General Assembly gets to work on cutting $2B to $3B out of budget

Monday, May 4, was the day offices could reopen for up to 50% of their workforce, according to the “safer at home” order issued by Gov. 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 2020-2021 state budget. At $3 billion, that’s just under 10% 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 2019-2020 budget, most of it from Medicaid funding.

In that order, Polis declared that “there are not sufficient revenues available for expenditure during fiscal year 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 5% across the board from the 2019-2020 budget.

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