State budget looking at biggest cut in history

This week, state economists will present an updated forecast on state revenues that it expected to result in major cuts to the state budget.

The talk has been that the forecast will show the state short $2 billion to $3 billion for the 2020-21 budget. It will be the largest cut in the state budget in history, easily dwarfing the recession years after 9/11 and the Great Recession.

And those cuts will come largely from about one-third of the state budget, the portion known as general fund. That’s revenue from individual corporate and income tax and sales taxes.

The state budget is made up of three parts, more or less equal: federal dollars, with Medicaid funding the largest chunk; general fund; and cash funds, which are the fees that go to directly supporting state programs. That’s fees like those you pay at state parks, for example.

During the past week, the Joint Budget Committee, six members who write the state budget every year, have been pouring over the books, trying to find enough to cut from the budget that they won’t need deeper cuts.

But they also began looking at the areas where deeper cuts — to cover the bulk of that $3 billion shortfall — will come from.

In the first week of budget decisions, the JBC looked for balances in cash funds that could be transferred to the general fund and for cuts in the general fund portion of the budget. They also trimmed programs that have been authorized by lawmakers in more recent sessions.

What got cut: merit aid for college students, a frequent go-to in recession times. Colleges and universities have their own sources of merit aid, according to JBC staff analysts, and the cut was $5 million.

Also cut from higher ed: the Colorado Kickstarter program, a 2019 law that puts $100 into a college savings account for every child born in Colorado beginning Feb. 18, 2020. That saves somewhere around $12 million, less any obligations from children born since the program went into effect.

Programs that cross higher ed and K-12 education, especially in teacher training, went by the wayside during the week. That includes the Grow Your Own Educator program, which was designed primarily for rural schools but which has never gotten a single application, according to JBC analysists. That’s just over $1 million. Rural teacher incentive grants ($500,000) and retaining teachers grants ($2.5 million) also got cut.

Money for low-income students to take the Advanced Placement exams, at $280,000, also got cut.

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