Were Colorado voters sold a bill of goods on Props LL and MM?

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Sold a bill of goods on Props LL and MM? Part 1

The Complete Colorado piece by Nash Herman linked first below poses an interesting question with its first line. Quoting: “Were Colorado voters duped into passing Propositions LL and MM based on false information?”

The answer is not a simple one. The question itself isn’t. If voters had perfect information, would they have voted differently? Was anything done intentionally? If there were omission/mistakes with no intent, how did they come about?

Perhaps most important of all, what lessons can we take for the future?

Getting anywhere close to an answer to the above will require three posts, all of which will be today. I’ll summarize my thoughts on the questions and divide this roughly into an exploration of how the budget forecasting happened in post 1, how and when it was learned that Prop’s LL and MM wouldn’t be needed for at least a year in part 2, and then some concluding thoughts in part 3.

Let’s first define the issue. I’ll leave it to you to read the op ed yourself, but the basic thrust is that changes to Federal tax law through The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, OBBBA, would fully fund the Healthy School Meals Act (HSMA, the “free” lunch program) without the need for Prop MM or Prop LL.

By what I can see, by discussions with Legislative Council Staff (LCS) economist Greg Sobetski, it’s doubtful, likely untrue, that the OBBBA changes would fund HSMA beyond one year. It does seem likely, however, that the changes brought about by OBBBA would fully fund the “free” lunch program into next year.

Further, I am not sure you could get a clear answer to what voters would or wouldn’t do given this this information. Even if it were somehow possible to go and ask every YES voter now, after the fact, I don’t think you could hang your hat on their responses. People say lots of things, particularly when speculating. Their actions may or may not match those responses. Toss aside any notion that you’ll ever know how the election would come out if people knew what I’m about to share. It’s a question with no answer.

There is also no evidence that anyone on LCS staff did anything intentionally to hide information or manipulate their advice, for the most part it’s quite the opposite actually. At least with legislators you can see multiple times in writing where they were warning about a lack of information to forecast from as well as uncertainty.

There is a wrinkle here that bears mention. As I have mentioned before, there could have been much more forthright and complete communication from LCS staff to the voting public about how little we knew about funding. There most definitely could have been better information sharing by the media and elected officials, oddly enough this includes Republicans who I would’ve thought would’ve jumped at the thought to (rightly) attack Democrat talking points about Props LL and MM.

Let’s look at how the estimates are prepared because part of the story here lies in just how unreliable the forecasts were.

The second link below has all the economic forecasts that LCS prepares for the legislature. Screenshot 1 shows the list of forecasts for 2025. Note that, in comparison with years past, there was a special forecast made based on changes due to OBBBA.

The part of the forecasts for March 2025, June, and September are attached as screenshots 2a – 2c respectively. I highlighted the relevant row.

The numbers I highlight tell a story, though perhaps not one about the fiscal health of the HSMA program per se. The important story these numbers tell is in their variability. If you look at he estimates of cost in March, then June, then September you do not see any sort of convergence; the numbers are all over place. This is telling you something. It’s telling you about the reliability of the estimate.

Estimates of things you’ve done over and over are easy to produce, just ask anyone who’s spent years, say, laying flooring. They’ve seen everything there is to see and now (to a reasonable certainty) how much material, how much time, etc.

Estimates of new things are a stab in the dark, and it must be remembered that the HSMA program is brand spanking new. From my discussion with Mr. Sobetski, I learned that there were few data points for LCS staff to use to estimate how many people would pay this tax, and, perhaps just as importantly, what data they had/have is delayed since tax filers in the upper brackets often file for an extension (letting them submit their taxes up until October in some case). Small wonder that the numbers bounce like they do.** Small wonder that there was uncertainty in how the funding would work.

These problems predated the passage of OBBBA, but were certainly compounded by it. Let’s return to the fiscal forecasts, specifically the one named “Forecast June 2025 Updated with OBBBA Impacts”. This was a report LCS prepared specially after the passage of the Federal law.

Screenshot 3 is from p 5 of that report and the parts I highlighted show you two things.

It shows you that the staff felt confident (as of late June 2025) that OBBBA would raise revenue for HSMA, lowering/eliminating any state shortfall, while also showing that the staff lacked any sort of data to build tighter estimates from.

Estimates of the cost and revenue for HSMA were faulty. You can see in reading through the forecasts that they’ll get better, but LCS staff themselves figure this will be a little ways off. As time continues to pass, I think it’s reasonable to figure that they’ll improve, but the lesson for now is that you should take any future figures with a grain of salt.

This goes double for new programs/policy and also any timescale beyond one year.

This goes triple for if (when??) the legislature and/or advocates come back saying they need yet more.

In part 2 we’ll look at when it became apparent that OBBBA would negate the need for Props LL and MM for a year.

**Incidentally, an untouched aspect of this story is that we’re only talking here about the fiscal estimates for revenue coming in. In speaking with Mr. Sobetski, he reminded me that the estimates of the COSTS of the program were quite difficult too. There are many independent agencies involved and this, of course, drives the complexity.

https://completecolorado.com/2025/11/20/voters-sold-false-bill-of-goods-props-ll-mm/?
fbclid=IwY2xjawOMO1ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFrM1dobFBFeTRaSWFESDBKc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHjlmt657RbK2iE9B7hO9Lv3IQOcRKHT_NXEN1sF23iPxGWu-GqQF3RNwaog__aem_7SOvlJIcSpD5s3zfvvz7ww

https://content.leg.colorado.gov/EconomicForecasts

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