6 percent

Referendum C, passed by voters in 2005, allows state services to recover from cuts made during the 2001-03 downturn or that might be made during future recessions. It does this by bypassing TABOR???s ???ratchet effect.???

Our goal was to take the current state General Fund budget and extend it six years into the future. Looking Forward estimates how much it will cost to keep pace with growth in the major forces that are driving the budgets in each area.

Colorado state government collects revenues from a variety of sources, and divides them into specific types of funds. The legislature appropriates money from these funds to pay for state government activities. State law places limits and restrictions on how the legislature can use the money from each type of fund.

The revenue portion of the Looking Forward project involved projecting state revenues for one final year of the six-year study period, FY 2012-13. For the first five fiscal years in the study period, we used the Colorado Legislative Council staff revenue projections published in September 2007.

Appropriations for the Department of Corrections pay for the costs of incarcerating primarily adult prisoners in Colorado.

Colorado uses appropriations for capital construction to construct, maintain or renovate buildings or roads. In addition, capital appropriations can be used to purchase land or equipment (in excess of $50,000), including information technology systems.

Overview

Three Colorado nonprofits today released Looking Forward: Colorado???s fiscal prospects after Referendum C, a new report that gives Colorado citizens a baseline about future fiscal conditions for state government.

Analysts from the Bell Policy Center, Colorado Children's Campaign and Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute focus on FY 2007-08 through FY 2012-13 ? – the last three years of the Referendum C time-out and the first three years of the new Ref C revenue cap. Looking Forward projects revenues and expenditures for the five largest state agencies, analyzes the effects of TABOR, the Arveschoug-Bird 6 percent spending formula and the varying forces that drive spending, agency by agency.

New ???Looking Forward??? report analyzes Colorado???s fiscal prospects in the post-Ref C era; ???Looking Forward??? finds 6 percent limit to be most immediate constraint in state budget; Political Journal: Collaborative effort to spread the Looking Forward message statewide; Higher fees, taxes, eyed for highway funding boost; Severance tax, construction fee measures fail to make the ???07 ballot