I think it was
seventwenty who came up with the final piece that allowed me to wrap my brain around the 5% income - 2% kicker to transportation and how TABOR intersected that provision.
As it stands transportation is due an additional $204 million but the presumption is that the final revenue figures will mean TABOR will cut that in half.
My kind of gal, Kelly Brough, president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce has found a
big pot of
free money. Woot woot.
Ed Sealover of DBJ has the story
HERE.
Quote:
But she and others believe there is a pot of money that could be removed from the general fund that would reduce or eliminate those refunds and sure up highways and bridges.
That pot is the hospital provider fee, a program created in 2009 that charges hospitals for each night a bed is occupied by a patient and uses the revenue to fund expansion of eligibility for the state Medicaid program.
That fee brings in roughly $600 million per year that is counted against the TABOR cap and uses it to secure a 2-to-1 match in federal funding that provides another $1.2 billion for the state that doesn’t count against the cap.
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The reasoning?
Quote:
Brough argues that the hospital provider fee does not belong in the general fund... Under the law, she points out, the provider fee comes from a specific group of taxpayers and must be used for a specific purpose — expanding Medicaid eligibility — rather than in whatever way legislators see fit.
Because of the spending limitations, legislators could remove all of that provider-fee revenue from the general fund and place it in an enterprise fund that limits the use of certain fees for certain purposes
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But has this ever been done before?
Quote:
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Fees placed on motor-vehicle registrations through another 2009 bill, for example, go to a transportation fund that allows them only to be used for road and bridge repairs and transit options.
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That Kelly Brough is sharp.
Quote:
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“We think most Coloradans agree that investments to maintain our roads and bridges are critical to the state right now,” she said. “And we don’t think that a transfer formula that could be triggered should wipe that money out.”
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