The Colorado legislature’s 2024 session is set to end Wednesday night, and the House and Senate convened for a final day of debate and votes to wrap up bills on a number of priorities, including property tax reform and land-use policy changes that will affect local governments.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
Updated at 8:09 p.m.: The Colorado General Assembly’s session ended just before 8 p.m., when the Senate adjourned — following the House, which ended its day earlier.
Updated at 5:04 p.m.: Colorado families with household incomes under $90,000 would be eligible for an income tax credit to cover tuition and fees at in-state colleges for two years under a bipartisan bill passed Wednesday that will now head to the governor for his signature.
House Bill 1340 would establish a refundable income tax credit to cover the costs for students who attend public in-state colleges and universities, community colleges or technical schools — an effort driven by declining enrollment to make higher education more affordable for more families.
A student or parents claiming a student as a dependent could seek this credit for the amount equal to the school tuition and fees after subtracting any scholarships or grants. Students would have to enroll within two years of graduating from high school and qualify for in-state tuition, among other requirements. Students also would have to be enrolled in at least six credit hours of coursework and maintain a 2.5 grade point average.
A tax credit is an amount that can be subtracted from overall taxes when filing tax returns. A refundable credit is available even to residents who don’t owe any tax.
The credit would be available for Colorado students and their families starting in 2025, and continuing through 2033. Bill cosponsors — Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, a Democrat from Arvada, and Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Republican from Brighton — and other supporters pushed the bill to final approval on Wednesday afternoon, and House lawmakers voted unanimously to concur with Senate amendments.
State education data shows that about 28,000 students this academic year meet the requirements to be eligible for the proposed tax credit and that they paid approximately $35.2 million in tuition and fees after subtractions of scholarships and grants.
State fiscal analysts estimated that the average credits would range from $2,700 for students at four-year colleges to $1,000 for students at two-year colleges. The tax benefit would cost the state about $38 million a year — money that would come from the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights surplus that generates refunds to taxpayers.
Updated at 3:45 p.m.: Bills to remake the public school finance system and a series of tax reforms will go to the governor after final, formal votes Wednesday afternoon.
If signed into law, House Bill 1448 will send another $84 million to school districts next year and rewrite the school funding formula to prioritize funding for rural districts. Also prioritized would be school districts with high numbers of students who are English language learners, living in poverty, or have special education needs. The bipartisan bill passed the Senate Tuesday night, with seven Democrats voting against it. The House concurred with Senate amendments Wednesday afternoon.
“It transforms a formula that was about systems into a formula that is about students,” Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican and sponsor of the bill, said during the Senate debate.
Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat, voted against the bill out of concerns of sustainability and how it distributes the money.
The House also formally passed bills to remake how refunds are issued under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, known as TABOR, and steer more tax credits to low-income families.
Senate Bill 228 creates a series of TABOR refunds that are triggered depending on how much money the state has collected over the revenue caps set in the state constitution. In addition to direct cash refunds and property tax reductions, the bill triggers an income tax reduction if the state is more than $300 million over the cap and a state sales and use tax reduction if it is more than $1.5 billion over the cap.
House Bill 1311 gives families a tax credit of up to $3,200 for dependent children, scaling down as family income increases, as their children age and if state revenue growth slows down. Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, a Lakewood Democrat, touted the measure as a way to fight child poverty in the state.
Updated at 2 p.m.: Gov. Jared Polis, LGBTQ legislators and a group of supporters celebrated the recent advancement of legislation that, if approved by the voters in November, would strip anti-same-sex marriage language from the state constitution.
SCR24-003, which cleared the legislature last week and is now set for the ballot, would remove the now-defunct language added to the constitution by voters in 2006. Same-sex marriage has been legal nationwide since 2015, under a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision.
But concerning signs from the high court since have raised fears among the LGBTQ community that that precedent allowing gays and lesbians to marry is not set in stone. Two justices — Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — have both floated revisiting the decision made in that case, sparking the desire to clear the old language from the state constitution.
“While we’re extremely grateful that the precedent holds, and it’s certainly all of our hope that it holds for decades and generations to come, we cannot take that for granted,” Polis said from the Capitol steps on Wednesday afternoon. “And that’s why it’s so important to change the language of the Colorado Constitution to make sure it’s not just the Supreme Court precedents that protects the legal recognition of our relationships, but is in fact Colorado itself.”
Updated at 1:52 p.m.: The Senate has fully passed House Bill 1175, which would give local governments a right of first refusal to buy subsidized affordable housing properties before they’re sold to a private buyer. Its House sponsors plan to accept various changes made in the Senate before sending it to Gov. Jared Polis.
The bill, which passed the Senate 19-14, is a revival of a more sweeping policy that was passed and then vetoed by Polis last June. The sponsors — Democratic Reps. Andy Boesenecker and Emily Sirota and Sens. Faith Winter and Sonya Jaquez Lewis — pared back the policy this year and made technical changes in the Senate in a deal with the governor’s office.
Supporters say the measure will help preserve existing subsidized housing, which they argue is vital as Polis prioritizes a supply-side approach in the form of land-use reforms.
Updated at 10:08 a.m.: The much-discussed and much-rewritten bill to reform the Regional Transportation District was unveiled this session with a roar — maligned by critics but backed by supporters as a needed rework of metro Denver’s transit agency.
It died this week with barely a whimper, blinking out on the Senate’s calendar in the final days.
House Bill 1447 passed the House late last week, after it had been stripped of its most controversial provisions, including a plan to overhaul RTD’s elected board and governance. It then passed an initial Senate committee but languished on the calendar of the Senate Appropriations Committee; it needed to get out of that committee and pass a first full vote on the floor before the end of Tuesday.
That didn’t happen, meaning it’s impossible for the bill to pass now, given that the session ends Wednesday night. The bill would’ve still required better coordination between RTD and a regional council of metro-area governments, and it included strategies to bolster RTD staff, budget transparency and planning for transit service to special events.
It wasn’t the only bill to die procedurally Tuesday. Among the other casualties was a House bill to study the possibility of launching a universal health care system in Colorado, plus another House bill that would’ve required gun owners to hold liability insurance.
Both of those measures had already passed the House, though the insurance measure cleared by the narrowest possible margin.
The study bill’s death was particularly grating to its House sponsors, Democratic Reps. Karen McCormick and Andy Boesenecker, because a similar bill died on the Senate’s calendar last year, too. House members have grumbled about the Senate’s calendar in recent days, and the study bill’s death further inflamed those frustrations Tuesday night.
But as the House gathered for the final day Wednesday morning, the emotions were different.
The day started with lawmakers paying tribute to departing colleagues — those termed out or running for other offices. That included emotional support for Republican Rep. Rod Bockenfeld, who’s been absent for much of the session as he battles cancer; Bockenfeld appeared virtually to hear his colleagues tearfully thank him for his service.
Other departing members include Democratic Rep. Mike Weissman, whose ability to recall exact statutory language off the cuff is legendary; Republican Rep. Mark Catlin, the only member of the minority who serves as vice chair of a committee in the Democrat-dominated House; Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, the speaker pro tem and the House’s point person on tax policy in recent years; and Rep. Leslie Herod, who’s helped spearhead criminal justice reform during her eight years in the building.
Weissman and Catlin are both running for the state Senate, so their time in the Capitol may not be done yet.
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