House and Senate at an impasse

After a two-week delay, the House last Thursday finally finished up their work on two bills that will put the 2017-18 budget back into balance. But that comes with a price: a $264 million cut to hospitals that rely on the hospital provider fee program to pay for health care for low-income Coloradans.

House Democrats held up the last two budget bills for two weeks, waiting to see what would happen with the measure sponsored by Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling and Rep. Jon Becker of Fort Morgan.

But negotiations between the House and Senate have stalled and, at least for the next few days, appear to be at an impasse.

The sticking point is a reduction in the state’s revenue limit, which is set by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. As it stands right now, Senate Bill 17-267 would reduce the state’s limit on what it can collect (and spend) every year by $670 million. That’s to account for taking the hospital provider fee dollars out of that revenue pot, which is mostly made up of income and sales tax this year.

Sonnenberg’s latest offer to House Democrats, including Speaker of the House Crisanta Duran of Denver, was to lower the revenue limit cut to $335 million. But Duran and House Majority Leader K.C. Becker of Boulder both say that reducing the revenue limit would in two years or so put the state right back into the same problem it has now: issuing taxpayer refunds at a time when the state is cutting the budget. A frustrated Sonnenberg told reporters last week he was done negotiating and threatened to kill the bill but backed off that threat and says he isn’t done yet.
 

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