DECEMBER | 2025

The Governor’s Office recently submitted their budget request on October 31. The request was for $50.7 billion in total funds for fiscal year 2026-27, a 5.65 percent increase over the current fiscal year’s budget. Colorado’s fiscal outlook includes stagnating state revenue and a decrease in federal spending that the state will be required to backfill or cut. The majority of the spending increase is driven by the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, HCPF, while several departments’ budgets are declining or held flat.

As the State of Colorado navigates considerable budget challenges, a central question that has arisen with renewed intensity is whether the state primarily has a “revenue” problem or a “spending” problem. How that question is answered usually is anchored in political ideology with selective focus on data to support one’s position. This report provides an evidence-based analysis of this question, with a broad look at five key measures to assess the rate of growth in revenue and state appropriations. 

SEPTEMBER | 2025

Regarding the Healthy School Meals for All Program and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program

Why this Report?

Ballot measures reach voters through the General Assembly, known as referred measures, or when citizens initiate measures. Leading up to election day, Colorado voters typically receive information from the Blue Book voting guide, which provides a nonpartisan summary of the measure, and from supporters and opponents of these ballot measures through paid media and direct voter contacts.

JUNE | 2025

To help address the inadequate supply of quality child care in Colorado, the Institute of Evidence-based Policymaking prepared a report in January 2025, Reducing Barriers to Providing Child Care in Colorado.

Two of the report’s recommendations were identified for an initial implementation phase – creating a revolving loan fund and streamlining the child care licensing process. This document examines in greater detail how the revolving loan fund could be structured and funded.

MAY | 2025

The federal government has proposed restructuring or cutting funding of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the agency which provides emergency disaster relief and preparedness support and coordination.

State and local governments in Colorado, including fire departments, stand to lose tens to hundreds of millions of dollars per year and hundreds of FEMA-associated jobs.

JANUARY | 2025

The availability of quality child care is critical to family stability, the economy, and the educational success of our youth. Unfortunately, the demand for child care exceeds the supply, which elevates the importance of expanding capacity, access, and availability, and eliminating unnecessary barriers to increasing child care supply. This report examines the barriers facing employers and organizations that want to open and operate child care facilities and proposes policy recommendations to help overcome those barriers.

JANUARY | 2025

Policymakers have long explored how best to achieve the related objectives of avoiding unnecessary youth involvement in the criminal justice system, ensuring public safety, and reducing recidivism.  This effort has included a focus on the necessary and appropriate number of youth detention beds to detain youth offenders while they are awaiting trial or transfer to another facility.

DECEMBER | 2024

Shoplifting has been identified as a serious concern by the Colorado retail industry and local jurisdictions throughout the state. Retailers along Colfax Avenue and the Uptown neighborhood of Denver, for example, have cited shoplifting as a growing problem for their businesses and, in some cases, even the reason for closing a location.

AUGUST | 2024

Policymakers and the general public have recognized the longstanding importance of reducing violent crime across Colorado’s communities. Evidence-based research combined with a clearer understanding of what crime reduction strategies Colorado has taken at the state level and local jurisdictions can strengthen collective efforts to improve public safety.

JUNE | 2024

Aggregate Impacts from House Bill 24-1134, House Bill 1311, and Senate Bill 24-228

This report analyzes three bills affecting Colorado state tax rebates and credits, estimating their impacts on households across the income quartiles and on poverty rates in Colorado. This analysis adds to existing analyses of each bill individually by providing an analysis of the combined impact of these bills that accounts for offsetting distributional impacts.