The state Senate on Wednesday began working on the 2023-24 budget, and, at the end of their efforts, blew an $85.5 million hole in the spending plan by, among other actions, allocating millions for a retirement fund and a small amount to pay for replacing Native American mascot imagery at a school. But those changes won’t last. Lawmakers are considering a $38.5 billion spending package for the next fiscal year, including $14.7 billion in general fund dollars, an increase of about 8.9% from the current year’s budget.

Senators tackled Senate Bill 214, plus 32 additional measures intended to help balance that budget.

And while two Joint Budget Committee members — Sens. Jeff Bridges, D-greenwood Village, and Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-brighton — jokingly told members last Friday the budget is perfect and needed no tweaking, senators found plenty of things they wanted to change.

Senators offered 50 amendments to the $38.5 billion Long Appropriations Bill, adopting 17 of them.

All but $520,000 of the $85 million in new spending senators seek is from the general fund, made up primarily of corporate and individual income tax and sales tax. That’s the part of the budget over which lawmakers have the most control.

Three amendments from 11 of the 12 members of the GOP Caucus attempted to pay off the remaining $321.2 million owed to K-12 from the long-standing debt known as the budget stabilization factor.

But JBC members said paying down the debt will come through the State Education Fund, and that will be handled in the School Finance Act, which has not yet been introduced.

“We are all committed to paying down the budget stabilization factor,” said Kirkmeyer, the only member of the GOP not signed onto the amendments.

Part of the issue is to ensure that the buydown is sustainable, she said, adding that, in the future, she’s asking the School Finance Act be introduced before the budget bill.

The most controversial amendment of the day came from Sen. Byron Pelton, R-sterling, who sought to require the state to provide $356,701 from the general fund for costs accrued by the Yuma school district to replace Indigenous mascot imagery.

A 2021 state law, SB 116, sponsored by Sen. Jessie Danielson, D-wheat Ridge, said a grant program within the Department of Education would cover those costs. To date, no schools have received any money from that program for their costs.

Danielson, who sponsored the law, including on how to pay for it, voted against it, arguing that schools had been on notice for at least five years to get rid of the mascots, and for those that didn’t, “it’s on them that they did not phase out their mascots or choose to put in new floors in the gyms.”

Indigenous communities did not support using the Department of Education BEST (Building Excellent Schools Together) program money to pay for the changes, Danielson said.

It was the only amendment Kirkmeyer supported, pointing out that Yuma’s mascot was designed by a Native American. She also said the legislation allowed for schools to apply for those grants. The amendment passed, 18-17. Pelton hugged Kirkmeyer, the deciding vote, afterward.

Some of lawmakers’ favored programs also received a spending boost.

The Tony Grampsas Youth Services Program in the Department of Human Services, for example, received a $1 million boost from the general fund in an amendment from Sen. James Coleman, D-denver.

Among the biggest-ticket items added to the budget was an amendment from Sen. Chris Kolker, D-littleton, to pay $30.6 million to the Public Employees Retirement Association and cover interest from a missed $250 million payment several years ago.

Another $35 million, from amendments offered by Democrats and Republicans, would go to the community crime victims grant program in the Department of Public Safety.

Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-denver won support for an amendment putting $14 million into two programs in the Department of Education, with $10 million for a behavioral health care professional matching grant program and $4 million for school counselor corps grant program.

Family planning services at the Department of Public Health and Environment also got a $1 million boost. Community groups have been advocating for that addition in the wake of additional caseload, the result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The smallest change was $11,727 in general fund dollars for the civil air patrol program, also in the Department of Public Safety, via an amendment from Sen. Kevin Van Winkle, R-highlands Ranch.

Lawmakers also worked through all but one of the 32 measures designed to help balance the budget. They will be up for a final vote on Thursday, and then the budget bill heads back to the JBC, which will strip out the amendments and send the bills to the House next week.