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Colorado Lawmakers Face Crunch Time With Hundreds Of Bills Still Pending
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Lawmakers Face Crunch Time With Hundreds Of Bills Still Pending

By Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette With just 10 days left in the 2026 session, Colorado lawmakers are staring down the final stretch of a crowded agenda, with 228 bills still unresolved and several major measures that have yet to even be introduced. Monday’s report from the Office of Legislative Legal Services shows that of the 619 bills introduced so far, 430 originated in the House and 189 in the Senate. The large gap between the chambers stems not only from their different membership sizes but also from the annual budget process. In February, the House introduced supplemental budget bills, and later it carried the Long Bill and its 64 accompanying “orbital” measures that adjust state law to keep the budget in balance. There are 228 bills still awaiting...
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Colorado Senate Bill 135 Trades TABOR Refunds for Limited School Funding
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado Senate Bill 135 Trades TABOR Refunds for Limited School Funding

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Colorado state senators recently engaged in more debate over Senate Bill 135, ultimately passing the measure and sending it over the House for consideration.     The bill sends a ballot measure to voters this November, exchanging billions of dollars in Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) refunds for a relatively small increase in education funding.  The Senate debate was enlightening in showing which amendments the bill sponsors supported and more importantly, those they did not.  For the kids (but not too much) One might think that the logical mechanism of a bill titled “State Public K-12 Education Funding” would be to increase revenues and direct the new money to C...
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Colorado Democrats Push Plan To Redirect TABOR Refunds To State Spending
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Democrats Push Plan To Redirect TABOR Refunds To State Spending

By Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette A nonpartisan analysis of a proposed ballot measure that seeks to increase public education spending by tapping Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights refunds shows that about 75% of what would otherwise go to Colorado residents wouldn’t actually go to K-12 schools. Instead, those dollars would go into the state’s general fund pot — to be used by lawmakers for whatever purposes they choose. The analysis said that arrangement could start as soon as the 2028-29 fiscal year. What that means, according to the analysis, is that every taxpayer would lose $7,381 in TABOR refunds between the 2026-27 and 2036-37 fiscal years. At its core, TABOR requires a public vote in order to raise taxes. It also limits revenue growth. Notably, it r...
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State Budget Passes With Medicaid Reductions And Broad Spending Cuts
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CBS Colorado, Approved, State

State Budget Passes With Medicaid Reductions And Broad Spending Cuts

By Shaun Boyd | CBS Colorado The state Senate gave final approval Thursday to a new state budget. It came in at just under $47 billion, an increase of about $3 billion over last year. The discretionary portion of the budget -- the general fund -- is $17.4 billion. While lawmakers avoided cuts to K-12 education and higher ed, most state departments saw reductions, with the agency in charge of Medicaid taking the biggest hit. Medicaid spending makes up about 40% of this year's budget. It has been increasing dramatically over the last few years, in part because the legislature has expanded the services it covers. READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT CBS COLORADO
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$46.8 Billion Colorado Budget Reflects Rising Medicaid Costs and Hard Choices
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The Gazette, Approved, State

$46.8 Billion Colorado Budget Reflects Rising Medicaid Costs and Hard Choices

By Marianne Goodland | The Gazette The six-member panel of legislators in charge of crafting the state budget has now turned over its plan to the Colorado legislature, proposing to spend $1.5 billion more for the Medicaid program. The increase is driven by Medicaid costs, which forced the Joint Budget Committee to make cuts elsewhere. All told, House Bill 26-1410 proposes a state budget of $46.8 billion, with $17.3 billion coming from general funds, the revenue largely from corporate and individual income taxes, as well as from sales and use taxes. Notably, that general fund amount is 1.4% higher than the $17.1 billion in the 2025-26 budget. The 2025-26 budget, as approved by lawmakers a year ago, stood at $43.9 billion. It has changed significantly since...
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Colorado Bill Could Undermine TABOR Protections Redirecting Billions Away From Taxpayers
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado Bill Could Undermine TABOR Protections Redirecting Billions Away From Taxpayers

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Senate Bill 135, legislation that could permanently end the refund of overcollected tax dollars, as well as radically raise revenue limits under Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) amendment, just received a new fiscal note predicting an even bigger blank check for the legislature than before.  This follows the updated revenue forecast presented to the Joint Budget Committee (JBC).  Let’s see what changed.  Budget hole gets bigger Legislative analysts predict that this year’s “budget shortfall” will be approximately $1.5 billion, based on the March 2026 Economic and Revenue Forecast.   While that means a haircut to General F...
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Colorado collected $3.1 billion in marijuana taxes. Here’s how much actually reaches schools.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado collected $3.1 billion in marijuana taxes. Here’s how much actually reaches schools.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice When Colorado voters said yes to legal marijuana back in 2012, schools were a big part of the pitch. More than a decade in, the state has collected over 3.1 billion dollars in tax revenue. So where does it all go? That number still carries a certain weight. It suggests a level of impact that would be visible in classrooms across the state. But when the dollars are traced through the system, then stacked up against what it actually costs to run schools, the effect looks different. Not invisible. Just smaller than people tend to expect. A closer look at what schools receive In the 2024 to 2025 fiscal year, Colorado collected about 231.1 million dollars in marijuana tax revenue, according to the state’s nonp...
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Senate Bill 135 Raises New Questions About TABOR Limits And Taxpayer Protections
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Senate Bill 135 Raises New Questions About TABOR Limits And Taxpayer Protections

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Claims that Senate Bill 26-135 could permanently eliminate the refund of overcollected revenue under Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) amendment may at first blush sound hyperbolic, but they are not. Let me explain.  Beyond handing progressive legislators a blank check to cover up their own overspending, the new TABOR revenue limit creates a perverse incentive to limit both fiscal transparency and voter consent.  TABOR working just fine  TABOR’s existing formula limits annual growth of a portion of the state budget to a combination of population growth plus inflation.  This formula allows government to reasonably grow and accounts for factors not directly wit...
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Colorado Budget Gap Nears $1.5B As Revenue Forecast Slides
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Budget Gap Nears $1.5B As Revenue Forecast Slides

By: Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette The latest revenue forecasts from economists in both the governor’s office and the Colorado legislature show that the state’s budget predicament has worsened — by hundreds of millions of dollars more. That, in turn, means cuts programs and services in next year’s fiscal budget will go much deeper. The state’s fiscal predicament also means no refunds for Colorado residents. Economists with the Legislative Council downgraded the forecast for the 2026-27 fiscal year by another $643 million, bringing the total shortfall to nearly $1.5 billion. What’s driving the downgrade? General fund revenues — dollars that come from tax collections for individual and corporate income tax, and sales and use taxes — came in lower for fi...
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Colorado’s assault on families: TABOR, parental rights and the bills lawmakers killed
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s assault on families: TABOR, parental rights and the bills lawmakers killed

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado In the United States of America, we cherish our freedoms. We have the freedom to protect our families, to practice our faith, to educate our children, and to live in safe communities. Coloradans want to experience those freedoms in our state, too, not just as an ideal in our country. We want truth, justice, and the American way. The American way of limited government and keeping our own money is at risk with the constant attack against the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). Homeschool families' ability to educate their own children becomes increasingly difficult as the state of Colorado takes additional resources away from us. SB26-135, State Public K-12 Education Funding, wants to circumvent TABOR restrictions and proposes k...
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