The Senate Democratic caucus received a department-by-department briefing on the FY 2026-27 Long Bill (HB 1410), a $17.3 billion general fund / $49.5 billion total fund budget built around a $1.2 billion shortfall, with major cuts to Medicaid, Cover All Coloradans, transportation, and higher education scholarships, alongside a controversial Prop 123 transfer and a reserve reduction from 15% to 13%. No votes were taken; the session was a pre-floor caucus discussion with senators announcing a wave of planned amendments.
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Senator Benavidez argued the roughly $6 million distribution to local governments should be reviewed annually rather than permanently eliminated, and characterized the JBC response as telling local governments to budget with less money. Senator Amabile pushed back on that characterization, arguing the marijuana tax cash fund outlook is bad for many years to come and that permanent elimination gives local governments certainty rather than false hope.
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“When you try and close a prison, it's really hard. So if we open a new prison and then five years from now, turns out we don't have, thanks to work from folks in this room and others, we don't have the same caseload challenges that we have right now. It is enormously difficult to close a prison once we have opened it. And so rather than be in that situation, put future legislators in that situation, we did decide to move to go the private route.”
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Sign in to subscribeDiscuss the budget package and long bill for fiscal year 2627. Thank you to the members of the public, the press and the administration who are joining us here in the room and looks like online as well. We have our Joint Budget Committee members in front of us who are going to start our discussion. Who would like to begin? Senator bridges. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First and most importantly, I say this every time, but it really can't be said enough. We have some of the best staff that works anywhere in the country here supporting this JVC effort. Yes, that does deserve. And this year in particular, we handed them a rather unfair task of preparing the long bill in the days before Easter weekend. And they made a heroic effort. And we appreciate that work so much. We're glad that they're all still here. And we just please say, you know, do you say, you know, hug a JVC member? I think don't hug them because. But really, these are the folks that deserve the praise and thanks. It is incredible what they have done in service of this budget. So thank you very much to…
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