The act expands a program, which had been scheduled to repeal on July 1, 2023, that allows a public employees' retirement association (PERA) service retiree to work full-time without any reduction in the service retiree's retirement benefits for a rural school district that has a critical shortage of qualified individuals with specific experience, skills, or qualifications that the service retiree has by: Making the program permanent; Adding school nurses and paraprofessionals to those who are eligible for post-PERA retirement full-time employment; and Allowing a board of cooperative services or a charter school that is located within a rural school district and that has such a critical shortage to participate in the program. The act also requires PERA to submit additional reports, containing the same types of information as the initial report that PERA submitted as required by law in 2020, to the finance committees of the general assembly on or before December 1, 2025, and on or before December 1 of each fifth year thereafter. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Sponsored bills
Colorado law sets weight limits for vehicles that travel over roads. One of the factors that determines a vehicle's weight limit is whether a load is divisible, which means that the load can be divided up to lower its weight. The act deems that a load of fluid milk products carried by a vehicle is not a divisible load. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Section 1 of the act authorizes the public utilities commission (PUC) to approve utilities' applications to build new transmission facilities if the PUC, consistent with its authority, finds that the new facilities would assist the utilities in meeting the state's clean energy goals established in 2019. In constructing or expanding transmission facilities, a utility must use its own employees, engage a contractor whose employees have access to federally approved apprenticeship programs, or both. Section 1 also requires the PUC to consider the ability of the proposed facilities to support future expansion as needed to enable the utility to participate in an organized wholesale market (OWM), which is defined in section 2 as an organization established for the purpose of coordinating and managing the transmission of electricity among multiple public utilities on a multistate or regional basis. An application for construction or expansion of transmission facilities is deemed approved if the PUC does not deny it within 240 days after the application is complete and public notice has been given.Section 6 imposes a 180-day deadline for approval by a local government if local government approval is required.Sections 4 and 7 create the Colorado electric transmission authority (CETA) as an independent special purpose authority, and section 4 specifies the composition and manner of appointment of the board of directors that governs the authority. CETA is authorized to select a qualified transmission operator to finance, plan, acquire, maintain, and operate eligible electric transmission and interconnected storage facilities (eligible facilities).Under sections 4, 8, and 9, CETA is granted various powers necessary to accomplish its purposes, including the power to:Issue revenue bonds; Identify and establish intrastate electric transmission corridors; Coordinate with other entities to establish interstate electric transmission corridors; Exercise the power of eminent domain to acquire eligible facilities; and Collect payments of reasonable rates, fees, interest, or other charges from persons using eligible facilities. CETA is generally subject to state open-records and open-meetings requirements, but proprietary confidential information that it holds, including power purchase agreements, costs of production, costs of transmission, transmission service agreements, credit reviews, detailed power models, and financing statements, is not subject to inspection. Section 10 authorizes payment of CETA's administrative expenses, not to exceed $500,000 annually, from an existing cash fund administered by the PUC.Section 2 sets out deadlines and conditions under which an electric utility that owns and controls transmission facilities (transmission utility) is required to join an OWM. The commission may delay or waive this requirement for a utility that is unable, despite its best efforts, to find a viable and available OWM to join or if the commission determines, based on its evaluation of specified factors, that requiring the transmission utility to join an OWM would not be in the public interest. A transmission utility that joins an OWM may recover costs of participating in the OWN from its ratepayers.Under current law, a cooperative electric association with an electric easement on real property is authorized to install or to allow a commercial broadband supplier to install broadband facilities on the real property, subject to notice and procedural requirements. Section 3 expands the authorization to apply to any non-investor-owned, non-municipally-owned, vertically integrated supplier of electric energy to its customers or members.Section 9 specifies that when a right-of-way is taken for an interstate electric transmission line, the court shall evaluate public purpose in light of the transmission system as a whole, including public use and benefits occurring either within Colorado or at a regional level.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act allocates $20 million from the general fund to the Colorado water conservation board (CWCB) to be spent to implement the state water plan as follows:$15 million, which is transferred to the water plan implementation cash fund and appropriated to the department of natural resources for expenditures and grants administered by the CWCB to implement the state water plan; and $5 million, which is transferred to the water supply reserve fund for the CWCB to disperse to the basin roundtables. The act also establishes a minimum 25% matching fund requirement for the water plan implementation grant program; except that, during 2021 and 2022, the CWCB can reduce the minimum match requirement.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act appropriates the following amounts from the Colorado water conservation board (CWCB) construction fund to the CWCB or the division of water resources in the department of natural resources for the following projects:Continuation of the satellite monitoring system, $100,000 (section 1 of the act); Continuation of the Colorado floodplain map modernization program, $500,000 (section 2); Continuation of the weather modification permitting program, $350,000 (section 3); and Continuation of technical assistance for federal cost-share programs, $300,000 (section 4). Section 5 directs the state treasurer to transfer up to $2,000,000 from the CWCB construction fund to the litigation fund on July 1, 2021.Section 6 appropriates $3,000,000 from the CWCB construction fund to the department of natural resources for use by the CWCB to make a grant to the Colorado Rio Grande Restoration Foundation in furtherance of the San Luis valley confined aquifer recovery project.Section 7 reinstates severance tax funding of the water efficiency grant program by authorizing a transfer of $550,000 in each state fiscal year commencing on or after July 1, 2020, from the grant program reserve of the severance tax operational fund, which reserve is part of the "tier 2" funding that is used only if the general assembly chooses not to spend 100% of the money in the operational fund on core departmental programs, to the water efficiency grant program cash fund. The reinstated funding is repealed on July 1, 2030, when the water efficiency grant program is scheduled to repeal.Section 8 restores the continuous appropriation of $150,000 from the CWCB construction fund to the CWCB for the ongoing operations of a water education foundation, which is currently known as Water Education Colorado, which continuous appropriation was repealed in HB 20-1403, enacted in 2020.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The sale of wood and wood products from trees killed by pine and spruce beetles in the state was exempt from sales and use tax from 2008 through June 2020. The act extends the exemption from July 1, 2021, through June 2026.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act transfers $30 million from the general fund to the Colorado water conservation board construction fund and appropriates the money for use by the Colorado water conservation board (CWCB) to protect watersheds against the impacts of wildfires through the existing watershed restoration grant program and for conducting a statewide watershed analysis to investigate the susceptibility of life, safety, infrastructure, and water supplies to wildfire impacts. The CWCB can use up to 5% of the money to administer the grant program and up to 10% to provide technical engineering services to grantees. The CWCB is directed to:Spend up to $500,000 by December 31, 2022, to conduct the analysis; and Award at least $10 million dollars in grants under the grant program by July 1, 2022, and award the remaining money, less the money the CWCB uses to administer the grant program and provide technical engineering services, in grants by December 31, 2022.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act provides additional options for financing forest health projects by authorizing:A separate legal entity created by a combination of local governments as authorized by current law to establish special or local improvement districts within the boundaries of the combination and levy special assessments on property specially benefited by improvements, functions, services or facilities, including forest health projects, that the separate legal entity is authorized to provide; Counties, municipalities, special districts, water conservancy districts, the Colorado river water conservation district, and the southwestern water conservation district to conduct or participate in and finance forest health projects; and Authorizing a forest improvement district to use its sales tax revenue for forest health projects. The act also adds to the definition of "forest health project" management actions that improve the ecological health of a forest or reduce the threat of forest disease epidemics or high-intensity wildfires, and postpones the scheduled repeal of the statute that authorizes the Colorado water resources power and development authority to issue bonds to fund watershed protection projects and forest health projects from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2033.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
For a mutual ditch corporation, the act clarifies that, subject to the articles of incorporation and bylaws of the corporation:When stockholder demand exceeds supply, the corporation may limit or otherwise rotate delivery of water ratably among the stockholders; and When a stockholder is not using some of or all of the available water under the stockholder's shares, the remaining stockholders taking delivery of water through the ditch may use any unused portion of the water that would otherwise have been available to the first stockholder. The act specifies that it is not intended to prevent a stockholder from changing the use of the water rights represented by the stockholder's shares, create any impediments to changes in use, affect storage water rights, or change the standards for water court approval to change a water right.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)