Hello everyone,
The 2023 legislative session is almost one-quarter of the way over and it is finally starting to feel like the session is getting into the swing of things – committees are hearing bills and the House and Senate are debating bills on the floor. The JBC has also finalized their recommendations on changes to the current year budget (FY 2022-23). These supplemental bills, as they are known, are expected to be introduced in the Senate today. Since they have finalized their current year spending recommendations, the JBC now turns its attention to developing its recommendations for the FY 2023-24 budget that starts July 1st. This process is known as figure setting. During figure setting, the JBC makes decisions on decision items submitted by departments and votes on the amount of funding for each line item in each department’s budget. Figure setting for the Colorado State Patrol is currently scheduled for Friday, February 24th.
To follow up on last week’s update, I was successful in getting the House Finance Committee to amend HB 1016 Temp Tax Credit for Public Service Retirees to make retired state troopers, regardless of age, eligible for a $700 refundable state income tax credit during tax years 2023 and 2024. It should be noted that only retirees who are full-time Colorado residents are eligible for the credit. The House Finance Committee referred HB 1016, as amended, to the House Appropriations Committee. Even though the House Finance Committee narrowed the bill to only apply to PERA retirees, there is still a lot of concern about the size of the fiscal impact, so passage of HB 1016 is far from certain. I don’t expect the House Appropriations Committee to consider HB 1016 until after next year’s budget has been passed (likely late April).
So far, there have been 282 bills introduced – 171 in the House and 111 in the Senate. Only 91 days until the General Assembly is required to adjourn sine die.
Bill Skewes
Lobbyist