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Single-Pay Health-Care Study Dies
...Colorado legislators quietly killed a bill Sunday to study implementation of a single-payer health-care system, letting it die on the Senate calendar rather than give it a vote of preliminary approval that was needed to pass it officially on the final day of the legislative session.
...Rep. Andy Boesenecker, D-Fort Collins, wanted through House Bill 1209 to have the Colorado School of Public Health work with a task force to analyze the costs and benefits of putting a government-paid health-care system into place in this state. The task force would have had to create model legislation for such a move and submit a report by October 2024 that analyzed costs, identified potential funding sources, analyzed connections to federal law and confirmed that the legislation would have had the desired results.
...Boesenecker acknowledged in a presentation to the Colorado Chamber of Commerce’s health policy council in March that implementation of such a systeMmmsimilar to those used in Canada and much of Europe, would be incompatible with some reforms pushed by Gov. Jared Polis over the past four years. In particular, a single-payer system would negate the Colorado Option program in which insurers are required to offer lower-cost health-care plans to save state residents money.
... ......…….........................................…Legislators Kill Single-Pay
Air Quality Reform
..An air-quality permitting reform bill originally criticized as a “backdoor ban on oil and gas” underwent a third major set of revisions during a rare Sunday legislative session, and business leaders are breathing a sigh of relief about the impact the current version may have on industry.
...House Bill 1294, introduced in mid-April with less than a month left in the 2023 legislative session, sought at first to ramp up permitting requirements on what are considered minor sources of air pollution and to make state government investigate more complaints in this area. It came shortly after Gov. Jared Polis directed two state agencies to enact rules to cut ozone-producing nitrous oxide emissions from oil and gas wells, and the more significant changes it proposed ran into opposition from energy firms, business groups and the Polis administration.
...Sponsoring Democratic Reps. Jennifer Bacon of Denver and Jenny Willford of Northglenn first scaled back the most serious permitting upgrades to ideas to be studied by an interim legislative committee but still launched rulemakings to push outcomes like electric drilling equipment. Then, with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment saying the investigatory and rule requirements would necessitate $31 million in funding, they removed timelines for investigations, deleted requirements on new emissions standards and eliminated a provision wrapping minor sources of emissions into regulations of the air-pollutant control program
Air Quality Permitting
Right Of First Refusal ..
…A bill that would make Colorado the first state in the nation to give local governments a first right of refusal on many apartment complexes that go up for sale received its long-delayed approval from the Senate late Saturday following a sometimes-rancorous debate.
...House Bill 1190 and its controversial policy still must receive concurrence from the House on the significant changes it’s undergone from its original form, and it must get a signature from Gov. Jared Polis, who’s focused his housing-reform lens so far on building more housing units. But after being delayed on the Senate calendar since April 4, a bill that many legislative observers felt had reached an insurmountable wall moved forward, with another round of amendments, to what is expected to be official final approval from the body on the next-to-last day of the 2023 session on Sunday.
...Republicans did not allow it to pass easily, holding it up for nearly five hours in debate in which GOP Sens. Bob Gardner of Colorado Springs and Barbara Kirkmeyer of Brighton picked apart every detail of legislation they said will have a chilling effect on multifamily housing investment. By the time co-sponsoring Sen. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, allowed a final amendment to tone down its provisions onto HB 1190, she said the changes may make it hard for governments to use the new law — but the amendments seemed to ease the fears of skeptical Democrats.…………………………….……..
……………,,,,,,,,,,,,,…….…………….…….Right Of First Refusal
Bill Addresses Tipping
…From McDonalds to Walmart, numerous businesses throughout the country prohibit their employees from accepting tips. But that practice could soon come to an end in Colorado. If signed into law, House Bill 1146 would ban employers from punishing employees who accept cash tips from patrons of the business. The bill would not apply to employees in health care facilities, senior care facilities, casinos and those required to be licensed, certified or registered under Title 12.
…The bill passed its last vote in the state legislature on Sunday.
"We need to get back to being a society that encourages good service and good work," said bill sponsor Rep. Alex Valdez, D-Denver, while presenting the bill in committee. "We want to make sure that doesn't disappear in our cash-strapped economy."
…Valdez said many of the employees who are forbidden from accepting tips work service-related minimum wage jobs, earning only $13.65 an hour. While this is among the highest minimum wages in the country, Valdez said it is "still not enough to make a living in my district and in many parts of the state." From McDonalds to Walmart, numerous businesses throughout the country prohibit their employees from accepting tips. But that practice could soon come to an end in Colorado.
.Tipping
Bill Eyes Retail Fee
…Colorado’s recently enacted retail delivery fee isn’t going away. But at least it’s getting easier for retailers with delivery arms to administer.
…Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday signed into law Senate Bill 143, which aims to fix what many businesses identify the most problematic aspect of the fee — that they must break out its cost on each bill and require their customers to pay the fee.
…Beginning on July 1, the businesses can pay the 27-cent fee themselves, and any company that did less than $500,000 in sales the previous year is exempt from having to pay the fee at all./
…….Retail Delivery
Energy Proposal Clears Hurdle
….A proposal from Democratic lawmakers intended to address Colorado's skyrocketing energy prices cleared its last major legislative hurdle on Saturday.
…Senate Bill 291 seeks to lower costs of utility bills and reduce future volatility by making several changes to the regulation of Colorado's investor-owned electricity and natural gas providers, such as Xcel Energy, including adjusting the expenses that are paid by utility providers versus customers.
..The bill passed the House on Saturday, following the Senate's passage last month. Now, it just needs amendments to be approved before it will be sent to the governor for final consideration.
…“Coloradans are counting on us to address rising and erratic utility costs,” said bill sponsor Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, D-Lakewood.
Energy Costs
TABOR On November Ballot
…Legislators advanced two proposals tied to providing Colorado business and residential property owners will have a choice on the November ballot to reduce property-tax assessments in a way that could save them some $10 billion over 10 years but that also holds the possibility of wiping out Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights refunds forever.
...Following a chaotic eight-day period that began with Gov. Jared Polis announcing his long-rumored plan to offer property-tax relief and ended with House Republicans walking out of their chamber to protest a lack of debate on that bill, legislators have put a plan in place.
...That sweeping plan involves reductions in property-tax assessments and rates, soft caps on property-tax growth, an offering of the same $661 TABOR refunds to every Coloradan next year and a proposal to grow the TABOR revenue cap on a 1% compounding basis for at least 10.
…….Tabor Refunds On Ballot
Tax Enhanced Zones?
....Hoping to grow businesses in the semiconductor and advanced-manufacturing industries, the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade wants to replicate its popular enterprise-zone program with tax-enhanced zones specifically for those sectors.
....A bill moving easily through the Colorado Legislature in the final days of its session would create new tax incentives targeted at those industries. The effort comes as the federal government prepares to dole out $280 billion to these sectors over the next five years as part of the CHIPS (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors) and Science Act.
....To be sure, Colorado is not in the running for the multi-billion-dollar semiconductor manufacturing plants that states like Ohio and Arizona have begun to lay the groundwork for, but OEDIT officials believe companies supplying the semiconductor industry can benefit. And House Bill 1260 sets aside $75 million over the next five years as incentives to attract those companies and expand those firms with a presence already here, believing that money can leverage even larger sums coming from Washington D.C.
.g.............................……. ,,,,,Semiconductor Industry
Equal Pay For Equal Work
…Despite extensive negotiations on the part of business leaders, a bill to add more regulations to Colorado’s equal-pay law is on its way to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk in largely the same shape in which it was introduced in late January.
…Senate Bill 105, sponsored by Democratic Sens. Jessie Danielson of Wheat Ridge and Janet Buckner of Aurora, received its final legislative approval Thursday when the Senate concurred with a small amendment added by the House. Now it remains to be seen if the Democratic governor will sign into law a bill with which the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment has expressed concerns.
…Business leaders have, for more than a year, complained about some of the effects of the 2019-passed Equal Pay for Equal Work law, specifically its requirement that any company advertising a job opening must include a salary range. That’s led to national attention on the roughly 100 companies with no physical presence in Colorado that have said state residents are not welcome to apply for remote-enabled jobs in order to avoid complying with rules more stringent than those in any other state.
.Equal Pay
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