DENVER— In an unprecedented move, the Senate has rejected the long-bill presented by the Joint Budget Committee. Today, a bipartisan group decided to send the budget bill back to the Joint Budget Committee and refused to allow almost $300 million in cuts to higher education which was laid out in the 2009-10 budget.
“It is unconscionable to allow these kinds of cuts to higher education,” said Senate President Peter Groff (D-Denver). “After meeting with leadership on both sides of the aisle, it was clear that the Joint Budget Committee had to go back to the drawing board. The long bill cannot balance the state’s budget on the backs of the students, parents and teachers we have spent so many months and years trying to elevate through our educational policies. This long bill needs to be deliberative and sensitive to the very serious needs of higher education in this state.”
The Joint Budget Committee will meet at 1:30p today to go back over the long- bill and make changes before the Senate hears it on the floor.
[...] Groff will resign as top dog for a position with the Obama administration. That news comes as the Colorado Senate announced this afternoon that it rejected the long bill sending the proposed state budget back to the Joint Budget Committee for the first time in [...]
[...] leaders from both sides of the aisle agreed to send the state budget — known as the Long Bill — back to the Joint Budget Committee for retooling. The committee, made up of four Democrats and two Republicans, lobbed the bill right back to the [...]