By now, you’ve probably heard that Colorado lawmakers began the 2026 legislative session staring at a roughly $1.5 billion hole in the state budget.

The headlines made it sound like a force of nature. A dry year. An unavoidable shortage. One of those unfortunate acts of fiscal weather that simply descends upon us, leaving lawmakers to ration resources and hope for a better forecast next year. And to be fair, Colorado’s actual drought is very real. Snowpack is at just 19% of the historical median, which, in case you’re not fluent in the technical terminology of ecologists and statisticians, is: not good.

But Colorado’s budget drought is a different story. Unlike the state’s water shortage, this one didn’t fall from the sky.