Legislators make many compromises in talking state budget

    The first leg on the road to the 2018-19 state budget finished last Thursday, March 29, when the House voted to approve the $28.9 billion Long Appropriations Bill and 18 accompanying measures that help balance the budget.
    Included in that package is a bill — House Bill 1340 — that puts into action a $495 million boost to transportation funding in 2018-19. But that measure, amended by House Democrats, drew strong criticism from Republicans and portends what might happen to the bill when it gets to the Senate this week.
    The amendment pushed by Democrats targets 15 percent of the funding for multimodal options — senior and disabled mobility and pedestrian sidewalks, for example — that Republicans, like Rep. Jon Becker of Fort Morgan, said is too much. Local communities should have the final say in how those dollars are spent, Becker argued when the bill was up for debate on March 28.
    The budget bill — House Bill 1322 — was changed with more than 30 amendments. That included $35 million for school safety measures, such as hiring more police officers and improving school building safety. Becker was successful in pushing through an amendment to add $6 million to the Building Excellent Schools Today program, which funds school facilities with marijuana tax dollars.
    The 2018-19 budget had more good news for K-12: a reduction in the negative factor, now known as the budget stabilization (BS) factor, of $150 million. Coupled with the $60 million reduction in the BS factor enacted in an earlier measure this session, the state’s $828 million debt to K-12 would be down to $618 million.
    That said, Becker was among the 22 Republicans who voted against the budget bill. He said the budget should have done more for K-12 and transportation. “I’m very pleased with how we took care of education” with the reductions in the BS factor, he said, but added that those dollars should go to classrooms and to deal with teacher shortages through higher pay.
    The extra money for K-12 is the result of a $1.3 billion surplus in tax revenues forecast by state economists on March 19. The surplus is due largely to increased tax collections from higher wages and the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in December.
 

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