Newsletter | March 2026

It has been a brutal month at the legislature: the Joint Budget Committee is grappling with a $1.5 billion shortfall because of federal tax cuts for billionaires and our broken tax system here in Colorado.

That’s forced cuts to everything from funding for our Partnership Agreement, to support for Medicaid caregivers to services for adults and children with developmental disabilities, to after-school programs for thousands of kids. Very little has been spared.

We’ve been working hard–with the support of more than 200 members like you who showed up for Lobby Day and sent emails to the JBC–to defend as much of our contract funding as possible, and here’s where we’ve landed.

We are not going backwards.

Most importantly, we are not going backwards: we protected our top priority, your Step Raises. Our first priority was to safeguard the integrity of the system that recognizes the commitment all of you make at work, even in the toughest of times: we’ve ensured you will continue to move up through your salary range.

We were also able to win a 1% pay range adjustment which means many who are at the very bottom of their pay range or about to receive a step will see a modest increase.

We were not able to save our Cost of Living Adjustments, housing funding, or tuition reimbursements: we tried, but the state budget simply ran out of funds.

At the same time, we did stop any increases to our Health, Life, and Dental premiums, saving state employees hundreds of dollars a month, and helping your paychecks go further. We’re proud that we were able to keep healthcare costs stable for you, especially now, when healthcare costs are soaring.

All of this means we’ve kept take-home pay steady: no state employee is going to see their take-home pay go down.

Why $1.5 billion?

Colorado’s budget has been hit hard by the federal funding bill, HR-1, which served up massive tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-rich. That’s cut deeply into state revenue, laying waste to the state budget already under strain because of TABOR. The result is a $1.5 billion shortfall.

What’s next?

The budget and associated bills now go to the House and Senate, then back to the JBC where any amendments need to be accepted before going back to the House and Senate, and eventually to the Governor to sign into law.

The fight ahead.

So what do we do now? We fight even harder, because the impact of the federal spending bill–HR-1–is going to continue hitting us hard next year, and, combined with the constraints imposed by TABOR, leave our state budget in even worse shape.

And whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or an Independent, if you care about your job, the services you provide, and Colorado itself, this is your fight. So here’s our homework.

We need to fix Colorado’s broken tax system.

That starts with winning a Graduated Income Tax this November, which would start to fix our tax code by replacing the current 4.4% flat tax with higher rates for the rich. The top 3%–those earning $500,000 or more–would pay more taxes, and the rest of us would see lower taxes. That would generate about $2 billion in revenues to help pay for schools, healthcare, and child care, and mean more left over in the budget to fund our contract and fix state services.

We need to elect worker-friendly representatives and protect Colorado.

The massive tax cuts in HR-1–the federal spending bill–along with the constraints imposed by TABOR, will continue to devastate our state budget.

That’s why we need to elect worker champions to the state legislature, and to Congress. We must elect the candidates who will defend Colorado’s budget, champion our contract and state services, and fight tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.

We need to oppose private prisons and fix DOC.

Colorado’s voters keep passing ballot initiatives that put more people in prison and keep them there for longer, without providing the additional funding needed for the staff who make our state prisons run.

That’s left our state prison system understaffed and overcrowded–with no tax dollars to fix it– putting our members and public safety at risk. This time around we were able to win a shift relief factor increase for the East Cañon Complex: but we know we need shift relief and a more comprehensive plan to fix the staffing retention crisis across DOC facilities.

The solution is not private prisons, an option budget makers are considering now. Private prisons are bad for our budget, bad for workers, and bad for the incarcerated population.

We know that private prisons cherry pick the easiest to house inmates, leaving the most complex and labor-intensive cases to us, without the additional staffing we need to manage them.

And private prisons don’t save us money in the long run because they’re notorious for keeping inmates past their release dates so they can charge us more.

They’re also bad for workers, paying lower wages and scrimping on benefits.

So while we work for a comprehensive plan to fix DOC, we will also continue to fight the proliferation of private prisons.

Stay tuned on next steps.

Like I said, friend, it has been a brutal budget season. But because of our union, we’ve held steady, instead of going backwards, and we have the power–the strength in numbers and organization–to keep fighting.

Stay tuned for news on a unit-wide membership meeting to discuss any further developments and our next steps.