Amendment 78 would transfer power of custodial funds to legislature

Every year, the state of Colorado receives money–custodial funds–from the federal government, settlement dollars from lawsuits and through gifts and grants. These funds are generally set aside to fund particular legislative programs, for example, emergency wildfire or COVID funds.

These monies are currently handled by the state treasurer and individual agencies who oversee the disbursement to various programs. However, Amendment 78 seeks to change this model and instead have all custodial funds go through the state legislature.

The amendment would also create a new fund for these custodial monies. Interest gained off them would then be put toward the general fund. This is notable because as it currently stands, the state agency which receives the money has discretion on how to spend the interest.

“It’s [a] transparency and accountability measure,” said Michael Fields, a sponsor of the measure. “The biggest thing is that all state money would have to go through the state legislature and have a public hearing.”

This amendment has had some major pushback, however. Summit County Commissioner Tamara Pogue and Bell Policy Center’s Scott Wasserman even filed a lawsuit against Amendment 78 being allowed on the ballot. The main argument was that the amendment is not “substantially related” to the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), which requires voter approval for new taxes or mill levies, increases, extensions and/or policy changes. Additionally, because TABOR limits how much money the state can accept and spend, collected money that exceeds the TABOR limit is supposed to be refunded to taxpayers.

“Specifically, they say the Governor shouldn’t have the unilateral authority to spend emergency dollars,” Pogue said.

Pogue, and other opponents of the measure, such as Club 20, argue that the measure would create unnecessary steps and warn that such a change in policy and process would slow disbursement of vital funds, especially while the legislature is not in session (typically between May and Dec.).

Fields, in contrast, says that the legislature likely won’t need to be in session provided that they “do the planning ahead of time.” Instead, he said that the legislature could have continual appropriation of these funds to their various programs.

Joint Budget Committee chair Dominick Moreno, a democrat, reportedly supports the transparency that would be created by the amendment. But, he has said that there may be unintended consequences that would make budgeting more difficult, especially if funds are allocated before the money has actually been created.

Since this is a constitutional amendment, the measure needs at least 55% voter approval in order to pass.

There are no officially registered issue committees for this amendment.