‘Plenty to dislike’ in Ritter’s budget cuts
By Charles Ashby 
| August 19, 2009 | 7:01 AM
Gov. Bill Ritter found $320 million to cut from the state’s current budget, but he wasn’t happy to do it.
Forced on him and state lawmakers because revenues are expected to be much lower than initially thought — the legislature had already dealt with a $1.4 billion revenue shortfall when it adjourned the 2009 session last spring — Ritter is planning to issue an executive order by month’s end calling for the cuts, some cash fund transfers, fee increases and eliminating mostly unfilled state jobs.
“In all of this, there’s plenty for everybody to dislike,” Ritter said Tuesday. “We didn’t enjoy doing it, I don’t like activating any of the cuts that we made. I went line by line by line, the proposed cuts. I got through these cuts (and) it’s not the last time I’m probably going to have to engage in that exercise.”
In addition to program cuts and closing some facilities, the governor is eliminating 266 jobs, although most of them have been unfilled for some time. Still, the cuts will lead to actual layoffs of some state workers, but neither Ritter nor his budget director, Todd Saliman, could say exactly who or how many would lose their jobs.
Ritter’s plan also requires some legislative approval on some of its aspects, such as increasing fees for background checks on firearm purchases.
The firearms fee on the state’s Instacheck program, the cost for which is currently borne by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, drew immediate criticism from Republicans, including one of the people who hopes to challenge Ritter in his re-election bid next year.
Former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis said the fee was yet another burden on Coloradans at a time when they can least afford it.
“The governor is up to his same old tricks, increasing the burden on hard-working Coloradans, while ignoring the impact of policies that are driving jobs — and tax revenues — away from the state,” McInnis said in a press release.
“The governor proposes backdoor taxes disguised as fees — like the increase on background checks for firearm purchases — speeding up the transfer of inmates from the prison system to the community, and cutting funding to mental hospitals.”
Part of the governor’s package includes implementing a new pilot program that would shorten parole terms, but only for those who have not gotten into trouble while on the street and have completed required educational programs, such as re-entry programs designed to prevent them from ending up back in the prison system.
Ritter and Saliman said that would mean only a maximum of 180 days cut off their parole terms, and, then again, only if approved by the State Parole Board. The program, they said, will allow the Department of Corrections to cut its budget by $25 million and eliminate 34 full-time positions.
DOC spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti said none of the position cuts will lead to actual layoffs. The department is still recovering from losing 588 positions during the last recession, only 80 jobs of which have since been restored. She said the parole program has the potential to reduce the department’s monthly inmate count by 1,000 people.
Ritter and some members of the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, to whom the governor presented his budget cuts in a packed committee room at the state Capitol, said they purposely left alone millions of dollars the state pays out in tax credits.
Sen. Al While, R-Hayden and a JBC member, said he doesn’t know what might happen to some of the credits, but one in particular needs to be eyed: the conservation easement tax credit. He said there are some abuses of that program, which offers transferable tax credits to property owners who promise to preserve land from development. The program has faced scrutiny in recent years because of fraud and allegations that some of the land never was targeted for development in the first place.
“I have been contacted by a number of people in the conservation easement community telling me we need to sideline this program for a year or two and reform the statute because people are gaming it, they are taking advantage of the government,” he said. “They’ll take a big piece of property and cut it up. By doing that, they end up getting a four- or five-fold tax break than they would have initially. I’m not saying it’s going to happen for sure (looking at all the tax credits), but it’s one that will be looked at.”
The governor said that while some of those credits may yet be cut when the legislature reconvenes next winter, others shouldn’t be because they are vital to the state’s economic recovery.
“Economic development is our road out of this. If you talk to anybody, economists looking at how states are going to emerge from this downturn, it’s going to be because there are (programs) around jobs and job recovery,” Ritter said. “It’s going to be around manufacturing opportunities. It’s going to be the things that are pillars of your economic strategy.
“We have to have an investment mentality. It’s important that we think about investment, and that investment has to be around things that are important to the state, but also in areas were there can be job growth.”
bill ritter, colorado, economy, shortfall, state budget
