Colorado Capitol
Economic Development Council of Colorado
Public Policy Update 
February 22, 2009
In This Issue
Joint Legislative Session on FY 2008-09 Budget
Colorado General Assembly
Economic Development Legislation
Legislation of Concern to Business
Colorado Economic Leadership Coalition - Next Meeting is Friday, March 13 at noon.
American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
EDCC Legislative Real-Time Update
Joint House and Senate Session on the FY 2008-09 State Budget
The Colorado House of Representatives and Colorado Senate met in a rare joint session to hear a presentation on the status of the FY 2008-09 budget.
 
Natalie Mullis, Chief Economist for the Office of Legislative Council and John Ziegler, Staff Director of the Joint Budget Committee made presentations to the legislators.
 
Ms. Mullis' presentation was entitled "The Recession and What it Means for the State Budget in FY 2008-09".  Mr. Ziegler's presentation was an "Overview of JBC's FY 2008-09 Supplemental Actions".
 
The Senate began caucusing on the supplemental bills on Monday and the bills have passed the Senate and are now in the House for action in the coming week.
Quick Links
 
 
This is the fine print text where you might tell your customers how the item will be shipped and, for example, if they are overseas that there will be additional shipping charges and must contact you.
  
Greetings!
You are receiving this newsletter from the EDCC because of your interest in and commitment to a strong and healthy Colorado economy.  The Board of EDCC hopes that you find this information to be helpful, informative and of value to you and your colleagues.  Please feel free to pass along this newsletter as appropriate. 
Colorado General Assembly
is in full operation.  Monday, February 16 will be the 41st Legislative Day of the constitutionally limited 120 day session.  Thursday, February 19 is the deadline for House committees to report House bills introduced on or before the 6th legislative day.  Thursday, February 25 is the deadline for each house to pass bills introduced in that house, with the exception of bills in the Appropriations Committee.  You can see the Deadline Schedule for the 2009 Colorado General Assembly. 
 
The big news this week was the introduction of SB 09-228, Concerning Flexibility to Use State Revenues.  The bill is being sponsored by Senator John Morse, a Democrat from El Paso County and Representative Don Marostica, a Republican from Larimer County.  The bill deals with the Arveschoug-Bird limit.  Arveschoug-Bird was a statutory limit passed by the General Assembly in 1991 in an effort to head off the passage of TABOR, a constitutional limit on revenues and spending which passed in 1992.  (See "Confluence of Colorado's Constitutional Spending Rules",  "The Arveschoug-Bird Spending Limit" and "OLLS Memorandum on Arveschoug-Bird").  Proving that politics is indeed a full-contact support, Rep. Marostica almost immediately incurred the wrath of his Republican colleagues, but the storm seemed to blow over by the end of the week.  The legislation is likely to be very controversial when it is debated.
 
Also, the transportation funding bill supported by Governor Ritter, SB 09-108, Funding Advancement for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery (FASTER) passed from the House Transportation Committee and the House Appropriations Committee, both on party-line votes.  The significant portions of the bill that remain in the legislation include:  registration fee increases, bridge enterprise fund, tolling provisions for new construction, agricultural and collector plate allowance and public-private partnership.  Currently, mileage-based revenue (VMT) is not in the bill.  The bill is estimated to raise nearly $250 million per year in new highway and bridge funding.  The local governments' share, as well as the list of the state's 126 structurally deficient bridges is available for your review. 
 
Since the House will be working on the negative supplemental bills to balance the FY 2008-09 budget this week, it is not known when the FASTER bill will be debated by the full House.
 
Remember that you can listen to live audio broadcasts of the floor sessions and committee meetings through links on the home page of the Colorado General Assembly.  If you have access to Comcast cable television, the floor sessions of the Colorado House are broadcast live and then repeated frequently on Channel 165.
 

Economic Development Legislation
 
HB 09-1001, Concerning an Income Tax Credit for Colorado Job Growth.  The bill has passed unanimously from the House Business Affairs & Labor Committee and has passed from the House Finance Committee and the House Appropriations Committee.  The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
HB 09-1010, Concerning Film Production in Colorado, passed from the House Finance Committee to the Appropriations Committee.  The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
HB 09-1035, Concerning Clean Tech Medical Device Tax Refund, has passed from the House Finance Committee to the Appropriations Committee. The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
HB 09-1105, Concerning Innovation Investment Tax Credit, passed from the House Business Affairs & Labor Committee and the House Finance Committee. The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
SB 09-016, Concerning Measures to Encourage the Reforestation of Forest Areas Affected by Bark Beetle Infestation has passed the Senate on February 18.  The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
SB 09-031, Concerning Clean Tech Research Grant Program  has passed from the Senate Local Government Committee to the Appropriations Committee.  The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
SB 09-067, Concerning the Colorado Credit Reserve Program  has passed from the Senate Business, Labor & Technology Committee to the Appropriations Committee. The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
SB 09-076, Concerning Employment and Training Technology has passed from the Senate Finance Committee to the Appropriations Committee. The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
SB 09-085, Concerning the Phase-Out of Business Personal Property Tax has passed from the Senate Business, Labor & Technology Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.  The EDCC Board will continue to monitor this bill and engage in dialogue with the proponents and opponents.
SB 09-108, Concerning Transportation System Planning & Funding has passed the House Transportation and Appropriations Committees.  The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
SB 09-162, Concerning a Project to Create an Inventory of Broadband Service Areas, passed from the Senate Business Affairs Committee on February 11.  The EDCC Board has endorsed this bill.
Most of the bills listed above have been vetted by the Joint Select Committee on Job Creation and Economic Growth.  The Committee will meet next on February 27 at noon.
 
 
As of close of business on Friday, February 20 the legislature had introduced 291 House bills and 229 Senate bills - a total of 520 of the expected 600-650 bills that we will see in 2009.  Leadership in both houses have indicated that they will not be approving as many late bill requests as in past years.  In the coming week, we will see the introduction of the negative supplemental bills for the FY 2008-09 budget introduced by the Joint Budget Committee.
Legislation of Concern to the Business Community 
As discussed in last week's newsletter, there are still a number of bills that are facing committee or floor votes and which are of major concern to the business community, should they pass.  These bills include:
  • HB 09-1057 - Mandatory parental leave;
  • HB 09-1170 - Unemployment insurance for "locked-out" employees;
  • HB 09-1210 - Mandatory paid sick leave;   
  • SB 09-110 - Sunset review of the Colorado Civil Rights Division that the trial lawyers have amended to include expanded remedies to employment claims.

Several of these bills died this week, including HB 1226 (no-fault), HB 1070 (URA's/TIF's), HB 1208 (prevailing wage).

Several business organizations, including the Colorado Association of Commerce & Industry and the Colorado Competitive Council, are working with the sponsors of the bills and the proponents to lessen the negative impact on business and the economy of these various bills.  We urge you to take a close look at these bills. 

EDCC Legislative Update 
 
The weekly update on legislation that is being monitored or actively lobbied by EDCC is available online at EDCC Legislative Update.  Please remember to bookmark this website and then you can check the status of any of the bills at any time, with real-time updates.  We hope that this bill-tracking service provided to you by EDCC is of value.  If there are bills that are not included but you feel should be, please contact dtomlinson@msn.com with the bill number.  Thanks! 
 
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 
(Information provided by the State Science & Technology Institute - SSTI and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - CBPP) 
  
The State Science & Technology Institute (SSTI) has prepared a special report on the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the federal stimulus package signed by President Obama this past week.  The legislation includes funding that will impact technology based economic development: 
  • significant new funding for energy research,
  • support to increase access to broadband,
  • funding for health information technology,
  • major appropriations for R&D-funding agencies HHS, NASA, NIST, and NSF,
  • a new program for communities affected adversely by trade that could serve as a new resource to develop and implement TBED strategies,
  • expansion of the New Markets Tax Credit and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund programs,
  • workforce training funds for high-growth and emerging industries, and
  • a fiscal stabilization fund for the states that will take some pressure off increasingly dire state budgets.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has also released a report on ARRA, including state-by-state estimates for the major tax and spending provisions of the bill.
 
We would commend each of these reports as interesting reading on the federal stimulus package.


Colorado Economic Leadership Coalition 
Colorado Capitol 
The Colorado Economic Leadership Coalition (CELC) normally meets on the 2nd Friday of each month during the legislative session, at a location near the State Capitol.
 
The CELC met on January 16 at the Colorado Municipal League.  Notes from that meeting are available.
 
 
The next meeting of the CELC will be on Friday, March 13 at noon.
 
 Please RSVP to Michelle at malcott21@comcast.net  so that we will have enough lunches. We sincerely hope you can join us for this meeting of the CELC.  With the economy being foremost on the minds of the legislators and people of Colorado, we're sure to have some interesting and informative discussion about plans to stimulate the Colorado economy.   The CELC is under the sponsorship of the Economic Development Council of Colorado.  Lunch is being sponsored next month by Preston Gibson and the Jefferson Economic Council.  Thanks, Preston!
 
CELC has no dues - we are a group of folks interested in creating and maintaining a healthy, vibrant economy in Colorado and routinely discuss potential legislative ideas, regulatory change and other issues that will assist in that goal.
 
Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to attend - either Danny at dtomlinson@msn.com or Michelle at malcott21@comcast.net 

Sincerely,
 

Danny Tomlinson
Tomlinson & Associates on behalf of the EDCC
EDCC  The Economic Development Council of Colorado (EDCC) is a state-wide, non-profit organization dedicated to successful, responsible economic development.  EDCC professionally represents the collective economic development interests of both the private and public sectors.  Our mission is to strategically retain, expand and attract primary employers.  EDCC is committed to an equitable and balanced public/private partnership and to growing the economic climate of Colorado to the mutual benefit of employees, employers, governments and citizens.