House passes state budget: Here's what is, is not included

Yahoo

11-04-2025

DENVER (KDVR) — In a year when things are fiscally tight, Colorado lawmakers have passed the state budget, overcoming a projected shortfall of more than a billion dollars.
Lawmakers had to cut funding for a lot of state programs to get the budget balanced.And while both sides are happy the state didn't go into the red, they say Colorado is not out of the woods just yet.
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'I think they did a great job with the information they had at the time. But this is the first year in what I believe will be an ongoing process. So there will, in the future, have to be harder and tougher cuts,' said House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are commending members of the state's Joint Budget Committee for balancing the state's budget after facing a billion-dollar gap.
'We had a particularly challenging year because we came into the year looking at next year's budget needing to cut about $1.2 billion. So as we began our work, the task ahead of us was to figure out how do we protect what Coloradans care most about while cutting what we need to cut to make sure this year, as in, every year, we pass a balanced budget,' said Joint Budget Committee Vice Chair Representative Shannon Bird.
The state budget totals about $44 billion for the upcoming fiscal year. Medicaid was a big concern heading into negotiations but the budget did ultimately see a 1.6% increase in Medicaid provider funding.
Lawmakers were able to make the budget work by issuing dozens of cuts for programs funded by the state.
'I think some cuts were easier to make than others. There were programs that weren't meeting their intended purpose, programs that were undersubscribed, programs where the state's priorities had shifted, perhaps dollars allocated in certain areas where they were no longer of the highest and greatest use so it made it easier to move that money in a different direction and to cut those old programs. Other programs were far harder to cut,' said Bird.
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'Some of our hospitals were very hopeful to see Medicaid funding for a community health worker service that they had been anticipating bringing on board and it's just not something that the state has capacity to fund right now,' Bird continued. 'Those are the cuts that are hard. I expect because of the state's challenges that don't look to be changing any time soon that these cuts get increasingly difficult in the next fiscal year.'
Things like millions of grant dollars to help law enforcement monitor gray and black market marijuana, repealing the computer science education grant program and eliminating a destroyed property tax reimbursement program for people whose homes were ruined by natural disasters were axed.
Transportation cuts saw the biggest hit with members cutting about $64 million slated for transportation and more than $70 million that was put aside for transportation grants.
'More of the transportation cuts happened to multi-modal transportation initiatives. Different grants to go to local governments to help them build out bike lines and jogging paths and such. Really important quality of life changes to our transportation system. The cuts that we made will not impact investments in roads and bridges. Those are things that would be the very last cuts to be made,' Bird said.
Members of both parties acknowledge the state will need to make even more cuts in the future.
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'The state has grown and I understand that the budget needs to grow. I think there are definitely places in the budget though that we can look at and make some cuts like the full-time employees that are unfilled, those positions. I think there are some opportunities for every department and we saw a lot of departments step up with efficiencies, consolidations and repeals. I think there is just going to be a lot more of that coming,' said Pugliese.
Programs like Medicaid are still counting on federal appropriations.
'The way Medicaid is typically funded is as a partnership between the state and the federal government. Without those federal dollars coming back to Colorado, we will not be able to sustain Medicaid funding the way citizens of Colorado expect,' said Bird. 'The budget that we passed today assumes that the federal government will maintain its role as a partner as they have in past years in funding Medicaid. Although, if something were to change, that probably would require the legislature to reconvene and make a new decision about how we move forward.'
Republicans at the capitol are warning the majority, that the state may be in danger when it comes to those dollars coming from Washington.
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'I think that there are some bills coming forward that definitely cause me some concern about continuing to go after the federal administration while at the same time saying we are afraid of losing federal funding. So, I think we need to have those conversations. You can't continuously poke the federal administration and think we will continue to get federal funds,' Pugliese said.
Financing for public schools in the state will be handled in a separate bill. The budget does increase general dollars for education by $150 million. The Senate passed the budget first but will need to approve some amendments made in the House before the long bill and some accompanying measures go to the governor's desk.
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