Becker wanted to see more done for transportation, education

    When the next General Assembly starts up Jan. 4, 2019, Rep. Jon Becker of Fort Morgan won’t be among them.
    Becker decided in January that he would not pursue a fourth and final term in the House, choosing instead to watch his two sons finish their high school careers and head off to the future. He’s not leaving politics; Becker is running for Morgan County commissioner, a post he held before running for the House in 2010.
    He also has a few words of advice for whoever follows him in the 65th House District.
    By the numbers, Becker had a very successful 2018 legislative session. He sponsored 24 bills: 16 that started in the House under his name and eight from the Senate. Of those 24 measures, 21 have either been signed into law or are awaiting a decision from Gov. John Hickenlooper.
    He won’t be visiting the governor’s office for a signing ceremony this session, about which he is a bit miffed. That could be related to last year’s grumbling over Hickenlooper’s refusal to sign in the district the most significant legislation ever carried by Becker and his Senate counterpart, Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling.
    That was the 2017 Sustainability of Rural Colorado law, which pumped $30 million in one-time money into rural schools, set up $1.9 billion in state bonds for transportation, and oh, which saved a dozen hospitals, most of them rural, from closure by converting a hospital fee into a state-owned business. That spared those hospitals and virtually every hospital across the state from a half-billion budget cut.
    Hickenlooper signed the bill in an elaborate ceremony in southern Colorado, viewed as a slap in the face to the measure’s sponsors, none of whom represent southern Colorado.
    The measures Becker moved through the 2018 General Assembly include many of the signature issues that have been his hallmark during the six years he’s served in the House: business deregulation, health care and education. He’s also been a force to reckon with on other issues, as one of the leading voices for rural Colorado in the House. That includes transportation and education, for example.
    Becker said he was most pleased with lawmakers starting the process to take care of road and bridge needs and pushing more money to education, which he said was the General Assembly’s biggest goals of the year. But “we didn’t do enough,” Becker told this reporter. “I’m happy we started it, but we didn’t do enough to fix either problem. The legislature spent a lot of money on other projects that could have gone to transportation and education.”
    Through Senate Bill 1, the General Assembly set aside $495 million over the next two years for transportation projects, with a nod to a statewide ballot initiative being run by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce that hopes to bolster those funds with a penny hike in sales tax that could generate more than $2 billion in bonds. Those bonds would be repaid over a 20-year period with $123 million in annual payments. The $495 million comes from an expected $1.3 billion revenue surplus.

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