Ref C

Executive summary

This report projects the amount Colorado would need to spend to maintain state services at 2007 levels through fiscal year 2012-13 and the amount of revenues that will be generated to pay for them. The costs of services were estimated based on factors that drive the budget, such as the number of students in college, inflation rates and the number of prisoners. It updates our December 2007 Looking Forward report.

Emailed to supporters June 3, 2009

Success from the session
SB 228 most significant
reform since Ref C

By Wade Buchanan
President
buchanan@thebell.org

Today marks a major milestone in the journey toward greater fiscal sanity in Colorado. This morning, Gov. Bill Ritter signed SB 228, one of the most important pieces of legislation of his term in office.

Letter to the editor: With revenues falling, a hiring freeze and budgets being trimmed, we applaud The Post for saying that Colorado “needs to fix this fiscal mess.” Colorado’s budget has evolved into a tangle of often-conflicting laws, rules and formulas that result in cutbacks in some areas and mandated increases in others — and very little savings for the future. It defies common sense ...

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

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.

A quarter century of constitutional amendments, legislative acts and economic ups and downs To understand how Colorado finds itself in its current fiscal condition, it is helpful to look back at some critical decisions made by legislators and voters over the last 25 years, and at some of the economic and political factors that drove those decisions.