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Joint Budget Committee

Thursday, January 8, 2026·6h 12m·▶ Watch / Listen

The Joint Budget Committee spent the day walking through the cash-strapped Department of Natural Resources and Department of Higher Education budgets, where volatile severance-tax revenue, a struggling wolf program, zebra mussels breaching Colorado's defenses, and a proposed $48,000 cut to a rural railroad drew the sharpest questioning.

Key Actions

·DNR budget overviewAction

+ 11 more actions

Notable Quotes

I would be remiss if I passed up an opportunity to note that severance tax is the most volatile revenue stream and difficult to forecast revenue stream in the state on a good day. And we are in a period of significant uncertainty.

Carly Jacobs (CFO, DNR) · witnessSets up the core fiscal problem shadowing every DNR request: the department's most important cash source is unpredictable and its reserve is nearly drained.

+ 5 more quotes

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TranscriptPreview
Good morning. The Joint Budget committee will come to order. We are beginning our day with a hearing for the Department of Natural Resources and are joined by Director Gibbs. So welcome and I invite you to start us off for the day. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's real pleasure to be here. I'm Dan Gibbs, the executive director of the Department of Natural Resources, and I've worked with many of you. But just a quick snapshot on me before I had this current role, I previously served in the state senate and State House. I'm also a former Summit county commissioner, and I've kept my wildland firefighting certifications up for almost 20 years now. So I really pride myself on getting out there on the ground as often, as often as my family allows and as I can do. Madam Chair, I just want to congratulate you on your new chair role. I know it's. It's not easy, especially this time. I mean, all of you are working so hard to put together the budget and really ask the tough questions that you need to ask. But I know chairing is not easy. So thank you for your
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