{"id":3086,"date":"2018-01-18T21:15:41","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T21:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/52.10.1.109\/?p=3086"},"modified":"2018-01-20T01:56:15","modified_gmt":"2018-01-20T01:56:15","slug":"state-budget-official-warns-of-deep-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/?p=3086","title":{"rendered":"State budget official warns of \u2018deep trouble\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Erick Scheminske, deputy director for the Colorado Office of State Planning and Budgeting, says the state will enter crisis mode if it does not fix the TABOR-Gallagher quandary. He spoke last week at an alumni event for the University of Phoenix. Photo by Peter Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deputy director talks \u2018crisis\u2019 at University of Phoenix event<\/i><\/h3>\n

BY PETER JONES<\/strong>
\nNEWS EDITOR<\/span><\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s budget may be a ticking time bomb, to hear Erick Scheminske tell it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, we can solve this problem before it becomes a crisis, but my suspicion is the problem will become a crisis before the voters decide that it needs to be solved,\u201d the deputy director of state planning and budgeting said to an audience last week.<\/span><\/p>\n

One way or another, education would likely be on the chopping block, the official told a University of Phoenix luncheon March 31 at Madden Museum of Art at Palazzo Verdi in Greenwood Village. The probable victim: Either K-12 or higher education.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scheminske, whose office coordinates Gov. John Hickenlooper\u2019s proposed budgets, predicted that annual funding to Colorado\u2019s public universities would be cut by more than 50 percent if the state does not fix constitutional wrinkles in state-revenue policy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou would look at CU and CSU likely becoming privatized institutions altogether,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Scheminske, the problem is in large part rooted in complications surrounding the Taxpayers Bill of Rights or TABOR, the amendment to the Colorado Constitution approved by voters in 1992. It requires that increases in overall tax revenue be tied to inflation and population increases, unless larger increases are approved by voters.<\/span><\/p>\n

TABOR\u2019s often complicated effects have worked\u2014in concert or conflict\u2014with the Gallagher Amendment, passed a decade earlier, that effectively keeps residential property taxes \u201cartificially\u201d down, in Scheminske\u2019s words.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cColorado has probably the most complex revenue and expenditure structure of any state in the country. All of these competing interests are starting to collide,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the interest of continuing to fund education, human services and other programs, state officials have sought workarounds. While a controversial fee paid by hospitals has helped meet the state\u2019s Medicaid responsibilities and has resulted in matching federal funds, that revenue has run afoul of TABOR\u2019s tax-limitation provisions by the hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pushing us over our overall TABOR limit,\u201d Scheminske said, noting those overages have required refunds to taxpayers, even though it is hospitals that pay the fee. \u201cThis has been a very, very challenging experience for us in the last few years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the same state Constitution that mandates TABOR refunds also requires increased K-12 funding, even as Colorado\u2019s Medicaid bill rises. Meanwhile, the state\u2019s gas tax\u2014 last increased in 1992 when vehicles were less fuel efficient\u2014is still calculated on a stagnant per-gallon rate, regardless of gas prices and increased wear and tear on the roads.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur government right now is bigger than our britches. We just don\u2019t have enough revenue coming in to fund everything,\u201d Scheminske said. \u201c\u2026 You can\u2019t continue to have a system like we have that on one hand requires revenue reductions and on the other hand requires spending increases. The citizens of Colorado are going to have to make a fundamental change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That transformation can be delayed for a while, according to the official, but not indefinitely.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we do stay on this path, we\u2019re in deep trouble the next time we have a recession,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deputy director talks \u2018crisis\u2019 at University of Phoenix event BY PETER JONES NEWS EDITOR Colorado\u2019s budget may be a ticking time bomb, to hear Erick Scheminske tell it.\u00a0 \u201cHopefully, we can solve this problem before it becomes a crisis, but my suspicion is the problem will become a crisis before the voters decide that it …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}