State budget gets initial OK

Sparks fly in House over $17.6 billion spending package

By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Bernie Buescher

Lawmakers tentatively approved a $17.6 billion state budget late Wednesday after kick-starting a debate over views about what it means for regular Coloradans.

"Our goal is to invest in our children's future - in their education, in their health care, in safe streets," said Rep. Bernie Buescher, the Democratic chairman of the Joint Budget Committee who led the crafting of the spending blueprint.

But Rep. Amy Stephens, the GOP caucus chief, said majority Democrats want to spend right up to the 6 percent budget growth cap, while taxpayers are tightening their belts for a looming recession.

"We believe it puts a squeeze on Colorado families at a time when we're headed into a recession and foreclosures," she said. "We're growing government far more than we're growing Colorado."

Republicans called for reining in overall spending and instead investing in improving the state's congested and decaying transportation system, Stephens added.

GOP lawmakers kept hammering majority Democrats for adding 1,334 full-time state jobs after a new forecast predicted a nearly $700 million nose dive in state revenues over five years.

Democrats defeated Republican amendments to strip funding from renewable energy, health care and education programs.

They said the GOP minority, hard-pressed to pass amendments, was using the debate to store up election-year ammunition.

Sparks flew over Republican Amendment 22 that declared the legislature's "intent" to someday return to Coloradans $118 million, money raised by what Rep. Frank McNulty repeatedly called an "unconstitutional property tax increase" passed by Gov. Bill Ritter and Democratic lawmakers last year.

He was referring to Ritter's "freeze" on school district property tax rates, effectively eliminating tax cuts that would have occurred under a 1994 school-finance law.

Because courts haven't ruled on a libertarian group's lawsuit challenging the property tax, House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, urged McNulty to stop calling it unconstitutional.

Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, said the Republican's claim was "flat out wrong." Democrats argued that while some property owners paid more local school taxes based on their rising property values, voters in all but three state school districts had supported that increase.

"This did not increase anybody's (state) taxes. So the whole premise of this is wrong - we have no money to refund," Pommer said.

After all the arguing, only three of 77 total amendments proposed by both parties had passed by late afternoon.

One bipartisan amendment added a budget footnote urging the governor to direct $1.5 million for alternative-energy jobs programs at state universities and community colleges.

Another supported $200,000 for rural drug courts that encourage treatment for addicted defendants.

The third changed the funding source for 21 new oil and gas drilling inspectors.

gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5486