The committee approved allocation of $2.9 million in state money to the Department of Education’s contingency fund for use as loans or grants to the districts by the State Board of Education.

The districts – Gunnison, South Routt, Cripple Creek-Victor, Hayden, Westcliffe and Eagle – are caught in a bind both because of the peculiarities of school district revenues and the uncertainties posed by Amendment 61.

By Don Knox, STATE BILL COLORADO
Colorado’s elaborate 2011 budget review process continues today with the governor’s office set to address a list of questions from legislators who sit on the budget-creating Joint Budget Committee.
Most of the JBC’s questions (the entire list is published below) have to do with the state Tourism Office, the Governor’s Office of Information Technology Office and the Governor’s Energy Office.
All of the offices have, to some degree, become political hot potatoes. One-time GOP gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry publicly asked whether the energy office was worth keeping. Democrats including House Speaker Terrance Carroll rejected the idea as preposterous given the office’s recent jobs successes. Penry recently exited the race in favor of his rival, ex-congressman and Hogan & Hartson lawyer Scott McInnis.
Among today’s questions:
* Please define state information technology resources that are eligible for consolidation into OIT (Office of Information Technology). What technology resources are considered part of state agency management versus OIT management? For example, what state agency is responsible for the management of televisions used in agencies?
* Please describe the controls the Department proposes to implement to eliminate the possibility of individual agencies expending moneys for information technology resources without consulting OIT.
* Please describe the Department’s plan for addressing transferred information technology staff resources that are no longer needed for fulfilling programmatic initiatives. For example, what is the Department’s plan to address a surplus of FTE with a given skill set?
The hearing begins at 9 a.m. Click here to listen to a live stream.

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By Don Knox, STATE BILL COLORADO
Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, is being groomed by the state’s Democratic leadership for a spot on the General Assembly’s powerful Joint Budget Committee.
Romer, an investment banker from Denver, relinquished a seat on the Senate Education Committee to spend a year shadowing the JBC and to serve a term as vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Senate Majority Leader John Morse asked him to make the switch, Romer told State Bill on Monday. In 2010, the JBC will consider both budget and tax policy — the latter a result of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision last year in Mesa County Bd. of County Comm’rs v. State of Colorado.
Because of the opinion, which redefined the phrase “tax policy change,” state lawmakers are now free to increase state revenue by more than $2 billion by repealing tax credits and exemptions most had considered untouchable under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR. It’s expected that the JBC will play a leading role in which corporate- and sales-tax exemptions to keep and which to kill. (Related reading: A Chink In TABOR’s Armor: Mill-Levy Ruling Reverberates Widely.)
Romer, a son of the former three-term governor of Colorado, would assume a seat being vacated, because of term limits, in January 2011 by either Sens. Moe Keller or Abel Tapia.
In related news, the Joint Budget Committee continues all this week to review agency budgets in advance of the 2010 General Assembly. The agenda for the meetings is posted below.

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