As the legislature reconvenes today, we start 120 days of hard work on your behalf at the Capitol. A top priority for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce is to ensure we get funding for transportation and education (particularly higher education).
To give you background. For more than a year the Chamber has been advocating for the legislature to repeal and re-enact the hospital provider fee as an enterprise fund. We don’t think the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) cap formula should include funds from the hospital provider fee, which is a fee assessed on hospitals that is matched by the federal government. Passed in 2009, years after voters reset the TABOR cap, the $535 million of resulting hospital provider fee funds are used to expand health care access to more than 400,000 Coloradans. These funds do not come from taxpayers nor are they a result of economic growth, and they cannot be used for any purpose other than expanding access to health care and bringing federal tax dollars back to Colorado through Medicaid.
What’s the problem? Including half a billion dollars in hospital provider fee funds as general revenue means that our budget is triggering a TABOR refund based on an inaccurate formula. Hitting the cap under that falsely inflated formula is putting half or all of our transportation funding at risk and will result in budget cuts to K through 12 and higher education, a historically underfunded area.
What’s changed? Last week, Senate President Bill Cadman released a non-binding legal opinion from Colorado’s Office of Legislative and Legal Services that says it is not legal for the legislature to convert the hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund. To date, we’ve relied on guidance from two offices of the Attorney General, Cynthia Coffmann and John Suthers, both of which indicated the legislature could legally take this action. So, from our point of view, nothing has changed. We will continue to strongly support and advocate for this action at the legislature.
What are others saying? It’s pretty clear we aren’t alone in our thinking. In fact, there is agreement from around Colorado that this solution should be examined.
- Statesman Guest Commentary by Kelly Brough: Making sure the budget adds up at the Capitol
- Grand Junction, The Daily Sentinel Editorial: State budget hinges on fate of hospital fee
- Denver, The Denver Post Editorial: Yet more trouble for the Colorado budget
- Colorado Springs, The Gazette Editorial: Hick’s plan for education and roads hits a snag
- Fort Collins, The Coloradoan Editorial: Make hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund
- 17 business organizations in support of the disentanglement of Hospital Provider Fee revenues from the State’s General Fund
We know how important our transportation system and our workforce is to your future so we will explore every legislative avenue to make this happen.
Kelly Brough is president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.