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.
Modernizing Regional Transportation District
Concerning reforms to the regional transportation district to increase accountability.
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 note states no appropriation is required.
An appropriation is money the legislature sets aside. It is not money spent.
The appropriation field, read from the note: No appropriation is required.
Bill summary
The act changes requirements for the regional transportation district (RTD) relating to paratransit and accessible transportation, the composition of the board of directors, coordination with the subregional service councils, and reporting requirements.
Paratransit and accessible transportation. On or before December 31, 2026, RTD is required to contract with an independent third-party entity for a comprehensive paratransit service study (study) that includes:
- A needs assessment of the population, needs, and service gaps for riders with disabilities in the district;
- A cost-benefit assessment;
- A definition of measurable performance metrics related to access, reliability, equity, and cost-effectiveness;
- An assessment of opportunities for RTD to collaborate with local and regional partners to address service gaps;
- Engagement with paratransit users, riders with disabilities, service providers, and other key stakeholders;
- An assessment of system performance; and
- An assessment of barriers for paratransit riders and riders with disabilities to access a low-income fare discount.
The study must be completed by June 30, 2027. On or before December 31, 2027, RTD is required to complete, adopt, and begin implementing an accessible transportation service plan that is informed by the study.
Composition of RTD board of directors. The act ends the terms of the current 15 elected members of the RTD board of directors (board) on January 1, 2029, and replaces the board with 5 members elected from director districts and 4 at-large appointed members. 5 members constitute a quorum for the new board. Board members serve 4-year terms; except that the new member terms are staggered such that, on January 1, 2031, 4 of the 9 members' terms expire.
At the November 2028 general election, 5 new members are elected, 2 of which are elected to 2-year terms. At every general election in an even-numbered year thereafter, the number of members to be elected at the election equals the number of member terms expiring on January 1 of the following year. On or before the day of the November 2028 general election, the governor shall appoint 4 new board members. On or before the day of the November general election in every even-numbered year thereafter, the governor shall appoint 2 new board members to replace the members whose terms will expire the following year. Members may serve up to 2 4-year terms, and any term that lasts for fewer than 2 years does not count towards the member's 2-term limit.
On or before September 15, 2027, the office of legislative legal services and the legislative council staff are required to apportion the composition of the board so that the 5 elected directors will represent, to the extent practical, the people of the district on the basis of population. After the federal census in 2030, and after each federal census thereafter, the independent legislative redistricting commission is required to apportion the composition of the board so that the 5 elected directors will represent, to the extent practical, the people of the district on the basis of population.
The 4 appointed board members are appointed by the governor with the consent of the senate. Of the 4 members:
- One member is appointed from a list of at least 3 nominees provided by the Denver regional council of governments;
- One member must be a current or former member of the union that represents the largest collective bargaining unit of RTD employees; and
- 2 members are appointed at the governor's discretion.
The 4 appointed members must represent diverse geographic areas of the district and are collectively required to possess expertise related to public finance, land use and multimodal transportation planning, transit operations, and transit agency programs serving disproportionately impacted communities.
The governor may remove an appointed member for malfeasance in office, neglect of duty, failure to regularly attend meetings, or any other cause that renders the member incapable or unfit to discharge the duties of the board. A member to be appointed is required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest prior to confirmation and any conflicts that arise during the member's term to the board. Failure to disclose a conflict, or taking action on a matter in which the member has an undisclosed conflict of interest, constitutes cause for removal by the governor.
The board may elect one member as chairperson of the board, one member as chairperson pro tempore of the board, and one or more individuals as secretary and treasurer of the board. The annual salary for an elected or appointed member whose term begins on or after January 1, 2029, is increased from $12,000 to $36,000, and the salary for the board chairperson is 150% of the salary of the other board members.
Subregional service council coordination. Beginning in 2027, RTD is required to provide dedicated staff to co-chair and support each subregional service council (council) and must work with council members to identify a local leader to also co-chair each council. Beginning in 2028, the councils are required to make recommendations to the RTD board on:
- Aligning RTD transit services with local and regional plans;
- Implementing joint projects to address service gaps;
- Leveraging existing intergovernmental agreements and projects for expanded service delivery;
- Identifying strategies to expand funding; and
- Considerations of equity, ridership, demand, and long-term regional growth.
The RTD board is required to meet at least twice a year to receive recommendations from the councils.
Reporting requirements. RTD is required to report to the house of representatives transportation, housing, and local government committee and the senate transportation and energy committee, or their successor committees, on the following:
- On or before December 31, 2027, progress toward the recommendations made to RTD by the 2025-2026 RTD accountability committee created in Senate Bill 25-161. RTD is also required to submit this report to the governor.
- On or before January 31, 2027, and on or before each January 31 thereafter:
- RTD's budget and financial performance;
- Ridership;
- The implementation of Senate Bill 25-161, including RTD's progress on delivering the projects identified in its 10-year strategic plan and its comprehensive operational analysis;
- Aligning with state climate goals; and
- The implementation of this act, including RTD's progress on implementing the accessible transportation service plan;
- On or before January 31, 2028, the study and accessible transportation plan; and
- Annually beginning in 2028, the recommendations from the councils and RTD's responses to the recommendations. RTD is also required to report this information to the transportation legislation review committee.
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.