ratchet

Senate Bill 11-1280
Testimony to the House Finance Committee
Wade Buchanan, President
April 21, 2011

My name is Wade Buchanan and I am President of the Bell Policy Center. The Bell Policy Center is a non-partisan public policy center and advocacy organization committed to making Colorado a state of opportunity for all. I am speaking today in opposition to HB 11-1280, which would reinstate the 6 percent annual growth formula for General Fund appropriations.

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.???

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.

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.

The Department of Higher Education receives funding from a variety of sources. These include state General Fund dollars, General Fund Exempt dollars, made available through Referendum C, Cash Funds, Cash Funds Exempt, which include tuition and fees spending authority, and federal funds.

The Colorado Department of Health Care and Policy Financing (HCPF) is responsible for administering the state???s Medicaid program and other federally subsidized health care programs for children, the disabled, elderly, low-income and uninsured Coloradoans.

A presentation explaining TABOR and some of the problems inherent in the bill.

A Boulder Daily Camera commentary outlining the work of the Campaign for Colorado, a group working to get an initiative on the ballot that would fix some serious structural flaws in TABOR.

A Boulder Daily Camera commentary explaining how federal and state funding limitations have caused Colorado's Medicaid program to be one of the leanest in the country.

The Rocky Mountain Bullhorn reports on the campaign for Referenda C and D.