DENVER — Gov. Jared Polis signed the 2024-25 budget on Monday.
Lawmakers joke that the day the governor signs the budget, it will no longer be balanced as the state constitution requires.
But this year is a little different: That's because of an interpretation on funding for the state's reinsurance program, and that will require legislation on the quick to get the budget back into balance.
It started with the state's annual financial audit, dated June 30, 2023, and published in February (this becomes important later). The audit discussed the problem, which started with legislation passed in 2020 — Senate Bill 215 — that created the Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise, which pays for the state's reinsurance program. That's the kind of insurance for insurance companies to cover those extraordinarily large health insurance claims (think $1 million or more), using fees paid to the state and placed into an enterprise.
That's a type of state-run business, and the revenue that goes into that enterprise, which is paid for by insurance companies, is outside of TABOR revenue calculations.
However, other revenue goes into the enterprise, which caused the problem that Joint Budget Committee members have been dealing with since last Friday.
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