanimously and without debate. HB 1260 won a unanimous vote from the Senate on May 4.

The Senate agreed to amendments on a bill that will provide at least $30 million to farmers in the Republican River basin to retire pumping tied to 25,000 acres of irrigated land by 2029.

Senate Bill 228 intends to address retirement of wells in both the Republican and Rio Grande basins. The House had amended the bill to put in $60 million for the two basins, although it does not necessarily have to be equally divided between the two areas. The money come from the state’s federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act.

The Senate adopted the House amendments on May 4, re-passed the bill and sent it on to the Governor.

A bill that sponsors say will provide property tax relief in 2023 and 2024 and partly using TABOR refund dollars whipped through the General Assembly in the past week.

Senate Bill 238 is an attempt to forestall a ballot measure pushed by Colorado Concern that would also lower property taxes. The proponents, which include state Rep. Colin Larson, R-Littleton, currently have three measures with different tax reductions pending petition approval.

One ballot measure would limit annual property tax increases to no more than three percent or by inflation, whichever is less, and would result in a decrease in property tax revenue collected by counties, municipalities, school districts and special districts by an estimated $1.2 billion for property tax year 2023. The state would backfill any lost revenue to the counties, including to cover property taxes for schools and fire districts, for example.

Another measure would limit the increase to four percent if inflation exceeds five percent; and a third would allow counties to decide by resolution to limit property tax increases to three percent plus 50 percent of the inflation rate above five percent.

Senate Bill 238, however, reduces property tax assessment rates in 2023 and 2024, to soften the blow of property tax increases that are expected by rise by $1.2 billion in the next two years.

Property taxes are calculated by multiplying the property value by the assessment rate. Under SB 238, residential assessment rates would be lowered to 6.95 percent to 6.765; commercial rates would go from 29 percent to 27.9 percent, the first reduction in those rates in 40 years.

Assessment rates for agricultural and renewable energy properties would change from 29 percent to 26.4 percent.

Sponsors, including Senators Chris Hansen, D-Denver, and Bob Rankin, R-Carbondale, estimate that homeowners would see a $274 reduction in property taxes, although opponents point out that it just means a smaller increase in property taxes rather than a property tax refund.

Small counties that don’t see big increases in property valuations, defined as less than 10 percent annually, would be held harmless for their property tax revenues. Smaller counties that see more than 10 percent valuation increases would receive 90 percent of their anticipated property tax increases. Large counties, defined in the bill as those with populations exceeding 300,000, (that’s nine counties) would be covered for 65 percent of their anticipated property tax increases.

The bill was introduced on May 2, won unanimous support in the House and only two “no” votes in the Senate, including from Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, and was on its way to the governor’s desk by May 6.