Legislators take diverse views to state capital

By Dan MacArthur
Correspondent

Larimer County's legislators have a full plate in addition to the budget debate that promises to dominate this year's session of the Colorado Legislature beginning Jan. 12.

The delegation will offer several bills aimed at easing the state's financial malaise in addition to addressing myriad other issues ranging from the reform of urban renewal authorities to making raw milk more accessible to the lactose intolerant.

But the budget is clearly taking central stage as legislators work to reach consensus on a proposal asking voters to modify the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights so the state can retain more revenues. This year, legislators are faced with making more than $285 million in budget cuts while TABOR mandates rebates of $459 million to taxpayers.

"I think something will be done this year," said District 15 State Sen. Steve Johnson. "It makes no sense to refund while we're cutting the budget."

The Fort Collins Republican said he will again introduce a bill that failed the final days of the last session. It would reduce the individual tax rate from 4.63 to 4.5 percent while allowing the state to keep a portion of the revenues that otherwise would be refunded.

"We just want government to do what it's supposed to do," said District 53 Rep. Angie Paccione, a Fort Collins Democrat. "We're essentially asking people to let us keep some of the money we collect."

House District 52 Rep. Bob McCluskey, a Republican, agrees that there appears to be a meeting of minds that TABOR must be modified. "Our roads are falling apart, and we barely have enough money to maintain the roads already," he said. "We need to invest more in the infrastructure."

The difficulty of reaching a compromise on reforming TABOR, however, is apparent by the schism within the county's delegation. Republican representatives Jim Welker of Loveland and Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud both believe that TABOR has accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do by reining in state spending.

Lundberg said he will go only so far as seeking to set aside a fraction of the increased annual spending allowed under TABOR as a "rainy day" fund.

He also is drafting a bill requesting a federal waiver to fundamentally reform the Medicaid program, one of the state's increasingly costly programs.

Paccione's emphasis will be on education with a bill allowing students attending public higher education institutions to write off the cost of tuition. She said the estimated $14 million cost is well worth it, considering the TABOR surplus to be refunded.

She also will propose a bill replacing the CSAP test for 10th graders with the PLAN test, which, Paccione said, is a much more economical and accurate predictor of SAT scores and vocational preferences.

Paccione also will introduce a comprehensive waste management and recycling act that she said would add Colorado to the 30 states establishing recycling benchmarks and incentives.

In a related matter, Johnson said he has proposed a bill that would prohibit disposal of lead storage batteries in landfills.

He also will team with State Sen. Bob Bacon and likely other legislators in an effort to reform the state's urban renewal authority legislation. Designation as a URA allows towns to retain for their own capital improvements property tax revenues that otherwise would have been collected by other governments - principally the school district and county.

"The state law is basically meaningless," said Johnson. The definition of blight required for designation as a URA, he said, is so broad that essentially any property can be declared blighted. Johnson said Loveland, for example, designated as a URA 1,300 acres of vacant farmland comprising the Centerra development. Timnath in December similarly designated much of its town limits as a URA.

"We don't want to limit proper use of this," Johnson said, pointing to Fort Collins' creation of a URA encompassing North College Avenue as an example.

"The definition of blight needs to get back to the original meaning," said Bacon. He also wants to ensure the retained revenues - or tax-increment financing - is used legitimately and doesn't affect others depending on those revenues. As it is now, Bacon said, the state is required to replace those revenues lost to school districts, further exacerbating budget problems.

Beyond the budget, McCluskey said his emphasis will be jobs and health care. He has submitted what he expects to be a controversial bill offering tax credit incentives to employers creating new primary jobs.

He also will propose a bill requiring hospitals to disclose infection rates. Nationally, he said, there's a $5 billion cost for treating new infections contracted in hospitals and those costs get passed on to the insurance companies, the state or other patients.

Larimer County legislators also support the following legislation.

• Johnson wants to require identification tags on beer kegs; to establish a preferred drug list for Medicaid patients, which he estimates would save $4 million; and to make raw milk more accessible to the lactose intolerant. Currently, Johnson said, raw milk is available only to those owning a cow or a share of one.
• Bacon said he will seek legislation making the outsourcing of jobs one of the considerations in the state bidding process. The bill resulted from the recent revelation that the state was routing calls from welfare recipients to Mexico and India.
• Welker said he would sponsor a bill requested by Riders for Justice, a Northern Colorado motorcycle advocacy club, increasing penalties for drivers failing to yield the right-of-way. He also will propose reducing the legislative session from 120 to 90 days. "How many laws do we really need?" Welker asked.