Apr 28

Colorado Legislators May Push HPF Through Constitutional Loophole

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Colorado Legislators May Push HPF Through Constitutional Loophole

April 27, 2016
 A bill that would exempt Colorado’s Hospital Provider Fee (HPF) program from the state constitution’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) has advanced to hearings on the House floor.

The House Committee on Appropriations voted 7–6 on March 29 to refer House Bill 1420, sponsored by House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst (D-Boulder County) and Sen. Larry Crowder (R-Alamosa County), to the Committee of the Whole.

HB 1420 would establish the Colorado Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise (CHASE) as a government-owned business to administer the state’s HPF. HPF is the vehicle by which Colorado expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014 and by which the state collected almost $700 million in revenue the following year.

CHASE’s designation as an “enterprise” would exempt the program from the state constitution’s TABOR, which mandates voters shall decide at the ballot whether Colorado must refund to taxpayers surplus revenue collected by the state, except when the surplus comes from a state “enterprise.”

If passed, CHASE will take effect on July 1, 2016, provided the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) determine the program complies with federal law, according to the bill’s fiscal note.

Word Games

Linda Gorman, director of the Health Care Policy Center at the Independence Institute, says the bill manipulates the meaning of “enterprise” in order to circumvent the state’s constitution.

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Apr 25

Survey: More than half don’t understand TABOR

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Survey: More than half don’t understand TABOR

And at the GOP event, some criticize media, Chieftain

by sarah grasmick the pueblo chieftain
Published: April 24, 2016;

Approximately two-thirds of Coloradans don’t understand what the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights is, according to the Colorado Fiscal Institute.

“When you actually look into the surveys and ask them what TABOR does, a handful of people who said, ‘I know what TABOR is’ thought it was a shopping mall in Denver. If they do know what it is, they only know one facet of TABOR, and that is that I have the right to vote on my own taxes. Elected officials can’t raise my taxes .?.?. without my vote,” said economist Chris Stiffler Saturday at a town hall meeting hosted by state Rep. Daneya Esgar and state Sen. Leroy Garcia, both Pueblo Democrats.

TABOR also limits how everything is taxed.

“In Colorado, we have a flat income tax rate — I pay 4.63 percent, you pay 4.63 percent, Peyton Manning pays 4.63 percent. Most states have a tiered system that grabs a little more income for higher-income earners,” Stiffler said.
– See more at: http://www.chieftain.com/news/4683773-120/tabor-taxes-chieftain-percent#sthash.DzpkBSki.dpuf

http://www.chieftain.com/news/4683773-120/tabor-taxes-chieftain-percent

Apr 23

Voters Can Make Colorado History in PAWSD Election

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EDITORIAL: Voters Can Make Colorado History in PAWSD Election

by · April 22, 2016

Ballots were mailed recently to residents and customers in the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District service area, asking them to vote for three board members (from a selection of four candidates) and also allowing them to weigh in, on an historic ballot measure.

The historic measure, written in election-legalese and printed in “all capital letters” for some un-Godly reason, reads like this:

PAGOSA AREA WATER AND SANITATION DISTRICT BALLOT ISSUE A:

SHALL PAGOSA AREA WATER AND SANITATION DISTRICT BE SUBJECT TO THE REVENUE, COLLECTION AND SPENDING LIMITS UNDER ARTICLE X, SECTION 20 OF THE COLORADO CONSTITUTION (OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE TAXPAYERS BILL OF RIGHTS), SECTION 29-1-301, C.R.S., AND OTHER COLORADO LAWS BY REPEALING THE BALLOT ISSUE APPROVED BY DISTRICT VOTERS ON MAY 2, 2000; PROVIDED THAT 2016 SHALL BE USED AS THE BASE YEAR FOR CALCULATING LIMITS AND SUCH LIMITS SHALL BE EFFECTIVE BEGINNING JANUARY 1, 2017?

You will want to vote “Yes” on this measure, if you wish to help the current PAWSD board — Mike Church, Glenn Walsh, Gordon McIver, Paul Hansen and Blake Brueckner — make political history.

The ballot language does not include the acronym “TABOR” — the more common way to refer to the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution — but some voters may feel more comfortable marking “Yes” on their PAWSD ballot for Ballot Measure A, if they understand that a “Yes” vote will put our water and sewer district’s General Fund back under the taxing and spending controls offered by TABOR.

22PAWSDOfficesWaterDistrict

But don’t take my word for it.

The state of Colorado allows its citizens to submit statements in favor of, or in opposition to, ballot measures that increase or reduce taxes, and these statements are required to be mailed out to all registered voters.  In the case of Ballot Measure A, no one submitted a statement opposing the measure, but PAWSD board member Glenn Walsh submitted a statement explaining why you might want to vote “Yes.”

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Apr 20

Colorado’s Budget Settled, But Debate Coming On Taxes, Refunds

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Colorado’s Budget Settled, Debate Coming On Taxes, Refunds « CBS Denver .

April 19, 2016 1:57 PM

Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst and other Democrats, including Gov. John Hickenlooper, want the fee set aside to avoid refunds under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, free millions of dollars for Colorado’s underfunded roads and schools, and give momentum to pending ballot initiatives that would ease TABOR’s grip on state finances.

It’s a debate that some thought settled well before both chambers approved the $27 billion budget last week. Not so, said Hullinghorst, a Boulder Democrat.

“In this budget we managed to get by, but next year it will be twice as bad with cuts in education and higher education,” she said. The House could debate her bill this week.

Hullinghorst said reclassifying the fee can provide at least five years’ flexibility to spend more on schools and roads, and tackle TABOR and other constitutional restrictions on budget writers’ room to maneuver.

TABOR requires refunds whenever total state income surpasses a cap that’s based on inflation and population, not the economy’s performance.

 

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Apr 04

9 Colorado cities vote Tuesday on municipal broadband internet; pot also on local ballots

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Thirteen cities are deciding various tax proposals, and Nederland voters will face a “de-Brucing” measure (lifting the restrictions of Douglas Bruce’s Taxpayers Bill of Rights, or TABOR, capping tax revenue and spending).

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/morning_call/2016/04/9-colorado-citiesvote-tuesday-on-municipal.html?ana=e_den_rdup&s=newsletter&ed=2016-04-04&u=ewaw5QTZsfAZ0BN1ha0knw0d36a24e&t=1459794946&j=72022272

Apr 03

Budget fix still crucial for Colorado

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Budget fix still crucial for Colorado

Lawmakers should reclassify hospital provider fee

By The Denver Post Editorial Board

POSTED:   04/01/2016 05:00:00 PM MDT

Colorado legislators are seeking to reclassify the state hospital provider fee into a separate enterprise fund that would allow Colorado to remain below

Colorado legislators are seeking to reclassify the state hospital provider fee into a separate enterprise fund that would allow Colorado to remain below revenue limits imposed by the Taxpayer s Bill of Rights without refunding money. (Steve Nehf, Denver Post file)

Yes, Colorado lawmakers, it’s still important to deal with a projected budgetary crunch triggered by future tax refunds even if they are no longer likely in the next fiscal year.

The problem is only being delayed for one year. Refunds will almost certainly be required in the following years under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights unless the economy entirely tanks. And yet they will come at the expense of critical transportation, capital maintenance and education funding. Indeed, transportation funding is already slated to decline in next year’s budget.

In other words, lawmakers still have urgent reason this session to reclassify the hospital provider fee into a separate “enterprise fund” to allow the state to remain below TABOR revenue limits without refunding money.

To read the rest of this story, click (HERE):

 

 

Mar 30

Business leaders battle Republican lawmaker in hospital-fee bill hearing

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Business leaders battle Republican lawmaker in hospital-fee bill hearing

Denver Traffic cars

KATHLEEN LAVINE | DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL

Overcrowded highways like this stretch of C-470 near Yosemite would be a primary beneficiary of the hospital-provider fee bill, business leaders argue.

Colorado business leaders charged into the state Capitol Tuesday to advocate for a newly introduced change in the hospital provider fee that they believe will increase funding for transportation and education — and ran right into a key Republican legislator who questioned whether they would be taking revenues illegally from companies and individuals that need them more.

House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst’s long-planned bill to pull some $700 million out from under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) revenue cap and turn it into an enterprise fund received its first hearing in the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday, one day after it was introduced.

Committee Democrats passed it onto the House floor over the objections of Republicans, the first of several steps in what is expected to be a weeks-long fight over one of the most watched measures of this legislative session.

The seven-year-old provider fee charges hospitals for each night a bed is occupied, leverages that money to get an equal amount of federal matching funds and expands the eligibility of childless adults for Medicaid, reducing the burden of uncompensated care on hospitals.

By turning the fee into an enterprise, it frees a lot more room for the state to collect new revenues without reaching its TABOR cap and having to give back any excess money as tax refunds.

 

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Mar 30

Bipartisan Hospital Provider Fee Bill Introduced At Colorado Capitol

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Bipartisan Hospital Provider Fee Bill Introduced At Colorado Capitol

By Megan Verlee on 03/29/2016 – 7:20am

The Colorado State Capitol.

(Hart Van Denburg/CPR News)

State lawmakers introduced a bill Monday that would eliminate tax refunds and give the state more money to spend.Colorado is collecting so much money that it has to send some of it back to residents, as required by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

But Democrats say there’s a big pot of money in the state budget that shouldn’t count toward the TABOR limit. It’s a fee hospitals pay that the state spends on expanding health coverage for the poor.

The new bill changes how the state accounts for this fee, making it exempt from TABOR. That would effectively allow the state to hold onto hundreds of millions of dollars it would otherwise have to pay out in tax rebates.

A separate measure, which would only apply to next year, directs lawmakers to spend the extra money on transportation, local governments, and schools.

The fee-change bill has bipartisan sponsorship. Sen. Larry Crowder, a Republican, says the change could help rural hospitals in his southeastern district.

However the Republicans who control the state Senate strongly oppose the reclassification, calling it an end-run around TABOR.

House Speaker Dickie Lee Hullinghorst said she tried to work with Senate leaders.

“There didn’t seem to be a way that we could get together,” she said. “And I felt that we had to move forward.”

– See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/newsbeat/bipartisan-hospital-provider-fee-bill-introduced-colorado-capitol#sthash.0JGvqvqF.dpuf

Mar 30

Speaker: Talks on proposal to eliminate TABOR refunds at a stalemate

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Speaker: Talks on proposal to eliminate TABOR refunds at a stalemate

Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst of Boulder was nominated as majority leader during the Colorado House of Representatives Democratic Caucus at the state Capitol in Denver, CO, Thursday November 8, 2012. Democrats took back the majority in the House after Tuesday’s election, and will have a 37-28 majority when the session opens in January. Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post

DENVER – The speaker of the Colorado House said negotiations have reached a “stalemate” on a long-debated and highly anticipated proposal to retain more state revenue through an accounting change that would eliminate TABOR refunds in future years.

The prospects for the bills Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst introduced Monday are poor in the Republican-dominated Senate.

One of the bills reauthorizes a fee charged on hospital stays so that millions of dollars go into an enterprise fund that is exempt from the spending limits in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The other bill spends the revenue the state would retain if the first bill passes.

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Mar 29

Hospital provider fee bill introduced in Colorado Legislature — with Republican Senate sponsor

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Colorado House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst introduced her anticipated bill to turn the hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund Monday with two twists — a Republican sponsor in the Senate and a companion bill allocating general-fund money that would be freed up if the bill were to pass.

Created in 2009, the fee is assessed on hospitals for each night that a bed is filled with a patient, and the revenue is used to receive match funding from the federal government and to increase Medicaid eligibility for childless adults.

House Speaker-designee Dickey Lee Hullinghorst unpacking in her new office at the capitol.Enlarge

House Speaker-designee Dickey Lee Hullinghorst unpacking in her new office at the capitol.

KATHLEEN LAVINE, BUSINESS JOURNAL

It has generated billions of dollars in reimbursements for hospitals that treated previously uninsured patients with no capacity to pay bills, but because the revenue counts against the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) revenue cap, it also pushes the state toward exceeding the cap and having to give taxpayers refunds with money that could otherwise have gone to areas such as education and transportation. Continue reading →