By the end of next week, Colorado lawmakers will have passed a roughly $36.4 billion budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year, which is more money than this legislature has ever spent in a single year’s budget.

Debate on the spending kicked off this week in the House, which spent most of Wednesday weighing proposed amendments. The House will pass the budget this week, then kick it over to the Senate, which will debate and pass it next week.

But the vast majority of the budget is set already. Lawmakers can and do pitch all kinds of changes — some small and some huge — but the six-member, bipartisan Joint Budget Committee has final say over what sticks and what doesn’t, and those members are highly unlikely to adopt anything too groundbreaking.

That means that a couple weeks before the bill officially passes, the public can already know with near certainty about state spending plans for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Here are some of the highlights:

Budget keeps growing

The budget approved around this time last year was more than $2 billion smaller than this one. And that budget was about $4 billion bigger than the budget the year before last.

It’s been a strange few years, which helps explain the wild numbers. Lawmakers dramatically shrunk the budget in 2020, fearing a prolonged recession brought on by COVID-19. That recession never lasted and the state economy bounced back, which is why the budget approved in 2021 was so much bigger. That economic growth has kept up, which is why this year’s budget is billions bigger yet.

It should be noted that the $36.4 billion from this year doesn’t even include nearly $4 billion in federal stimulus money that this legislature is appropriating.

“We are back on track,” declared the Joint Budget Committee chair, Democratic state Rep. Julie McCluskie of Dillon declared Tuesday.

But McCluskie and colleagues have reasons to worry looking forward — including the fact that inflation is projected to peak at around 7% this year, outpacing the growth of the budget.

“The inflationary pressures are frightening and really could have impact on our public schools,” McCluskie said.

New hires

State government projects to add about 820 new employees to a roster of more than 63,000 existing employees.

This is of concern to Sen. Bob Rankin, the Carbondale Republican and the most tenured member of the Joint Budget Committee.

“Everywhere we look, we’re expanding government. 800 new people, added on to 200 last year,” he said. “We’re standing up new staff and new functions without a real clear idea of how we’re going to sustain that long term. Almost every department is adding one or two people — an HR person here, an IT person there. ”

McCluskie said she resents the suggestion that Democrats are recklessly expanding government, and noted that much of this year’s budget growth can be attributed to the fact that pandemic-era federal Medicaid support has worn off, meaning the state has to fill in the gap.

Among the more interesting pieces of new hiring: Colorado lawmakers propose 75 new staff for the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender. Most of those positions are for new paralegals. Staff in that office say attorneys are overwhelmed by administrative tasks, like combing through hours of video evidence, and thus unable to serve their clients as effectively as possible.

State Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, said of that proposed change, “We’ve heard a whole bunch lately around public safety, law enforcement. The truth of the matter is it’s not the only thing that needs support and attention. You can’t talk about one without the other.”

Relief in halfway houses

The most significant line-item change in the $565 million state Department of Public Safety is a proposed $16 million in relief for people living in community corrections, transitioning back out of incarceration. The state currently charges those people $20 per day for treatment, which really adds up for folks who are seeking a foothold in free society.

The state will backfill these soon-to-be-lifted per-diem fees so that community corrections providers don’t suddenly lose a ton of revenue.

“I’m proud of the JBC for making the determination that subsistence payments, and putting those in CC in debt, is no longer the right path forward,” said state Rep. Leslie Herod, a Denver Democrat and a member of the Joint Budget Committee. “This bipartisan effort ensures that people in halfway houses, who are working, who are trying to get back on their feet, don’t get strapped down with additional debt before they have a chance to succeed.”

Bad air

One of the most eye-popping numbers in this year’s budget is a more than 1000% increase from the 2021-22 budget in discretionary spending on air quality control. That proposal follows a year in which Denver metro residents saw more than 100 days with ozone alerts.

This is a priority problem for Democrats, who control majorities in the legislature and thus control the budget process. They want to increase spending in this area by $43 million, with 65 new staffers.

“We have an obligation to step up and try to improve air quality — to measure air quality, and then with permitting and monitoring, as well,” McCluskie said.

Republicans believe Democrats are taking it too far. One of them, Colorado Springs state Rep. Andres Pico, falsely claimed on the House floor Wednesday, “We already have the cleanest air in the country.”

Education spending

The state has enough money to finally buy down Colorado’s longstanding debt to the public school system, known as the budget stabilization factor or negative factor. The problem, Democrats say, is that they’re worried about sustaining that kind of commitment into the future, with high inflation here now and looming over the near future. They’re committing about $250 million to the buy-down this year, and plan to finish off the more than $320 million that will be still be left.

“It pains me,” McCluskie said. “I was hoping we could buy it down now.”

Republicans would rather go for it now. Rankin said his colleagues across the aisle are “spooked” on this issue.

Also on the education front, lawmakers said they were hoping to keep tuition rates flat for public colleges and universities in 2022-23. But because of declining enrollment, McCluskie said, they have to raise tuition to keep overall higher education budgets afloat. The legislature plans to set a floor of 2% for tuition rate hikes, though individual institutions of higher education can and in some cases will go higher than that.

A plan to help the helpers

Emergency medical services are in crisis all around Colorado, and especially in rural areas. They are in most cases short on funding, short on staffing and unable to guarantee the lifesaving ambulance and treatment services that residents count on when undergoing medical emergencies.

For years, the EMS community has been asking the legislature for help, and this year they’re finally getting it. Lawmakers plan to spend $29 million to reimburse ambulance providers, which doesn’t come close to solving the systemic issues plaguing the sector, but it’s a big step.

“These are serious. They’re emergency trips,” said Joint Budget Committee member Rachel Zenzinger, a Democratic state senator from Arvada. “And in many of these rural communities, they only have one provider. if that one provider can’t stay in business, then what?”

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