On January 11, the Colorado General Assembly will convene to begin a new legislative session. This will be the 141st time the state House and state Senate will meet in the state’s history, but as an old Capitol adage says: Legislative sessions are like snowflakes because no two are exactly the same. One hundred legislators—35 senators and 65 representatives—will meet for 120 days to introduce, debate, and vote on hundreds of bills.

As with any pending session, legislators and special interest groups have already outlined many of their goals. Unlike the gridlock we sometimes see in the halls of Congress, Colorado’s legislators will likely find significant common ground on the majority of the bills they will introduce. Here are a few of the issues legislators, media, and other stakeholders have identified as key going into the session:

The Budget

Colorado’s roughly $28.5 billion budget won’t be debated until later in the session, but the budget bill, known as the Long Bill, has already begun its process. Late last year, Governor Hickenlooper presented his office’s budget goals to members of the Legislature. This proposal is often seen as a starting point for the six members of the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) to consider when they begin to craft their own version of the budget—the one lawmakers will consider, debate, amend, and ultimately vote on during the session.

This year’s budget is already going to be a challenge for the General Assembly. Due to revenue forecasts and constitutional requirements, legislators are faced with a roughly $500 million shortfall for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Where the money will come from in order to close the expected gap will be the subject of a great deal of discussion and creative thinking. Last year, JBC members were able to close a smaller gap and the budget was passed into law with support from both sides of the aisle.

Will the budget issue brought up for the past few years—the reclassification of the Hospital Provider Fee into an enterprise in order to free up roughly $750 million from limits mandated by the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights—come up again? Senate Minority Leader Lucia Guzmán (D-Denver) has indicated she would like to revisit the issue, but the incoming Senate President Kevin Grantham (R-Cañon City) has said the move is “off the table.”

Transportation

An area where legislators from the two parties are hoping to find common ground is increasing funding for roads, bridges, and transit. One of the possible solutions being proposed is the potential for more than $3 billion in bonds to be sold, with the proceeds being used to fund several currently unfunded transportation projects. The so-called “TRANs bonds” bill was introduced in the 2015 legislative session, but lawmakers were unable to find consensus on the proposal and the bill died in the session’s final weeks. The bill was considered again in 2016 and met the same fate. Late last year, an interim transportation committee gave its initial support for the proposal, but it was unable to gain enough support from leadership in both parties for a bill to coalesce prior to the start of the session.

Another transportation funding proposal that seems to have gained some initial bipartisan support is a referred measure to raise the state sales tax with the proceeds directed toward projects like widening Interstate 25 between Monument and Castle Rock. A Colorado State Trooper’s tragic death on that stretch of highway last year brought renewed focus to the project.

Education

Some of the most contentious and complicated policy areas legislators will debate in 2017 will be education funding and compliance with a new federal education law passed in 2016.

School finance became one of the most thoroughly debated issues in the state in 2010, when the Great Recession forced lawmakers to make changes to the school funding formula in order to keep Colorado’s budget balanced. The so-called “negative factor,” which allowed lawmakers to fund schools at a level below the amount mandated by Amendment 23 (a constitutional provision passed by voters in 2000 that mandated the state to increase per-pupil funding for schools every year) has grown to roughly $800 million, and will likely grow more in 2017 according to legislators. Whether 2017 will be the year when this issue finally breaks through is unclear; although an informal group of lawmakers from both parties, led by JBC members Rep. Bob Rankin (R-Carbondale) and Rep. Millie Hamner (D-Dillon), have been working together over the last year to find a framework for a future solution.

Another important education issue will be how to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last year. The new law replaces the Bush Administration-era No Child Left Behind legislation that was set to expire. A bipartisan interim committee met last year to come up with a plan, and both education committees will be working to finalize their plans during the session.

Health Care

One of the biggest unknowns going into this session is how health care law will be changed by President-elect Trump’s incoming Administration and the GOP majority in Congress. With the likelihood of major changes or repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Colorado legislators will be tasked with implementing any changes or overhauls of the law. That includes the expansion of Medicaid authorized by the ACA, which Colorado lawmakers approved in 2013. Roughly 1.2 million Coloradans were beneficiaries of Medicaid in 2015, so there will be lots of attention paid to any changes made federally and at the state level.

Construction Defects Reform

The issue of reforming the laws governing liabilities for homebuilders and legal recourse for homebuyers is once again headed for debate at the Capitol. Although leaders in both parties have identified the issue as a top priority for several sessions, the actual solutions have fizzled—either in committee or during negotiations prior to the bill’s introduction.

Incoming House Speaker Rep. Crisanta Duran (D-Denver) has been working closely with Sen. Grantham on the issue, and both have indicated the measure has legs this year. Duran specifically told audience members at a legislative preview event sponsored by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce that she looks forward to a “collaborative and productive” relationship with the Senate majority on a number of issues, including construction defects.

PERA

As of the writing of this blog post, there have not been any bills introduced related to PERA. But stay tuned because we have heard rumors of PERA-related bills for 2017. In the meantime, be sure to know who represents you in the Colorado General Assembly.