Colorado · Fiscal notes
Bills and Laws
Updated Oct 12
What a fiscal note is
Colorado prices its own bills before it votes on them. A fiscal note is what the legislature's own nonpartisan staff estimated a bill would cost the state, written again each time the bill changes. This page has read the note on 7,078 of the 7,310 bills listed, at the first version of the estimate and at the last; the rest have no note in this record yet.
Every figure here is a forecast at a version, not a cost.
Find a bill
Type a bill number, or a word from the title. The boxes filter; they never answer — you pick the bill.
Press / from anywhere on this page to jump to the box. When your typing leaves exactly one bill, Enter opens it.
7,310 of 7,310 bills · showing the first 150 — narrow the list, or add more below
"Moved" is the distance between what the state first said a bill would cost and what it last said. A negative figure is a saving, not a mistake. A note books reduced spending as a negative expenditure, and the sign here is the publisher's own. "At introduction" is the earliest note in this cache and "Latest" the last one. The last one is often not a final note. A final note is not guaranteed, even for a bill that became law.
A fiscal note is a forecast at a version. It is not a cost. Every figure above carries the date it was written and the version it describes. What a bill actually cost is a different question, and Colorado does not publish the answer.
This is the one table on this site that needs JavaScript. Every other table here works without it. This one cannot: sending all 7,310 rows at once would make the page too large to load, so the search box, the filters, the sorting and all 16 sessions are put together in your browser.
The finding
Most price tags never move. The ones that do, mostly fall.
Comparing each bill's first estimate with its last needs both to carry a figure. 3,675 bills do. Here is what happened to them.
Of the 1,081 bills whose estimate moved at all, down beats up by about 2.1 to 1. The most common thing that happens to a Colorado bill's price tag is nothing. The second most common is that it is taken out of the bill.
2,213 bills had no state fiscal impact
Their first note prints no impact table, because the state's own analysts found the bill costs the state nothing, and the note says so. That is a finding, not a gap. It is the largest single group here, and it is counted on its own so no other total can absorb it.
512 bills were priced in words
Older notes often print a sentence where a figure would go — "Workload increase and potential cost increases." That is a real published finding. It is carried as the sentence the state wrote, labeled PENDING (qualitative), and it is never turned into a zero.
18 bills were priced only if something happens
Their only table is headed Conditional State Fiscal Impacts — figures stated for a condition that may not hold. A conditional is a different claim from a forecast. So these are kept apart from the bills with a figure and from the bills with none.
The record
What is here
Every bill gets a fiscal note. There is no dollar threshold, so a bill the state expects to cost nothing gets a note that says so.
232 of the 7,310 bills have no note in this cache at all. They are listed with that reason rather than dropped. A bill missing from a list of every bill is the one thing a reader cannot see.
The Outcome column starts in 2025
This page reads what happened to a bill out of the fiscal note. Only a note written after the bill was disposed of prints it. Where a bill in 2025 or 2026 has no such note, the page takes the ending from the bill history on the legislature's own page for that bill: the Governor's signature or veto, a committee voting to “postpone indefinitely”, or a floor vote that lost it. Nothing else. So 1,310 of the 7,310 bills here carry an outcome. Every one of them sits in a 2025 or 2026 session. The other 6,000 are marked Not stated. That is this page not having read it, not the state not having published it. The legislature prints every bill's disposition on the bill's own page, and every bill here links to that page. So the outcome filter narrows you to 2025 and 2026 as well.
What this page will not tell you
Three questions, and one of them has no answer anywhere
What a bill actually cost
No Colorado source reports spending bill by bill. A fiscal note estimates what a bill will cost. The Long Bill — the state's yearly spending act — gives money to departments. Neither says what was spent because of one bill. So the question a reader most wants answered cannot be answered, and no number is offered in its place.
What all these bills add up to
Refused, and not pending better data. A dollar total of these estimates is dominated by single bills in every sample measured. On one sample it moved +83.2% across 200 bills and +3.8% with the one largest swing removed. A total like that is a statement about one bill wearing the clothes of a statement about the legislature.
The per-bill direction is stable. That is what is published instead.
Bills before 2016
PENDING Notes exist for every Colorado bill since 1989, on an older state system that still answers. It is recorded here so the gap is a known absence rather than a silent one. It has not been read yet.
There is no scorecard here and no party column. Adding up the estimated cost of the bills a member sponsored would invent a measure and dress it as a fact. A party column would make everything above it read as a partisan scorecard. This site is neutral infrastructure.
How this is read
Method
Which note comes first
Each bill's notes are put in order by the date each note prints about itself. Where two notes carry the same date, the FINAL banner an older note prints at the top of page one breaks the tie. Where neither settles it — 26 bills — both notes are shown and no direction is claimed. A direction there would be a coin toss wearing a percentage.
This matters more than it sounds. The cached file names do not run in date order: the two are the other way round for every session before 2026. Read them by file name rather than by printed date and "down beats up 2.1 to 1" becomes the opposite claim. Every other check on the page still passes.
Which figure is compared
The comparison is state expenditures in the budget year — the fiscal year the note itself labels as the budget year. Notes print two, three or four years. The column count also changes between versions of the same note. So the year is bound to the ruler the note prints, never to a column position.
What each note is checked against
Where a note prints a fund breakdown, the fund lines must add up to the total the note prints. That total must also equal the figure in the summary table. Both checks run on every read. A note that fails is reported, never quietly dropped.
What a bill is about is the legislature's own summary
Each bill record opens with the Bill Summary written by Colorado Legislative Council Staff, printed word for word from the bill's own page on leg.colorado.gov with the date it was read. This site does not write, shorten or rephrase it. The summary says which version of the bill it describes, and that note is printed beside it. Where the legislature publishes no summary, the record says NOT PUBLISHED and the space stays blank.
Sponsors are shown as the legislature's own identifier
The record gives each sponsor as a web address fragment, such as chris-degruy-kennedy.
Turning that into a name means guessing where the capital letters go, and this site does not
guess about a person's name. Each one links to the legislature's own page, which prints it
properly.
Source
Fiscal notes and vote records are published by the Colorado General Assembly at leg.colorado.gov (opens in a new tab). Notes are required by Joint Rule 22, with House Rule 32A and Senate Rule 25(e). The notes on this page were taken from each bill's own page on the legislature's site on 17 August 2026; the notes of the 139 bills that changed since then were taken again on 2026-09-23; the notes of 4 more bills were taken on 2026-09-24.
Sunset Public Utilities Commission
Concerning the continuation of the public utilities commission, and, in connection therewith, implementing recommendations in the 2025 sunset report by the department of regulatory agencies and making an appropriation.
Cost estimates
Every figure here is an estimate by Legislative Council Staff on the date shown, about the version of the bill in front of them that day. It is not a cost.
The appropriation
The bill carries its own money. A note saying a bill “requires and includes” an appropriation means the money is in the bill itself.
An appropriation is money the legislature sets aside. It is not money spent.
The appropriation field, read from the note: For FY 2026-27, the bill requires and includes an appropriation of $298,448 to the Department of Regulatory Agencies.
Bill summary
The act implements recommendations of the department of regulatory agencies (department) in its 2025 sunset review of the public utilities commission (commission) as follows:
- Sections 1 and 3 of the act continue the commission for 7 years to September 1, 2033;
- Sections 4, 8, 10, 11, 16, and 17 authorize the commission to send communications by email;
- Sections 20 through 22 modernize certain processes, provide additional transparency, and clarify inconsistencies in certain energy statutes by:
- Aligning the renewable energy standard with the statutes governing clean energy targets and removing the requirements for municipally owned utilities to submit an annual compliance report to the commission regarding renewable energy standard requirements and for qualifying wholesale utilities that comply with electric resource planning to also demonstrate compliance with electric resource standards;
- Directing the commission to perform a study to identify any barriers to joint procurement by electric utilities with regard to advanced technology generation resources;
- Section 23:
- Prohibits an individual from impersonating a transportation network company (TNC) driver (driver). An individual who violates the prohibition commits a class 2 misdemeanor. An individual who impersonates a driver during the commission of a felony offense commits a class 6 felony. A TNC is required to conduct periodic checks utilizing facial recognition software or equally or more effective technology, as approved by the commission, to prevent driver impersonation in accordance with rules adopted by the commission. The periodic check requirement does not apply to a TNC that predominantly contracts to serve public or private schools or the government and complies with at least 90% of the commission's rules regarding safety standards for TNCs that contract with schools or school districts.
- Requires a TNC to provide information about the commission, including information about how a rider may contact the commission to file a complaint using a TNC's digital network, to a rider in accordance with rules adopted by the commission; and
- Requires commission staff who process TNC customer complaints to receive training in trauma-informed practices;
- Section 25 expands the types of drivers who need to have criminal history record checks performed to include drivers who are employed by any motor carriers and contract carriers;
- Section 28 requires the commission to perform a market study to determine if the current systems of regulating intrastate contract and common carriers optimally balance consumer protections with industry and regulatory efficiency and to report its findings and recommendations based on the study to the general assembly by January 1, 2028;
- Sections 29 and 30 replace the current inspection requirements for a charter bus, children's activity bus, fire crew transport, luxury limousine, off-road scenic charter, and large-market taxicab with a requirement that these vehicles be inspected on a schedule and to a standard set by rules adopted by the commission;
- Sections 31 through 36 and 38 update the state railroad regulation requirements to mirror current federal law and to repeal obsolete provisions;
- Section 39 removes the $500 fee cap paid by companies to access the Colorado no-call list, replaces it with a $1,000 fee cap, and requires conforming list brokers, which are companies that purchase the no-call list and sell it to other companies, to pay a fee established by the commission by rule;
- Section 41 authorizes the commission to administratively assess a filing fee schedule for filings related to communication services, telecommunications services, and basic emergency services to help finance the commission's telecommunications-related work and exempts members of the public filing complaints and public utilities subject to certain revenue-based fees imposed by the commission from paying the filing fees;
- Section 43 aligns the usage of money collected from charges related to the provision of 911 services with federal requirements by clarifying that the money may be expended for public safety radio equipment outside of a public safety answering point only if the equipment is used for dispatching emergency service providers to respond to 911 calls;
- Section 44 authorizes the commission to adopt rules that establish caps on rates charged by penal communications service providers on intrastate penal communications services provided for intrastate communications with individuals in correctional facilities and to enforce the intrastate rate. Section 44 also authorizes the commission to adopt rules requiring penal communications service providers to report outages and imposing penalties for penal communications service providers' failure to comply with commission requirements. Section 44 also requires:
- Penal communications service providers to cooperate with commission staff when the staff is performing biannual testing of penal communications services;
- The commission to develop flyers informing the public how to file complaints to the commission about penal communications services; and
- Correctional facilities to post the flyers;
- Section 45 exempts small operators of natural gas pipelines from the minimum $5,000 civil penalty required for violations of pipeline safety laws and authorizes the commission to impose a lesser civil penalty against a small operator;
- Section 46 directs the commission to perform a study identifying all privately owned water utilities in the state and assessing their financial conditions and needs;
- Section 47 requires investor-owned electric utilities to provide interconnection information and certificates to taxpayers requesting the information for purposes of claiming the federal clean electricity investment credit; and
- Section 48 requires the commission, on or before December 1, 2026, to open one or more miscellaneous proceedings to investigate ways to streamline energy planning proceedings, to integrate gas and electric system planning, and to make customer programming more efficient. The commission shall solicit stakeholder feedback in its investigation and, on or before November 30, 2027, shall submit a report of its findings and recommendations to legislative committees with jurisdiction over energy matters.
The act also implements the following changes regarding the commission and its work:
- Section 2 requires electric and gas investor-owned utilities, including combined utilities, to file annual summaries of anticipated regulatory filings with the commission starting in 2027 and requires the commission to make the filings publicly available on its website, hold informational meetings regarding the filings, and submit annual reports to the general assembly summarizing the commission's major adjudicated cases and rule-makings from the previous year. Starting September 1, 2026, the commission is required to include in each of its decisions a summary of public comments received on the matter.
- Sections 4 through 8 concern commission authority, personnel, and management functions, with section 4 stating that the commission, acting through its director, has authority over the commission's budgeting, purchasing, planning, and related management functions, including human resources, and section 7 requiring the director of the commission to hire or designate an equity analyst to assist the commission's work regarding equity impact proceedings and to staff an equity task force appointed by the director;
- Section 4 also requires the governor to consider appointing commissioners with knowledge of the regulated industries and with a diversity of experience and understanding of public interest considerations. Finally, section 4 authorizes the commission to hold weekly meetings and, beginning July 1, 2027, requires a majority of the commissioners attending the weekly meetings to attend in person.
- Sections 9 and 12 provide that, with certain exceptions, adjudications must first be heard by an administrative law judge. Section 12 also requires the commission, by March 31, 2027, to adopt rules regarding the format of en banc commission and hearings and meetings presided over by a single hearing commissioner with respect to whether the hearings are held in person, virtually, or a hybrid of in-person and virtual participation.
- Section 13 requires that commission rules regarding review of an application must prescribe that an application may only be deemed incomplete if it does not meet the commission's application requirement. Section 13 also provides that the commission's failure to act upon an application within 120 days, or within an extended time granted by the commission not to exceed an additional 130 days or, under extraordinary conditions, not to exceed an additional 90 days, constitutes an approval of the application by operation of law. An unopposed permissive motion for intervention is deemed approved if the commission does not deny the motion within 30 days after its filing.
- Section 14 increases the maximum civil penalty applicable to public utilities for intentional violations of public utilities law from $2,000 to $7,500, applies such civil penalties to a public utility's violation of a tariff, and requires the commission to consider factors such as utility size, harm caused, and mitigating circumstances or actions in assessing the civil penalties. Section 14 also requires that civil penalties assessed against and collected from electric and gas utilities be credited to the public utilities commission fixed utility fund (fixed utility fund) to be used for affordability programs or outreach and engagement of income-qualified customers and disproportionately impacted communities.
- Section 15 provides guidance for intervenor compensation in commission proceedings by authorizing the commission to award an intervenor compensation if the commission determines that the intervenor made a unique substantial contribution that provided material assistance to the commission in developing the record in a proceeding and incurred reasonable costs in the proceeding. The commission may adopt rules regarding intervenor compensation, including rules for intervenor petitions for compensation and guidelines for determining reasonable costs incurred and material assistance.
- Under current law, money in the legal services offset fund is continuously appropriated to the department to offset its costs of legal representation in matters involving public utilities law. Section 18 shifts the appropriation to the commission to offset its costs of legal representation in such matters.
- Section 21 removes verification of municipally owned utilities' voluntarily filed clean energy plans by the division of administration in the department of public health and environment;
- Section 22 requires the commission, on or before December 31, 2027, to adopt rules establishing minimum quality-of-service metrics for investor-owned electric and gas utilities in the state;
- Section 24 requires the department to consult with the director of the commission regarding annual TNC permit fees and increases the maximum annual TNC permit fee to $161,250. Likewise, section 26 requires the department to consult with the director of the commission in setting certain administrative fees on motor carriers, and section 40 requires the department to consult with the director of the commission on computation of revenue-based fees owed by utilities.
- Section 27 provides that a person may apply to a court for enforcement of a commission order, decision, or rule regarding noncompliance by a motor carrier without having first exhausted administrative remedies; and
- Section 37 requires the commission to engage an independent third-party consultant to conduct a study on how the commission may modernize its personnel, organizational, and budgetary structures, which study must include an evaluation and recommendations regarding the commission's size, compensation, and funding mechanisms for equity objectives. On or before November 1, 2026, the commission shall submit an initial report, and on or before November 1, 2027, a final report, on the study's findings and recommendations to legislative committees with jurisdiction over energy matters.
For state fiscal year 2026-27, section 49 appropriates $298,448 to the department with:
- $232,712, including $157,712 from the fixed utility fund and $75,000 from the motor carrier fund, for personal services;
- $16,048 from the fixed utility fund for operating expenses; and
- $49,688 of the amount appropriated from the fixed utility fund for reappropriation to the department of law for legal services.
FACT Bill summary by Colorado Legislative Council Staff, read 2026-09-23. Printed as published, word for word. Source: leg.colorado.gov (opens in a new tab)
What this bill appropriates
Two totals, two bases. An appropriation is money the legislature authorized to be spent, not money spent. For FY 2026-27, the Long Bill alone appropriates $49,560,763,693 FACT. The Appropriations Report from the Joint Budget Committee staff adds the other bills of the session: $49,694,444,712 FACT.
The General Fund is $17,351,445,407 FACT in the Long Bill alone and $17,461,279,123 FACT in the report. Both are correct, and we never add them. See both totals, with their sources.
Sources: HB26-1410 as enacted (opens in a new tab), chapter 436 of the Session Laws, read 8 October 2026. The FY 2026-27 Appropriations Report (opens in a new tab), read 11 October 2026.