Sen. Dylan Roberts and Rep. Meghan Lukens fielded questions Sunday, March 9, at a town hall at the Eagle Public Library attended by more than 60 members of the public.

The Colorado state Legislature is about halfway through its 2025 legislative session. Roberts and Lukens, who represent Eagle County and other Western Slope counties, shared insights from the Capitol on the state budget, Medicaid, education funding, Interstate 70, and a bill restricting the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms.

State budget to endure $1.1 billion in cuts

The Colorado state Legislature is constitutionally required to pass a balanced budget each year. This year, the state Legislature will need to cut $1.1 billion from state-funded programs.

---

---

A bipartisan committee made up of three members from the House of Representatives and three from the Senate will be going through the budget line by line to pinpoint where cuts need to be made. The cuts will likely touch many areas of state spending, including Medicaid, the department of corrections and education.

The budget shortfall stems from a variety of reasons, including ballooning costs for Medicaid and inflation, but the most prominent is the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, formula for the general fund, which is based on general inflation and population growth.

---

---

“Even though our economy is doing well, one of the best in the nation, the TABOR formula restricts what our general fund budget can be,” Roberts said.

The new presidential administration’s freeze on some federal funding has “caused some uncertainty” in the state’s budgeting, Roberts said. Transportation, infrastructure, higher education and Medicaid are among the areas that have been impacted by the freeze.

While Roberts said he and Lukens will advocate for the issues that matter to rural Coloradans, “there is no way around the very difficult position the state legislature is going to be in the next few weeks when we prepare our state budget, which has to pass by mid-April or so.”

Medicaid funding on the chopping block

“At the state level, I don’t think there’s a way for us to balance our budget without making some cuts to Medicaid,” Roberts said. “Not because we want to, but because we have to.”

Medicaid is funded through a combination of federal and state support. As federal cuts to Medicaid loom while the number of enrollees rise and the cost of medical care skyrockets, Colorado is also considering making cuts to its Medicaid funding.

This might look like fewer services covered, or reductions in qualifications, but the state will likely remain committed to provider reimbursements, Roberts said. 

Will cuts avoid education funding?

Just last year, the state Legislature eliminated the budget stabilization factor for education funding for the first time since it was instated in 2008. The budget stabilization factor essentially allowed the state government to balance its budget by dipping into funding for K-12 education.

As budget cuts loom, Lukens addressed concerns that K-12 education will again be impacted.

“From my understanding, the joint budget committee does not want to take from K-12 education,” Lukens said. “There was a proposal in the governor’s budget to get rid of averaging, and that has become very controversial.”

School funding for each district is based on a per-pupil formula tied to an enrollment count completed in October. Most school districts in the state, including the Eagle County School District, are facing declining enrollment.

Currently, districts are allowed to calculate a five-year average for their per-pupil counts, which softens the blow of declining enrollments. If the state eliminates averaging, some schools may receive significantly less funding going forward than they are accustomed to receiving.

But Lukens said most state legislators she interacts with are not in favor of abruptly eliminating averaging.

“We are working really hard to ensure that K-12 education is receiving the funding that they deserve,” she said.

Cracking down on chainless I-70 vehicles

Eagle County residents know all too well the impact of closures on I-70, and Roberts addressed some of the bills from last year and this year targeted at improving safety on the interstate. Lawmakers passed a bill last year to keep semis out of the left lane in certain key areas along I-70, including Dowd Junction, Vail Pass and Glenwood Canyon. The left lane restrictions went into effect this past summer, “but we know that it has had limited enforcement as of now,” Roberts said. “We’re working on working with the state patrol to enforce those laws.”

The Colorado Department of Transportation will also install more signage on I-70 this summer.

Senate Bill 100, also passed last year, requires big-rig truckers to carry chains from the beginning of September to the end of May. Despite more enforcement from the Colorado State Patrol, semis lacking chains continue to create messes on the interstate.

This legislative session, Roberts said he and Lukens are both working on a bill that will “authorize third party companies to station themselves on the side of the highway at chain up stations and help truckers put their chains on.” The trucking companies would pay for the assistance, not taxpayers.

“I think this will make a big difference, because what I hear from the Vail Police Department and from the Eagle County Sheriff’s (Office) is that when people are pulling their trucks over at these chain up stations, they are from Florida or Georgia or California, they have never seen snow before,” Roberts said. “They are not ready to put chains on, and they are not even stopping.”

Lodging taxes, booting in rental parking lots, gun laws

Eagle County Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney asked Roberts and Lukens to support House Bill 1247, which would provide counties the ability, with voter approval, to levy a lodging tax up to 6%. The funds can be used to fund community needs like housing and child care.

Currently, counties can only levy a lodging tax of up to 2%. In Eagle County, the funding generated from that tax on visitors pays out monthly stipends to early childhood care providers. Roberts said he would try to hold the line at 6%.

One attendee asked Lukens and Roberts to fight against House Bill 1117, which places more stringent requirements upon vehicle booting companies, including requiring companies to provide 24-hour written notice to vehicles they plan to immobilize.

Concerns have been raised about the bill, including that skiers will knowingly take advantage of the 24-hour notice to park in private lots. This may block residents of apartment complexes from parking by their homes, leaving people in mountain communities with no alternative as overnight street parking is typically prohibited due to snow removal efforts in the winter.

“It sounds like a problem that may be coming from some of our Front Range colleagues that will have disproportional impacts on rural resort communities,” Lukens said.

Roberts also responded to a question regarding his vote to approve Senate Bill 3, which requires that people trying to purchase a firearm that accepts detachable magazines take a safety course. The process is similar to the one to obtain a concealed carry permit, Roberts said.

“This bill is about making sure that those who need a little extra training on the very high-power firearms with the detachable magazines receive that training,” Roberts said.

While Roberts said he would not have voted for the bill as introduced, which included a complete ban on the sale of firearms that accept detachable magazines, he approved of the amended version.

“If you think about some of the tragedies that we’ve had in Colorado, whether it be the movie theater shooting (in Aurora in 2012), or the King Soopers shooting in Boulder (in 2021), if those two … individuals had to go through this gun safety course, I think they would have been stopped from buying those firearms,” Roberts said.

The bill does not confiscate weapons already owned, place restrictions on the sale of guns without detachable magazines or create a registry of gun owners. The house still needs to approve the bill for it to move toward going into law.

This story is from VailDaily.com.