The House Majority Caucus received a comprehensive briefing on an approximately 30-bill supplemental appropriations package covering nearly every state department, featuring roughly $140 million in general fund reductions driven partly by federal HR1 impacts on Colorado's budget. The most contentious discussion centered on a $29 million DOC supplemental for increased prison beds, with multiple members opposing the approach as ineffective on recidivism while JBC presenters argued the state has a legal obligation to house people sentenced by courts.
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Lorena Garcia argued 'beds is not a solution because we're only continuing to feed the problem and we're not actually investing in the solution,' and Jamie Jackson called throwing more money at beds 'not the answer' given its ineffectiveness at reducing recidivism and technical violations, while Emily Sirota countered that if more people are assigned to DOC from the court system the state has to house them, stated 'I don't want to put human lives at risk to send a message,' and challenged members to specify what consequence in the budget they actually want — noting that not funding beds would result in a thousand-person backlog in county jails at twice the cost and likely a lawsuit.
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“Last year we appropriated nearly $44 billion for the fiscal for fiscal year 26, which consisted of $16.942 billion of general fund as well as nearly $13 billion of cash funds and nearly $14 billion of federal funds. Then July happened. The Congress passed HR1 and that reduced revenue to Colorado by nearly a billion dollars.”
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Sign in to subscribeMorning and welcome to the House Majority Caucus. Thank you all for being here. As we come together to discuss the supplementals and face the difficult budget realities in front of us. We are in challenging moment and none of us take it lightly. The cuts we're about, we are being asked to consider. These are not choices we want to make, but they are choices we must to protect the Caucus. Thank you. We are starting. Thank you. By working together, staying grounded in our values and keeping people at the center of our decision, we can navigate navigate this moment responsibly and continue moving forward today. The JBC chair and vice chair are here today. They will be discussing the 30 supplementals that we went through this morning in Appropriations. If you have any questions as they're discussing the different supplementals, please raise your hands and we will do our very best to give you the floor. And we'll start with Madam Vice Chair. Thank you, Madam Caucus Chair. Okay, so I think everyone is well aware of the situation that we find ourselves in, but I think I will just state for the record one more time.…
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