Colo. Amasses $3.7B In Unpaid Obligations : $1.1 Billion Shortfall Anticipated In 2011-12

ch 7 News ^ | December 5, 2010 | Justin Adams

[george76]

In its struggles to deliver balanced state budgets over the past 10 years, Colorado has amassed $3.7 billion in obligations that it may never pay.

That sum includes severance taxes taken from municipalities, funds collected for such state services as tourism promotion and waste tire cleanup that were never delivered, prison and school bus costs that were never paid for, and other accounting tricks.

State budget analysts told the Legislature's Joint Budget Committee in November that the 2011-2012 budget, with an anticipated $1.1 billion shortfall, no longer includes the $3.7 billion cut over the years.

The amounts were included in the small print in annual budgets over the years, but this was the first year budget analysts even tried to add up the cost of these potential obligations, and ...

Potential state obligations include $430 million to cover lost federal funds for Medicaid; $264 million to fund a state reserve designed to cover any spending that exceeds constitutional spending limits; $90 million to cover a 2003 accounting trick in which the state moved one monthly paycheck for state employees into the next fiscal year; $705 million to reinstate public school finance cuts; and $103 million to restore a tax break for senior citizens.

[Cobra64]

The Greek columns didn't last long, huh?

Post Obama celebration mess:

.

All things considered, it fits the Obama model.

[CowboyJay]

"CO is a sanctuary state isn’t it? Sorta like CA."

For both illegals and liberals from CA, unfortunately.

Illegals are only part of the problem. Shrinking populations in rural counties, plus out of staters moving into Denver-Boulder. For better or worse, the Denver-Boulder cabal in the statehouse runs pretty much everything now.

[Brilliant]

I am not sure who would be stupid enough to buy bond issued by these bankrupt states. Hopefully, it’s Soros.

[FatherFig1o155]

I went to school in Boulder in the 70s.

Back then, it used to be that the state was 90% conservative except for the few Marxist enclaves like Boulder.

What happened to that beautiful state?

[US Navy Vet]

California

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

The ‘RATS took over. Whaddya expect?

[jimt]

Deport the illegals and most problems get a whole lot smaller...

[HKMk23]

Gee, what a shocker! Or not.

This headline:
Liberals Win Control of <insert government X here>

Will ALWAYS, INEVITABLY be followed by this one:
<insert government X here> Sinks Under <insert huge dollar value here> Debt

[cookcounty]

The Dems are SO PROUD that they turned the state blue....and are now doing to Colorado what they did to California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Massachussetts, and Illinois.