The 2023 legislative session ended May 8, with most of the bills affecting the Division of Local Government's funding programs merely extending the sunset or spending deadlines beyond their original date. Note that not all bills have received Gov. Jared Polis’ signature as of May 16, 2023.
SB23-072 appropriates $1,666,652, provides for 0.4 full-time equivalent, and postpones the sunset of the Defense Counsel First Appearance Program until September 2028. The grants are for costs associated with the provision of defense counsel for defendants at their first appearances in municipal courts.
HB23-1086 amended the Due Process Asset Forfeiture Act to change report requirements, and appropriated $22,549 for 0.2 full-time equivalent in the Office of Information Technology to redesign the report.
SB23-287, or the Public School Finance Act, included a provision for charter schools to be part of the Department of Local Affairs' inventory of local governments. This will ultimately result in the addition of 265 charter schools to the inventory.
SB23-210 contains a provision that allows the Department of Local Affairs Executive Director to reduce the number of Law Enforcement Community Services grant program committee members to to as low as nine from 17.
The housing toolkit extension in HB23-1232 will extend the fund expenditure deadline another year.
The Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Act extension, SB23-016, also extended the Division of Local Government's Renew grant expenditure deadline by two years.
SB23-166 created the Colorado Wildfire Code Board, and the Director of the Colorado Resiliency Office within the Division of Local Government will be a board member.
With SB23-303, voters in November will consider Proposition HH, which would lower the assessment rates of multiple property types for 10 years, reduce actual value for primary residences, restrict local property tax revenue growth for certain local government types, and approve retention of state TABOR surplus to backfill certain local governments affected by reduced assessment rates. HH approval would also result in a separate, uniform TABOR rebate for all Colorado taxpayers.
One bill that did not pass, SB23-213, concerning land use, went through many amendments and in its final version would have created a $15 million grant program in the Division of Local Government. Ultimately, the bill did not cross the finish line.