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.
Security Measures for Certain Government Entities
Concerning security measures for certain governmental entities.
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 requires money it does not carry — the note says an appropriation is required and does not say the bill includes one.
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 General Assembly may choose to appropriate of $125,447 to the Legislative Department; however, the General Assembly chose not to appropriate this funding in the enacted bill.
Bill summary
The act addresses security measures for the legislative department and judicial department of state government, for the governor, and for certain elected officials and candidates for elected office.
Sections 1 through 4 and sections 6 and 7 of the act create the position of the administrator of legislative safety for the general assembly, address the authority of the Colorado state patrol (state patrol) in the state capitol buildings complex (capitol complex), and change the current position of chief security officer to the sergeant at arms. Specifically, section 1 authorizes the executive committee of the legislative council (executive committee) to, subject to available appropriations, appoint an administrator of legislative safety to serve as the primary point of contact for members of the general assembly on all matters relating to their personal safety and security and to coordinate, in collaboration with the Colorado state patrol, security and protection for members of the general assembly, employees of the general assembly, and other individuals specified by the executive committee (covered individuals). The administrator of legislative safety performs their duties under the direction and supervision of the executive committee and, with approval of the executive committee, may appoint additional personnel as necessary to perform the functions assigned to the administrator of legislative safety. In fulfilling their duties, the administrator of legislative safety shall coordinate with the Colorado state patrol and may coordinate with local law enforcement agencies and with the sergeants at arms of each house of the general assembly.
Sections 2 and 3 change the title of the chief security officer, which each house of the general assembly is authorized to appoint, to the sergeants at arms. Section 2 specifies that each house that appoints sergeants at arms may consult with the administrator of legislative safety in connection with the supervision of the sergeants at arms.
Section 4 specifies that the administrator of legislative safety is a peace officer whose authority includes enforcing all laws of the state and who may be certified by the P.O.S.T. board.
Section 5 specifies that the Colorado state patrol's jurisdiction includes law enforcement services for the governor's mansion.
Existing law requires the state patrol to provide protection for members of the general assembly when they are present in the capitol complex and, under certain circumstances, when they attend functions held elsewhere in the state. Section 6 includes other covered individuals under the state patrol's protection when they are present in the capitol complex. In addition, section 6 clarifies that the state patrol's jurisdiction includes law enforcement services for the capitol complex and requires the state patrol to coordinate its law enforcement efforts in the capitol complex with the administrator of legislative safety.
Existing law grants the city and county of Denver jurisdiction to enforce the laws of the state for the security of people and property in the capitol complex. Section 7 clarifies that this authority is in addition to the jurisdiction of the state patrol to enforce the laws of the state in the capitol complex.
Sections 8 through 10 address various other security concerns for certain elected officials. All candidate committees, political committees, small donor committees, and political parties are required to register with the secretary of state (secretary) or municipal clerk, as applicable, before accepting or making any campaign contributions. Registration requires the submission of a statement listing, among other items, a street address for the principal place of operations of the committee or party. Section 8 specifies that the address may be a street or mailing address.
The secretary is required to make all candidate disclosure statements filed with the secretary available to the public on the secretary's website. Section 9 requires the secretary to redact the candidate's address and other personal information before making a disclosure statement available on the secretary's website and allows the secretary to modify the disclosure form to eliminate the inclusion of personal information.
Existing law requires specified elected and appointed state officials to file a financial disclosure statement with the secretary that includes, among other items, the legal description of any interest in real property with a market value that exceeds $5,000. Section 10 eliminates the requirement to include a legal description of the property and replaces it with a requirement to identify the city and county in which the property is located. Section 10 also requires the secretary to redact the address and other personal information of elected officials before posting the disclosure statement on the secretary's website and allows the secretary to modify the disclosure form to eliminate the inclusion of personal information.
Section 11 requires a sheriff who provides security for a court to use the recommended standards developed by the judicial security task force created in the act to implement security measures for court facilities. The county sheriff shall, to the extent practicable, maintain one secure, single-point access to a court facility and use magnetometers when the court is in session. The county sheriff shall also verify that an individual who enters a courthouse with a firearm is not prohibited from carrying a firearm in a courthouse pursuant to existing law and maintain a log including specified information regarding each individual who enters a courthouse with a firearm; except that this verification and logging requirement does not apply to peace officers employed in the courthouse by the county sheriff.
Sections 12 through 14 modify the assessment and collection of the court security surcharge, and sections 15 and 16 address other judicial security concerns. Under existing law, courts assess and collect a $5 court security surcharge on certain court filing fees ($5 surcharge). The money from the $5 surcharge is deposited in the court security cash fund, which is distributed to counties through grants made by the court security cash fund commission for the counties to use for purposes related to the security of facilities containing a state court or probation office. Section 12 ends the assessment and collection of the $5 surcharge on June 30, 2027, and transfers the balance of the court security cash fund on August 31, 2027, to the court security authority (authority), which is created in the act. Section 13 repeals the $5 surcharge, the court security cash fund, and court security cash fund commission on September 1, 2027.
Section 14 creates the court security authority as a special purpose authority. Beginning on July 1, 2027, the authority imposes a $10 court security surcharge ($10 surcharge) on the same court filings on which the $5 surcharge was assessed and collected. The courts assess and collect the $10 surcharge and transmit the surcharge money to the authority and the authority is required to use the money from the surcharge to provide grants to counties for the same purposes for which grants from the $5 surcharge were made. The authority may also use money from the $10 surcharge to provide grants to the state court administrator's office for system-wide security needs. The act creates the court security authority board, which initially consists of the same members that comprised the court security cash fund commission and requires the board to award the grants based on specified criteria.
Section 15 creates a judicial security task force in the judicial department to develop recommended standards for security at courthouses and other court and probation facilities.
Existing law specifies that an individual commits retaliation against a judge if the individual makes a credible threat or commits an act of harassment, or an act of harm or injury upon a person or property as retaliation or retribution against a judge. Section 16 includes judicial employees in this law.
Existing law allows specified individuals, defined as 'protected persons', to request that state or local government officials remove their personal information from records that are available on the internet. Under existing law, it is unlawful to post a protected person's personal information on the internet in certain circumstances. In addition to other modifications to this law, section 17 adds judicial employees, staff of the general assembly, and elected officials to the definition of 'protected person'. Section 17 also establishes civil remedies for a protected person recoverable from a person who is not a state or local government official and who has published the protected person's personal information if the person does not remove the personal information upon request.
Section 18 prohibits a person from making the personal information of specified elected officials and an elected official's immediate family publicly available on the internet if the person knows or reasonably should know that doing so will pose an imminent and serious threat to the elected official or the elected official's immediate family. Section 18 also allows an elected official to file a request with a state or local government official to redact the elected official's personal information from records that the state or local government official makes available on the internet. Certain specified parties may access, in certain circumstances, a record that includes information otherwise subject to redaction pursuant to this requirement.
Sections 19 through 25 repeal, from each applicable court filing fee, the $5 surcharge that is transmitted to the court security cash fund and implement, for each applicable court filing fee, the $10 surcharge that is transmitted to the authority.
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.