The House Finance Committee advanced two substantive bills: HB 26-1115, reinstating the 911/988 surcharge on prepaid wireless plans, passed 10-1 with little controversy; and HB 26-1046, creating a regulatory framework for earned wage access services, passed a deeply divided committee 6-5 and was referred to Appropriations amid fierce debate over whether the bill protects or exposes low-income consumers.
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Andrea Kuick (Bell Policy Center) argued the current bill is 'an industry bill with minimal consumer protections' and that last session's version coming into House Finance had defined employer-integrated products as consumer credit transactions with per-transaction costs capped at $3.50 and direct-to-consumer providers under a 36% rate cap. Representative Camacho pushed back, stating the prior conceptual agreement was never finalized because the stakeholding process took the bill 'so far away from the intent of helping as many working people as we could.' Martha Fulford (AG's office) stated the bill as introduced would limit the AG's ability to apply lending cap provisions, while Majority Leader Duran argued that without the bill 'there are no clear disclosures, no standardized consumer protections, no framework specific to this product.'
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“The General assembly has always intended that all wireless users contribute to 911 and 988. The statute referenced units and the marketplace shifted to unlimited. In short, the phone plans evolved and the statute has not.”
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Sign in to subscribeThe committee will come to order. Ms. Culver, please call the roll. Representative Brooks. President Caldwell. Excused. Camacho. Excused. Garcia. Gonzalez. Excused. Artsuk. Here. Marshall. Here. Stuart. Here. Zokay. Here. Tone. Here. And Mr. Chair. Here. We have a quorum. Good to see everyone. We're going to go a little bit out of order due to scheduling. The minority leader is here for the record and Representative Gonzalez is also here for the record. We are going to go a little bit out of order and here House Bill 1115 first Representatives Stewart and Mr. Speaker pro tem Basenecker, who would like to go first? Representative Stewart, tell us about 11:15. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you committee members. Very excited to be here today with Speaker Pro Tem to present this bill. First and foremost, you all need to know that 62 out of 64 counties in Colorado are mental health deserts. So I feel this bill is pretty important and working to help address that. In short, this bill reinstates the existing 911 surcharge on prepaid cell phone plans to fund 911 and 988 emergency service systems. Historically, all wireless phones, including prepaid wireless service were subject to…
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