|
Moving the 'Big Rocks' out of the Senate
In business, you often hear people say that one should focus on moving the "big rocks" first. The idea is that one should identify the most important tasks or projects and prioritize them over the smaller, less important ones. Simply put, your big rocks are your priorities. They are the tasks, projects, or goals you absolutely need or want to accomplish. For me, last week was full of big rocks, legislatively speaking.
The first big rock (a gigantic boulder, really) was to adopt the First Conference Committee Report to the FY 2024-25 Long Bill and re-pass the budget in the Senate. The Joint Budget Committee incorporated a number of amendments suggested to us by our House and Senate colleagues, including:
- $8.8 million for affordable housing construction grants and loans
- $2.0 million for the School Security Disbursement Program
- $2.0 million for crime victim services
- $2.0 million for Senior Services (for Area Agencies on Aging)
- $1.5 million to the Tony Grampsas Youth Services Program
Now that we have adopted the budget, other bills with an appropriation can start to move. We only have $21 million budgeted for new legislation, and well over that amount in the queue, which means not all bills will pass. Nevertheless, it feels good to have passed the budget. To learn more about the budget and what we approved this year, click HERE.
The next big rock was to pass Senate Bill 24-106 on construction defects litigation reform out of the Senate. After many weeks of working on a compromise with the opponents, we finally took the proposed amendment to the bill to the full Senate for their approval. The debate lasted many hours but utlimately we prevailed with a majority of the chamber voting in favor of the bill (25-8 with 2 excused). Hopefully we can finally start to make some meaningful progress with regard to affordable housing construction, in particular condominiums, which has stagnated due to unnecessary litigation. You can read more about the bill and our progress HERE.
Another large rock was Senate Bill 24-174 on sustainable affordable housing assistance. My co-prime sponsor and I began working on this bill last summer after last year's land use bill (SB23-213) failed. Instead of taking a top-down approach, like SB23-213, we worked in collaboration with local governments to write a bill that emphasizes partnership rather than preemption. Despite some early critics, we worked with a broad coalition of stakeholders to amend the bill. We made a significant number of changes to satisfy the many suggestions and viewpoints. That work paid off and the bill passed unanimously out of the Local Government & Housing Committee. You can read more about the bill's progress HERE.
The last rock I'll touch on is Senate Bill 24-188 on school finance, and House Bill 24-1448, also on school finance. The senate unanimously passed the school finance act out of the senate and will be heard in the House this week. I have sponsored the school finance act several times, but this one, my last, was the most significant. We eliminated the budget stabilization factor and for the first time in 15 years we fully funded our schools. "Full funding" is a relative term, however, as the bill takes us back to 1989 levels. We have initiated a study to determine the actual cost of education in Colorado, but while we wait for the data, we must ensure the funding we DO have gets distributed in the most equitable and fair way. That leads me to HB24-1448, a bill that will update and modernize our formula to prioritize the needs of our students. For more information on the bill, you can read more HERE.
I may have one or two more big rocks to come, but for the most part, I am now able to focus on the "small rocks" such as a bill I have coming up this week to create host homes for homeless youth, and others. These last few weeks of session will go by quickly, but feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns!
| 
