Seth Klamann is a statehouse reporter at the Denver Post, covering policy, state government and the legislature. He previously worked for the Gazette, the Casper Star-Tribune and the Omaha World-Herald. He's a graduate of the University of Missouri and a proud Kansas City native.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis points to a graphic representation of a projected budget shortfall during his budget presentation for the upcoming year at a news conference in his office in the Colorado Capitol in Denver on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. Colorado legislators questioned Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday about what he has described as his “belt-tightening” budget proposal, previewing the difficult months to come as state leaders seek to fill a looming $635 million shortfall.
The hearing was an opening salvo for what will be months of tight and tense budget negotiations as the legislature seeks to fill the $635 million hole in the $14.8 billion general fund budget proposal. The shortfall — which Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer called a “self-imposed recession” — is largely a result of high Medicaid caseload costs, coupled with softening inflation that means the state keeps less money under the terms of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Polis countered that the financial hole was so large that his office needed to look at the largest shares of state spending — like Medicaid and school spending — to balance the budget. He said he was not proposing to resurrect the budget-stabilization factor, the mechanism that had chronically underfunded Colorado schools andIf lawmakers wanted more cuts to state agencies, he told Kirkmeyer, “you need to, as a legislature, reduce some of the statutory items the agencies are required to do.
The Medicaid issue is thornier. Since states began removing people from their pandemic-era Medicaid rolls, more people in Colorado have lost Medicaid coverage than in nearly any other state,. Sirota and Kirkmeyer both warned that cuts to provider rates, which were just improved by the legislature, would impact an already fragile ecosystem of vulnerable patients and cash-tight providers.
Bridges said legislators were specifically concerned about Polis’ proposal around Pinnacol, and several lawmakers questioned Polis and Ferrandino about that idea Wednesday. Polis said Pinnacol could not effectively continue as the state’s insurer of last resort in the future. He suggested that privatizing it would also help the Public Employees’ Retirement Association.
“There’s no way to cut $635 million from a $14 billion budget without some people feeling significant pain,” Bridges said. “And I think that is a message that has been missed by my colleagues, by the lobby and by folks in the public.
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