Proposed budget adds $783 million in spending; $503 million intended for education

The Senate wrapped up its work on the 2022-23 State budget, adding a whopping $783 million in new spending, but the bulk of those changes are unlikely to make it to the final version.

The biggest change was an amendment from Senators Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Brighton, and Paul Lundeen, R-Monument, to add $503 million to K-12 education, with half going to teacher salaries and the other half to pay down the debt to K-12 education, known as the budget stabilization factor.

During April 6 debate on House Bill 1329, which started the State budget at $36.4 billion, Kirkmeyer pointed out that Democrats in 2021 passed a bill setting up a fund to boost teacher pay but without putting a single penny into the fund. 

Lawmakers on both sides over the years also have pointed out that decisions on teachers’ pay are the purview of locally elected school boards and not the State.

The issue of the K12 debt, however, is a different matter. The budget stabilization factor reached a high of $1.2 billion just two years ago, the victim of budget cuts. But lawmakers were able to reduce that debt in the following year, and with the $182 million already factored into the budget, would reduce it to $321 million. The amendment would have taken it down to around $65 million.

Joint Budget Committee members told the Senate they have a plan to pay off the remaining debt within the next year or two.

The amendment, however, was approved by the Senate on a voice vote and not challenged later, although members of the Joint Budget Committee, which will work to resolve differences between the House and Senate, hinted that amendment will not stay on the bill. JBC members pointed out that the dollars that would fund that increase are one-time only and would not be sustainable.

Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, was successful in adding several amendments dealing with agriculture, such as one to direct Colorado State University to spend $75,000 to purchase beef sticks from the Beef Sticks for Backpacks program, a non-profit in Larimer County that addresses hunger for children. Another amendment, to direct $75,000 to the Colorado Agricultural Leadership Program, also found its way into the Senate version.

An amendment from Sen. Kerry Donovan, D-Vail, would direct $200,000 in general fund dollars to the Department of Agriculture to add money to the department’s rural mental health initiative.

But Sonnenberg’s biggest win was in adding $141 million from American Rescue Plan Act money as well as other cash sources, to fund maintenance for state-owned buildings. Sonnenberg noted that the State has not been able to fund much of the needed maintenance, although the budget already has more than $500 million devoted to maintenance and capital construction projects, primarily at public colleges and universities.

That includes $1.2 million for roof replacements at Morgan Community College and $12.575 million for technology at Northeastern Junior College, which was part of the Sonnenberg amendment.

The budget now heads back to the Joint Budget Committee, which will work on the final version this week. The amendments dealing with ag are expected to stay on the bill, given their support in both chambers.

A bill to expand the number of health-care professionals practicing in Colorado's rural counties got its first hearing in a Senate committee this week, but the bill leaves out most of the rural schools who train health care professionals for their communities.

Senate Bill 172 is intended to expand capacity for health care education under a rural health-care workforce initiative, along with $400,000 for each school participating in the program. 

But the program is almost exclusively centered on urban colleges and universities.

Under SB 172, colleges and universities would operate a health-care professionals rural track within any health-care professional education program.

Rural Health Info.com, citing a National Rural Health Association study, noted that rural communities would need at least 14,000 more physicians in the next decade, as well as professionals in other health care professions.

But more notably, the health care education model tends to be “urban-centric,” and “access to healthcare training and education programs may be limited in rural areas, particularly beyond the community college level.”

In addition, the study said, urban areas frequently draw potential healthcare professionals away from rural areas and some do not return to their home communities after completing their studies.

SB 172 directs most of its attention to boosting enrollment at urban institutions. Only one Eastern Plains institution, Otero College in LaJunta, is included, even though nursing programs leading to the registered nurse degree, as well as other health professional training, exist at almost all community colleges, including at Northeastern and Morgan. 

Sen. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, told this reporter she intends to see the bill amended to add more rural programs, but did not identify which ones.