The Colorado General Assembly is in the final stretch of the 2026 legislative session, which is set to adjourn next Wednesday. On Friday, lawmakers are set for floor votes and hearings to advance legislation, and the governor is signing more bills into law — including the state budget for the next fiscal year.
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This story will be updated throughout the day.
1:40 p.m. update: Gov. Jared Polis signed into law the final state budget of his tenure this afternoon, a $46.8 billion spending plan that required some $1 billion in cuts to make up for changes to federal tax code and exploding costs in must-spend areas like Medicaid.
Polis hailed budget writers for preserving education funding despite making steep cuts for the third time in two years, but he chuckled when talking about healthcare cuts.
“Healthcare costs cannot go up at 10, 11% year to year, “ Polis said. “That’s ridiculous, and what I’ve been kind of talking (about) is it’s especially ridiculous because it’s not like health outcomes are getting better at 10 or 11% (increases). And when health outcomes are the same, it’s just idiocy to spend more money. When you get the same for less, you do it.”
Polis, who is term-limited from seeking reelection, did not take questions from the media at the bill-signing ceremony.
Members of the budget-writing committee described lost sleep and tears as they wrestled with cuts, specifically those to Medicaid that would result in less coverage for low-income children. People with children and family members with severe developmental disabilities worry that cuts to their supports will mean they can’t afford to care for their loved ones.
The budget includes $17.4 billion in general fund dollars, which accounts for most of the state’s direct tax collections and its most flexible spending. The general fund increased by about $212 million compared to last year, which is less than the rising costs in Medicaid alone — meaning the state had to cut specific programs within Medicaid and elsewhere to make up the difference.
“This year was incredibly difficult and challenged each of us in a myriad of ways that put our values to the test,” said Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who chairs the Joint Budget Committee. “It’s a zero-sum game. A dollar here means a dollar less over there.”
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Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican on the committee, described “a lot of tears,” particularly when lawmakers listened to testimony from children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“That will go down for me as one of the hardest days I’ve ever had. I dropped my head so many times because I couldn’t wipe the tears out of my eyes,” he said. “This was a tough budget, and nobody won.”
Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the JBC who’s running for governor, highlighted a secondary bill that will require a deep dive into the state’s healthcare programs. Colorado Medicaid serves more than 1 million state residents. She called the state’s rising healthcare costs “the No. 1 that we have to consider” in any budget year.
While Polis and others celebrated that the state kept education funding at constitutionally mandated levels, Sen. Jeff Bridges pointed to a pair of studies that showed the state was still billions of dollars short when it came to education funding. “I don’t love this budget,” said Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, and he called the cuts “extraordinarily painful.”
But he also praised the work of the committee and staff for the thoughtful approach to the cuts.
“We have done the least harm that is possible to do through the cuts that we have been required to make, through changes at the federal level and restrictions that we have here in place in our own constitution,” Bridges said. “That said, this has been the possible outcome.”
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