Colorado must do something about Taxpayer Bill of Rights

Colorado must do something about Taxpayer Bill of Rights

October 9, 2001

Life In The Legislature
State Rep. Mark Larson

Colorado must do something about TABOR. This past week has been the most difficult of my legislative tenure. While legislators are scrambling to find any money that we can to help with a $300 million shortfall, the state will be refunding $927 million to voters.

So far, the Legislature has decreased capital construction and transportation projects while trying to protect the 6 percent appropriations growth rate and statutory reserve. Readers need to know that the numbers are current projections that will change as the economy continues to adjust to the terrorist attacks.

The special session opened and the Capital Development Committee (CDC) that I sit on became aware of the impending crisis. The governor ordered a freeze on all capital projects until an assessment could be done and a plan adopted. My committee had authorized about $300 million in multi-year phased projects in the 2001 regular session, and we again began the task of reviewing all capital projects — anything that was not considered "life safety" or that had not broken ground on construction. The resulting list was reduced to roughly $140 million and attempted to keep the prison expansions and the state mental hospital on the list.

The CDC then met with the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) to discuss our new list. We found that the JBC wanted to protect the 6 percent appropriation growth that had already been approved and did not want the 4 percent reserve to be utilized because we did not yet know the extent of the revenue shortfall. And it wanted to assure that the transportation pro-jects were cut equally with the capital projects.

The CDC again met and refined the list looking at every conceivable cut. We talked to affected higher-education systems and several state department. We reviewed any project that had received first-year or phase-one funding; phase one is the architecture and engineering phase. We even looked at projects that had broken ground that could possibly be phased over another year or two. Ultimately, the committee sent the JBC a list of reprioritized projects that reflected the dire straits we are in.

The JBC then sat down with the governor and discussed what cuts would be made and where. Up until this time, the governor said he wanted adequate funding for transpor-tation projects to continue. He preferred bills in the special session that would make significant changes in the way the budget was interpreted in terms of priorities, particularly in the capital-construction area. These changes could also potentially impact the general-fund allocations by transferring the 10 percent of the sales tax to the Highway Users Trust Fund before assuring that the operations budget was fully funded to the maximum of 6 percent. It seems that any change we suggested would result in a domino effect somewhere else.

Finally, the JBC and the governor reached a compromise, and the Capital Development Committee concurred. Transportation projects would suffer equally with capital projects, possibly a little more. For now, the 6 percent appropriations growth will remain fully funded, and the reserve will not be tapped. In my opinion, the governor showed extraordinary negotiation skills as he first attempted to run his plan through the Legislature and, when confronted with the reality that the Legislative wanted to maintain its independence, proceeded with a candid and open style. After all of the bickering and partisan game-playing this special session has experienced, it was refreshing to participate in a unified problem-solving effort resulting in the best possible plan for your fiscal future.

Mark Larson is a state representative from Cortez. He can be reached at the Capitol by phone, (303) 866-2914; by fax, (303) 866-2218; or by email at marklarson@sni.net. He also has a web site at www.larsoncolorado.com.