Revenues improving, but no spree
Colorado’s state revenues in the current 2013-14 fiscal year are $93 million more than previously projected, and the state is poised to start the next fiscal year in July with $61 million more than forecast in December.
OSPB projections also show the state will close out the current fiscal year that ends in June with $88.2 million above the general fund reserve and will start the 2014-15 year in July with $75.8 million above the reserve requirement.
Those March revenue projections come from the governor’s Office of State Budgeting and Planning and are more conservative than those from economists with Legislative Council. The Joint Budget Committee always takes the most conservative revenue estimates, and the March economic forecast determines the level of revenue on which the legislature bases the budget.
In any case, projections show there could be up to $1.1 billion more to spend in 2014-15 than was available in the current fiscal year.
Colorado is still slowly recovering from the ravages of the Great Recession in which the state had to bridge a shortfall of more than $1 billion, a deficit that meant sizable cuts in state support to higher education, resulting in steep tuition increases for multiple years and an abandonment of the funding formula under Amendment 23, a move that allowed the state to cut K-12 funding below what had previously been considered a base funding level. K-12 schools in Colorado are now more than $1 billion below the Amendment 23 line.
And there are many more funding needs.
“The Colorado Fiscal Institute is pleased that revenues are staying above projections,” CFI Executive Director Carol Hedges said. “However, we’d remind those watching the budget process that the current ‘surplus’ means only that we as a state have more than we expected, not more than we need.”
