Legislative Narrative
March 17-21, 2014
Overview
Once again, the state budget dominated conversations at the state house this week.
Cementing this focus on funding, Joint Budget Committee (JBC) chair Representative
Crisanta Duran (D, Denver) remarked while finalizing the state budget package that this
session the Appropriations committees are the new legislative ‘kill committees’. A majority
of the K-12 legislation previously introduced this session has stacked up on Appropriations
committee calendars and are awaiting budget decisions for the coming fiscal year. On
Tuesday 3/18 the JBC received state revenue forecasts, which provide precise budget
information that is used to guide allocations for Fiscal Year 2014-15. The revenue forecasts
outlined modest increases in state revenue predictions and, as a result, did not solicit
significant changes to the tentative budget allocations already established by the
legislature. The Long Bill and accompanying package of budget bills will be introduced in
the House this coming Monday 3/24.
Several other education-related measures moved forward last week, including
controversial school funding bills HB14-1292 Student Success Act and HB14-1298 School
Finance Act. The House debated and eventually passed on 2nd reading HB14-1288, a bill
that requires additional verification of medical consultation when parents exempt their
children out of school-required immunizations. The House Transportation committee also
moved HB14-1301 to the Appropriations committee. HB14-1301 proposes a $3 million
general fund allocation to provide state support for the previously federal-funded school
traffic safety grant program, Safe Routes to School.
Unexpectedly, Representative Justin Everett (R, JeffCo) was removed from his seat
on the House Education committee Monday after a statement from House Minority Leader
Brian DelGrosso (R, Loveland) was read by Education committee chair Millie Hamner (D,
Summit County). No intention of replacing the now-vacant committee seat has been
announced.
33 weekdays remain in the 2014 legislative session, scheduled to adjourn May 7th.
March 2014 State Revenue Forecast
On Tuesday both the General Assembly’s and Governor’s budget advisory groups,
Legislative Council and the Office of State Planning and Budgeting (OSPB), respectively,
presented their quarterly-revised financial forecasts detailing small amounts of growth in
state revenues. Legislators have been waiting for this information to make decisions on
state funding for the coming Fiscal Year 2014-15, including several key bills related to K-12
and higher education budgets.
Some additional key information from Tuesday’s presentations –
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Overall steady and moderate economic growth on a national level will depend on
unemployment rates and the ability of the Federal Reserve to balance monetary
policy with specific economic growth measurements.
In Colorado, SB09-228 requires automatic general fund revenue transfers into
specific funds when personal income grows in a calendar year by an average of
5% or higher. Legislative Council predicted that personal income would grow by
5.6% in 2015-16 and will require transfers of $50.6 million to the state capital
construction fund and $202.4 million to the highway users tax fund.
Both Legislative Council and OSPB predict the year-end excess revenue sweep to
the State Education Fund for FY13-14 to be $45.3 million.
Questions around TABOR and the authority of the legislature to expend tax
revenue collected from the sales of recreation marijuana in excess of voter Blue
Book projections ($67 million) and voter-approved Proposition AA K-12 rural
capital construction appropriations ($40 million) have not been resolved.
The Governor’s budget staff warned the JBC about K-12 education funding: “The
State Education Fund is supporting a larger share of education funding than it
has historically, which will draw down its fund balance. The State Education
Fund plays an important role in the State’s General Fund budget as the level of
spending from the fund affects the amount of General Fund spending for
education. Thus, decisions on the mix of funding between the two funds have
budgetary implications in the future.”
HB14-1292 Student Success Act & HB14-1298 School Finance Act
This past Wednesday 3/19 the House Education committee amended and voted to
pass HB14-1292 and HB14-1298 to the House Appropriations committee. The committee
originally heard testimony on the measures, which lasted over 6 hours, on Monday 3/3.
HB14-1292 the Student Success Act was passed by a vote of 11-1, the lone dissenting vote
cast by education committee veteran Representative Chris Holbert (R, Douglas County).
HB14-1298 the School Finance Act was passed by a Democrat controlled party-line vote of
7-5.
Amendments to HB14-1298 made slight adjustments to the introduced version:
1. Recruiting high-quality educators and student learning objectives were added as
acceptable uses of the $40 million Implementation Fund.
2. Adjustments to the English Language Learner requirements and a $0.5 million
increase in funding to account for inflation, bringing the ELL.
3. Modifications to charter school mill levy reporting requirements.
4. Modifications to rural school reporting requirements.
5. No changes were made to the Average Daily Membership requirements in the bill.
Sponsor Representative Hamner stated that ADM is an issue that will be discussed
further as the bill moves over to the Senate.
Similar to actions taken on School Finance in the past several years, an amendment
to HB14-1298 was approved that sweeps 75% of any FY14-15 general fund appropriations
received above JBC projections into the State Education Fund at the conclusion of FY14-15.
Representative Jim Wilson (R, Salida) proposed an amendment that would have eliminated
the funding for 5,000 preschool eCare slots in the bill and instead transferred that funding
to reduce the $1 billion ‘negative factor’. Rep. Wilson noted that the state funds full day
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Kindergarten at 0.58 per-pupil funding and he felt that until Kindergarten programs are
fully funded, it is not appropriate to use state dollars specifically for pre-K programs. This
amendment failed on a party line vote with committee Democrats voting against the
proposal.
Fiscal Year 2014-15 Long Bill
On Friday the Joint Budget Committee completed voting on recommendations for
the Fiscal Year 2014-15 state budget, commonly known as the Long Bill, and accompanying
package of budget legislation. This year’s Long Bill package is unanimously sponsored by
all 6 JBC members. Notably, veteran JBC member Senator Kent Lambert (R, CO Springs) did
reinforce his ability to opt-out of sponsorship if his Senate Republican caucus deems any
amendments to the bills unsatisfactory. The JBC chairs, Representative Crisanta Duran (D,
Adams Co/Denver) and Senator Pat Steadman (D, Denver), are prime sponsors of the bills
and will guide the legislation through committee hearings.
The notable changes to standing budget allocations for K-12 education are
contained elsewhere in legislation, specifically HB14-1292 the Student Success Act and
HB14-1298 the School Finance Act. This year the JBC did approve two decision items
authorizing additional FTE within CDE, one designated for assistance with ICAPs, career
and technical education planning and continuing education initiatives, and another for
Innovative Schools program implementation.
Please see below for next week’s anticipated Long bill and budget package hearing
schedule in the House.
Higher Education Funding Overhaul
- HB14-1319 Outcomes Based Funding for Higher Education (Reps. Ferrandino &
Holbert / Sens. Todd & Lambert)
o Speaker of the House Representative Mark Ferrandino (D, Denver) pitched
his higher education funding formula overhaul to the Commission on Higher
Education with mixed receptions from institutions and stakeholders.
Essentially, the bill would place greater weight on the College Opportunity
Fund, allocating over half of state higher education funding support based on
enrollment through COF stipends. 3.9% of higher education funding would
be based on student retention and 6.1% would be based on degree
completion.
o SB14-001 has widespread support in the legislature, if passed, would
appropriate an additional $100 million in general fund to higher education in
FY2014-15 and caps annual tuition rate increases at 6% unless a specific
exemption is granted by CCHE. The JBC’s budget package will include
adjustments to allow for SB001’s passage.
Online Education Task Force Recommendations for 2014 Legislation
The Donnell Kay Foundation-staffed 2014 Online Education Task Force is
recommending several changes to online education statute. The task force has stated these
recommendations may be introduced in legislation during the current 2014 session. The
Online Task Force, as requested by Donnell Kay through Representatives Dave Young (D,
Greeley) and Jim Wilson (R, Salida) and Senators Andy Kerr (D, JeffCo) and Ellen Roberts
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(R, Durango), was allowed 6 weeks to meet during the months of February and March. As
originally stated by legislators and task force staff in late 2013 and early in 2014, this task
force would be tasked with identifying online accountability issues and making
recommendations targeted at accountability measures for online providers. However, the
task force recommendations released last Friday 3/21 do not make any recommendations
around online accountability. Instead, the recommendations briefly state that the task
force could not adequately address online accountability, citing a lack of adequate time to
fully address the complex issue of online accountability.
Additional task force recommendations include the endorsement of Colorado’s
adoption of an Average Daily Membership student count system. For many years online
providers have expressed difficulties in accurately counting their students with a single
count date system due to high numbers of at-risk and transient students. A cohesive,
specific recommendation driven by Colorado’s online providers has not included a
statewide transition to ADM. In contrast, the current task force recommendations support
an ADM policy similar to the language in HB14-1292, the Student Success Act. Additionally,
the task force has recommended statutory language to redefine ‘online education’ and to
grant the Colorado Department of Education the authority to develop rules for online
authorizers. The final task force recommendation establishes a longer-term Online
Education Commission to create pilot online education programs, through
recommendations for statute and department rule, designed “to implement education
practices and policies not yet implemented in Colorado”. The ambitious Commission
schedule requires the appointment of members by July 1, 2014 and release of any RFP
requirements and pilot program recommendations by October 15, 2014.
As of 3/23 legislation has not been officially introduced containing the task force’s
recommendations.
Earlier this month, Donnell Kay Colorado released reSchool Colorado, their new,
“transformative” comprehensive education reform agenda, designed to “overhaul the
public education system”.
http://dkfoundation.org/our-work/reschool-colorado/reschool-colorado
Introduced this Week
- SB14-165 K-12 Academic Growth Performance Evaluation 2014-15 (Sens. Johnston &
Kerr / Reps. Peniston & Murray)
o On Friday 3/21 the Senate introduced SB14-165, the highly-anticipated
measure first promoted several weeks ago by Senator Michael Johnston (D,
Aurora). The bill allows a local board of education to determine, for the
2014-15 academic year only, what percentage, if any, of the final level of
effectiveness assessed to an educator in their final performance evaluation.
Current law and rule require school district boards of education to base at
least 50% of the final level of effectiveness assessed to all school licensed
personnel, aka educators, student academic growth. The bill keeps intact the
implementation deadline of 2014-15 for the personnel evaluation system
requirements stating that evaluation is based on quality standards, including
student academic growth.
o SB14-165 is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Education committee this
Wednesday 3/26 upon adjournment.
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Upcoming Hearing Schedule
- Monday 3/24
o Long Bill and budget package introduced in the House
- Tuesday 3/27
o House Appropriations committee hearing of Long Bill and budget package
- Wednesday 3/26
o House party caucus meetings to discuss amendments to Long Bill and budget
package
o House Education, Upon Adjournment, HCR0112
 HB14-1268 (Rep. Salazar): Non-probationary Teacher No Indefinite
Unpaid Leave
o Senate Education, Upon Adjournment, SCR356
 SB14-165 (Sens. Johnston & Kerr): K-12 Academic Growth
Performance Evaluations 2014-15
- Thursday 3/27
o A.M. – cont. House party caucus meetings
o P.M. – House 2nd reading of Long Bill and budget package
- Friday 3/28
o House 3rd reading of Long Bill and budget package
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