Bill to
fund water commission jobs killed
Water project loan funding also expected to dry up
Marianne Goodland, Legislative reporter for Sterling Journal
Advocate
Things are about to
get tougher for the Division of Water Resources in enforcing water
rights in the coming year, after the House Appropriations Committee
killed a bill to fund four of the 10 water commissioners who monitor
head gates and water rights.
The appropriations committee voted Friday morning to kill HB 1006,
sponsored by Rep. Kathleen Curry, I-Gunnison. The bill would have
moved funding from the Division of Wildlife, under the Department of
Natural Resources, to fund four vacant water commissioner positions
in the Division of Water Resources.
HB 1006 came out of an interim committee last summer on water
resources. It would have moved $409,000 from a severance tax fund in
the Department of Natural Resources to fund 5.3 full-time equivalent
employees in the Division of Water Resources. According to Curry,
four of those positions would be field positions held by water
commissioners who monitor water rights. The bill moved the Division
of Wildlife into a different funding tier (Tier II), and moved the
Division of Water Resources into Tier I, thereby freeing up the
severance tax money.
The House Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources committee,
however, previously amended the bill to put the DOW back into Tier
I.
On Friday, Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, attempted to undo the
agriculture committee amendment. Under his amendment, the dollars
freed up by moving DOW back to Tier II could go the Colorado Water
Conservation Board, which is bracing to lose $19 million in loan
funding for water projects, some which were due to be reviewed next
month and in May.
Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, who chairs the appropriations
committee, argued that the state is in a funding crisis and now is
not the time to be funding more state employees. He pointed to a
recent press conference by Senate Republicans who argued that the
state should be cutting 2,300 positions hired in the past year
instead of eliminating tax exemptions on such things as agricultural
pesticides, candy and soda, and online software sales. “This is
exactly the problem we had,” Pommer said. Republicans are saying
“cut FTE, but not my favorite FTE.”
Curry argued that the bill would cash fund the water commissioners
and that the interim water committee had found another way to do it.
Sonnenberg argued for funding the positions.
“The state engineer is charged with administering state waters,”
he said. “When it comes to setting priorities we've found money
for this priority. It's important to have people watching the head
gates, to make sure Denver gets the water it needs and farmers on
the East and West slope get the water they're entitled to.”
Without the water commissioners who monitor the head gates,
Sonnenberg said, people will change the head gates and there will be
no one to watch it.
“This is law enforcement as far as I'm concerned,” he said.
Sonnenberg also pointed out that the Division of Wildlife has other
ways to fund its programs, such as hunter or sportsmen licenses.
Other committee members saw the severance tax money as a potential
source for balancing the budget. Rep. Joel Judd, D-Denver, who
chairs the House Finance Committee, said if DOW didn't need the
money it ought to be transferred to the general fund and be
available for programs that are a higher priority. This money would
be more useful to the state to cover budget cuts instead of raising
revenue through tax exemptions, said Pommer.
Sonnenberg's amendment was opposed by ag committee chair Rep. Randy
Fischer, D-Fort Collins, who said he did not support the original
bill.
Sonnenberg's amendment was adopted on a 7-6 vote, with support from
Pommer.
But that wasn't enough to get the bill out of the appropriations
committee, and Pommer voted against the bill when the time came to
send it to the full House for debate. That killed the bill on a 7-6
vote.
“The number one challenge is to balance the budget,” Pommer said
in explaining his “no” vote.
Next week, the appropriations committee will hear a bill that will
wipe out loan funding for water projects for 2010-11 for the
Colorado Water Conservation Board. Under HB 1327, which is sponsored
by the Joint Budget Committee as part of its budget-balancing
package, the CWCB would lose $19.6 million in its construction fund
that gets money from federal mineral lease revenue. CWCB Director
Jennifer Gimbel said this week anything that has already been
approved and under contract would be okay. In 2009, the CWCB
provided $1.494 million in loan funding for a pipeline project for
the Fort Morgan Reservoir and Irrigation Company.
The CWCB is scheduled in March and May to hear funding requests
totaling $4 million for four projects, but that money is now gone,
Gimbel said.
The construction fund also covers other CWCB projects, such as
maintaining a satellite monitoring system and funding a
stream-gauging program to support more than 500 operated and
maintained gauges through the state. According to a CWCB review of
the projects, the gauges “are critical for administering thousands
of water rights for municipal, industrial, agriculture, domestic,
recreation and environmental uses,” as well as vital for state
compact administration, dam safety, and flood monitoring and
warning. Losing the funding for the gauges, about $250,000, would
“cripple state and local efforts to utilize the state's water
resources,” and hamper collection of data used for assessment of
climate change and to address future water shortage.
HB 1327 is scheduled to be heard Tuesday by the House Appropriations
Committee.
In other news, the Senate this week gave final approval to a package
of tax exemption and income tax policy change bills that could raise
up to $140 million to help cover shortfalls in the state's 2010-11
budget.
The Senate voted 18-16 to approve HB 1190, which would lift state
sales and use tax exemptions on energy use for industrial purposes.
The bill was amended to entirely exempt agricultural uses, a win for
Colorado farmers. The Senate also approved HB 1195, which would lift
state sales and use tax exemptions for agricultural products such as
pesticides and bull semen. That bill won final approval on an 18-17
vote.
Sonnenberg said this week that he spent $70,000 in 2009 on
pesticides, and that he would have paid more than $2,000 in taxes
for those products had the exemptions not been in place.
During final debate on HB 1195, several members of the Colorado
Wheat Administrative Committee were on the floor of the senate. Dave
and Dan Anderson from Haxtun noted that they farm 7,500 acres. In
addition to using agricultural chemicals, they also sell them. Only
six states have taxes on agricultural chemicals, they pointed out,
and Nebraska isn't one of them. The Andersons anticipate losing
business to Nebraska, and also are contemplating purchasing those
chemicals in Nebraska.
“This is cruel human policy,” said Sen. Shawn Mitchell,
R-Broomfield. “This will sound a death knell for 3,000 jobs in
Colorado and is a cruel blow to farming families.”
However, Sen. Michael Johnston, D-Denver, pointed out that
agricultural producers had been exempted from HB 1190, and that the
revenue generated will protect K-12 teacher jobs.
Read
more news - click here
|
.jpg)
