Hammering out the budget

Hammering out the budget

April 24, 2001

Life in the Legislature
By State Representative Mark Larson

The budget on its way to the Governor and the seemingly non-stop caucuses finally coming to a close, the weekend promises relief. This year’s budget decision items turned out to be much more contentious than in previous years, obviously be-cause the legislature is now divided. It is interesting that we can decide 99.9 percent of a $13 billion budget but can get hung up on such items as $34,000 in the Depart-ment of Military Af-fairs! The issues that required the endless caucuses, to "get a sense of the caucus" of both parties, are for small stakes but represent significant philosophical differences.

An amendment I proposed altered the budget in the Department of Labor and Employment in the Division of Labor. The issue centered around the passage of HB00-1486 last year, a bill which allowed an anticipated shortfall in statewide in-direct cost allocation to the Oil Inspection Section to be taken out of the Petroleum Storage Tank Fund reserves to fund several field inspector positions. The budget this year redistributed the statewide in-direct cost allocation dollars between the Labor Standards Unit and the Oil Inspection Section. The problem with this was that last year’s bill specifically stated that the Petroleum Storage Tank Fund would not be tapped to backfill Labor Standards Unit shortfalls in statewide in-direct cost allocation funding. Got it?

Well, neither did most legislators! After hammering at this issue in several of the budget caucuses, and as we got into the late hours of the night, members quit trying to understand and opted for what they were told was a good compromise. I tried to get them to adhere to the House position and force the Senate to accept my amendment which corrected the budget and honored what last years bill mandated. I lost the "sense of the caucus" vote 13-10 and the House accepted the Senate compromise. The issue is still not settled as I will appeal to the Governor to use his line item veto authority to correct this inequity. I should also mention here that a late bill has been introduced that will help address the shortfall of statewide in-direct cost allocation funding in the Labor Standards Unit. This would possibly correct this budgeting oversight but I hate betting on a bill that may NOT pass. I would be happy to discuss this issue further with any of my good readers who have sick minds like me and enjoy hashing out difficult budgetary complexities.

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A bill I am carrying, SB-16 "POST Board Matters", passed on Second Reading on the floor of the House on Friday. The bill allows the Peace Officer Training and Standards (POST) Board (of which Chief Al Bell of Durango is a member) to revoke or deny certification of law enforcement officers who have committed any of a list of 42 serious misdemeanors that was put together by a POST Board ad hoc committee appointed by Attorney General Salazar, who also serves as the Board Chairman. Surprisingly, certification of a police officer can only be revoked if the officer is convicted of a felony. There are numerous professional occupations that have significantly higher standards when considering what should or should not constitute a certification revoking offense. The POST Board appropriately recognized the need and promoted this bill.

I was taken aback at the charge that was mounted to amend the part of the bill that allowed certification to be pulled for "three or more misdemeanors in violation of federal law or of the law of any state within any ten year period." While I understand why the unions wanted the bill watered down by removing this provision, and indeed ended up successfully passing the amendment, one very peculiar occurrence truly stuck out. Several members who fervently support anti-unionism Right To Work legislation supported this union sponsored amendment! It seems that strong anti-union sentiments can be easily overlooked by some members when future election aspirations are considered. One member likened his support of this amendment to "throwing [the unions] a bone." Too bad politics got in the way of an important provision needed to assist the POST Board in raising the bar of law enforcement professionalism. I will attempt to amend this in conference committee.

Mark Larson can be reached at the state capitol at 303-866-2914 or by e-mail at marklarson@qwest.net . His website is www.larsoncolorado.com