The Colorado Senate on Thursday reviewed the state’s $40.6 billion budget that will fund the state’s operations in the next fiscal year.   

It started off with a “clean,” un-amended bill — the work of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday — and delved into dozens of proposed changes, ranging from funding for rural schools to money for compensation in the case of wolf depredation. The lawmakers also discussed the idea of consolidating school districts.  

Fifty amendments were proposed at the start of Thursday’s debate. Eight of the first nine were amendments the House adopted last week, including adding general fund dollars for a school nurse grant programs ($895,565) and senior services ($6.1 million).

An amendment from Sen. Perry Will, R-New Castle, sought to take $480,936 from the Department of Agriculture and add to the pot $500,000 in general funds. The funds would go to the wolf depredation compensation fund in the Department of Natural Resources. That amendment, however, failed. 

Another Will amendment, which also failed, sought to put $5 million in general funds for rural schools. 

That’s tied to a fight over the school finance act, which is also moving through the Senate this week.

Senate Bill 188 was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday, but not without efforts by Democratic lawmakers to strip out a special appropriation for rural schools, led by Sens. Chris Hansen of Denver and Kevin Priola of Henderson.

For the past several years, lawmakers have added a one-time appropriation of $30 million to the school funding bill, directed to rural schools. This year, the bill made that permanent by adding rural funding to the school finance funding formula.

“We’ve had a temporary one-time $30 million for rural schools,” a part of the budget for the past several years, Hansen said. “We don’t have anything attached to the money that will encourage cost savings across these small districts, and I think that’s a mistake in SB 188.”  

Hansen then raised the concept of consolidating school districts, while at the same time saying he isn’t trying to say the state ought to have a conversation around consolidation. The state has too many school districts, he said, and topping his list is El Paso County. He also named Otero County, which he said has six districts that are pretty close to each other and of modest size.

“If we’re going to provide extra state money for rural districts, we ought to provide direction on how to save money and consolidate operations,” Hansen said.

He also called it unfair that the students in Swink get twice the per pupil funding of students in Denver, although acknowledging that economies of scale play a role.

Districts can save money by cooperating on different functions, such as superintendents. Nothing in the school finance act encourages that, he said. 

Priola said rural school districts have been “gaming” the school finance act for years, getting disproportionately more revenue by keeping small rural districts separate. If Jefferson County could be one school district, why can’t other counties have just one? he asked.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Weld County, noted kids in the small rural districts already spend an hour or more on the bus. Consolidation would mean more hours spent getting to and from school, she said.

“Consolidation is easier said than done,” she said. 

Consolidating school districts also might require raising mill levies since districts have different mill levy rates.

“They’re not trying to game the system. They’re trying to make it work in their communities,” Kirkmeyer said.

Hansen raised those issues again when the school finance act was reviewed by the Senate on Thursday. He said it’s fine if the legislature wants to make the rural funding addition permanent. But there’s a massive amount of extra administration, whether it’s software, accounting, back office dollars that are a drag on the money we put into classrooms.

“That’s something we should correct,” Hansen said. 

He again pointed to El Paso County, with 15 districts, each with human resource departments, superintendents, accounting departments and software.

“We are continuing a huge amount of overhead expense that isn’t ending up in classrooms,” so students in Otero County’s Swink get double the funding of students in Jeffco or Douglas County, he said. “We need to get serious about reducing overhead in small districts.”

SB 188 won preliminary approval without any additional amendments.

House Bill 1430 did see changes.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Senate had adopted 10 amendments, including six from the House. That included the $6.1 million for the senior services in the Department of Human Services; $2 million from the State Education Fund to increase funding to the Nine Grade Success Grant Program in the Department of Education; $1.5 million for a marijuana entrepreneur’s cash fund, from marijuana tax revenue; and, $2 million in general funds for the Tony Grampsas Youth Services Program, also in the Department of Human Services. That was an amendment from the House that the House did not adopt. 

Another $1 million in general funds would go to a veterans employment program in the Department of Labor and  Employment.

An amendment from Sens. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, and Janice Marchman, D-Berthoud, would direct $300,000 in general funds to the Colorado Energy Office for a feasibility study on small modular nuclear reactors and “molten salt thorium advanced fission reactors.”

An amendment from Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, D-Adams County, would direct $11 million in general funds to Denver Health, which is struggling under a financial crisis due to uncompensated care.

A second Denver Health amendment, from Sens. James Coleman of Denver, Lisa Cutter of Littleton and Kyle Mullica of Northglenn, all Democrats, stated Denver Health would get another $10 million to support immigrant services and dependent on midyear forecasts for Medicaid expenditures.

Sen. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, who has been irritated with the criminal defense community over their efforts to water down a human trafficking bill, attempted two amendment to strip millions from the office of the state public defender.

The amendments did not succeed.

The budget bill, the school finance act and the budget-balancing measure will be up for a final vote on Friday. The school finance act will then head to the House.

The bills then go back to the Joint Budget Committee, which acts as the conference committee charged with coming up with a consensus version on amended measures.