Governor Jared Polis highlights education, safety and housing in 2024 budget proposal
DENVER, Colo. (KRDO) - Governor Jared Polis unveiled his proposal for the state's 2024-25 budget, highlighting education, public safety and housing as his primary goals.
"This budget represents, in many ways a return to a typical Colorado budget year. It's very tight. There's not a lot of extra money floating around this budget. We have to prioritize and make the hard choices informed by our values about where we want to make a difference for the great state of Colorado. And that's why we're focused on the areas that I indicated."
The budget totals $45.8 billion dollars, headlined by a historic effort to fully fund Colorado's public schools.
In Polis' proposal, he allocated over $560 million new dollars to help bolster public education, by getting rid of the Budget Stabilization Factor -- which has restricted the state's ability to fund school districts since the end of the Great Recession in 2009.
"Really, the highlight of this budget in many ways, is full funding of our public schools, and we're excited to invest in reducing class size and paying teachers better. This has been a goal for 14 years." explained Polis.
Polis also pledges $3.5 million dollars, in addition to $35 million in federal aid annually, to help over 300,000 kids in Colorado, with summer meals programs through their school districts.
In regards to tackling housing, Polis slotted $136.6 million dollars -- particularly to help with affordable housing, and the creation of a $35 million dollar state fund to help local governments in creating units near transit stations. The Governor also explaining there will be $30 million in affordable housing tax credits.
It would all help facilitate an ideal lifestyle that Polis wants for the average working Coloradan in the future.
"This exciting vision where people who want to, can live in a place where they can, walk to a rail or bus stop, [and] get to where they want to go. They can have a car for weekend use and sometimes won't even have to have the expense of having a car -- But many people want to live that way. It's a lower cost way of living. It's exciting because it is apart of our housing solution." said Polis during the announcement.
It adds to a constantly rising cost of living in Colorado, a category that has compounded in the state on top of national trends.
"Coloradans are concerned about housing costs, the increased mortgage rates, even just over the last year. Now around 8%, have effectively driven the cost of housing up significantly. And we need to act boldly through the budget piece to make sure that we can build more housing, that people can afford close to where jobs are." explained Polis.
The Governor also allocating parts of the budget toward public safety -- building off of their current plans to help nip crime rates, and continue to decrease car theft state wide.
"We had a strong public safety package last year we want to build, and that invests in evidence driven strategies that will make Colorado a safer place to live."
You can view the Governor's entire budget slideshow here -- and you can download the entire letter the Governor submitted to the General Assembly, here.
The Governor's proposal now goes to the General Assembly, who will ultimately decide the state funding for 2024-25.
