williams winter woodward sin zinger mister president here with thirty five presidency raps and zero excused we have a quorum members this morning i'm honored to recognize elijah ariano to lead our pledge of allegiance is joined by his dad one just turned twelve years old his parents tell me that he's a four zero student at stewart middle school in commerce city and  martial arts master plays basketball and is a fan of spider man thank you so much and please lead us in the pledge of allegiance for everybody to join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible is there any discussion on any bills seeing none the motion is a passage of all the bills on the third reading bill's consent calendar are there any no votes senator marble thank you mister president i wish to be recorded  woodward rankin scott todd court marino williams lead foot tate todd bridges please add the president thank you mister president members i have been a no vote on this in committee and appropriations it has been changed and amended it is as every bill that we pass not a perfect bill but it is a reasonable approach for what is our difficulties in prison populations both in dealing with  parole and rehabilitation and for that reason i will be an aye vote on second reading there on third reading rather is there any further discussion seeing none the motion before the body is the passage of senate bill and forty three on third during a final passage are there any no votes center crowder senator hill grant who established yellowstone national park and in the spirit of president nixon who established the epa i am proud to run this bill that will clean up the messes in eastern adams county other parts of this front range for our grandchildren this is a strong bill that sunsets in ten years to do what capitalists societies do and clean up their messes i ask for an aye vote is there further discussion seeing none the motion before the body is the passage of senate bill one hundred and ninety two on rankin scott tape donovan for the passage of senate bill to zero two on third reading and final passage is there further discussion seeing none the motion before the body is passage of senate bill two hundred and two on third reading final passage are there any no votes on third ring and final passage are there any no votes reading and request permission to run a third reading a other states that have completed similar major it projects to find out what they've learned i guess is the simplest way to put it ask for an aye vote thank you is there further discussion sarah bridges thank you m president this amendment is answers questions that come up constantly when we're seeing these proposals in the joint tech committee we say why are you going to use this solution aren't there other solutions in other states we just wan make sure we don't have to ask that question that that is part of the proposal that they come to us with government needs to be efficient effective and responsive this entire bill gets to that in this piece really hammers home that point so we ask for your support of the amendment and the bill is there for the discussion body to the comments made by my colleague some moments ago is there any further discussion seeing none the motion before the body is the passage of senate bill one hundred and sixty nine are there any no  general orders second reading of bills the committee will come to order and the code rules relax readings of bills calendar notice for a tenant before eviction and currently the eviction process the fev was of a forcible entry and detainer action in court must be given to the tenant with a lease violation that has taken place with the landlord's intent to evict the tenant if the issue is not remedied this is now a three day notice and it states that a tenant must cure the lease violation or vacate the property within three days if the tenant is able to remedy the lease violation when this period they can remain in their homes if they fail to do so the landlord may file an eviction and the current law does not allow sufficient time to remedy a lease or pay the full amount of the overdue rent in the case of a financial emergency this is such a short time frame and it undermines the effectiveness of existing rental assistance programs and so what this bill will do is extend the notice that required before a landlord can file an eviction for a non substantial leas violation from unpaid rent from three days to ten days this will ensure that the tenant has an efficient time to address the complaint this would not preclude the landlord from charging and collecting ladies i think it's also important because many have had concerns that if there is an eviction process if the behavior in dangers the safety or the property of the landlord or another tenant or when they are committing criminal defense this does not apply to that and so members we know we have a lot of housing issues out there and we are attempting through hospital evan eighteen to ensure that if there are tenants who may face a financial crisis we all have emergencies that occur in life and we want to keep tenants in their homes we think that ten days is reasonable we started at fourteen days and we were able to negotiate down to ten days this will also allow those who may need some type of a financial assistance time to reach out to organizations that can provide that assistance in helping them stay in their homes that's what this is all about we want to keep people in their homes we want to keep them out of poverty we want to keep them out of homeliness and this is about supporting families and strengthening communities  disasters for both and it can have a domino effect a domino effect on a person's life leading to job loss poverty homelessness and instability for families and so i would ask you  here in this chamber and outside of it and what it does it allows small single family residences and if a landlord owns five or less residences then they are exempt i call it the five five amendment so anything less than five or less will be carved out and this will not be applicable however the time to cure lease would be five days so this is different from the bill itself but this will allow a leasing agreement with a single family own who owns five or fewer single family rental homes and also provide notice to their tenants about this five days so it's the five and five again those landlords who own five or less single family residences and five days to key release for the tenants and i would l zero three five is adopted to the bill we've seen it we've seen the growing rents we see they're bouncing kind of on the ceiling of where rents could possibly be in an urban area and and this is i'll get in trouble for saying this so i'll announce it to the whole world so you can videotape this this is a good problem to have detroit does not have problem with skyrocketing rents many other cities in the nation don't have a problem with skyrocketing rents the problem we have on rents is because colorado has been so economically successful in recent decades and it's it's one of these challenges that i think demands our attention and demands our discussion about what good policy should be based on that my concern here is that this bill actually does not approach this in a helpful way we we actually with are going to be making rent even more expensive and not just rent more expensive but the process of renting more expensive i know for years we have heard we've heard discussions we've had bills come up in committees about limiting the rental application fee about what you could and couldn't ask on a rental application and all of this was designed to hopefully make it easier for people to get into a rental situation that works for them this bill makes it harder this bill makes it harder for those same people to get into a rental unit and here's why here's how this works i think we're all in agreement about exactly what we're doing here we are we are extending the time before we can initiate eviction procedures and there's no it's a short bill there's no there's no question about that that the challenge is all business everything that we do is risk versus return that that by saying we're going to give more time for a resident for a tenant to stay in a unit we have to acknowledge we're increasing the cost to the landlord for that unit and and everyone  talked to a landlord i spent the weekend talking to some landlords down on the springs just to get a better sense of how this works nobody wants to a vit evicting is at the end of the day it's a money losing situation for a landlord and and no tenant wants to get evicted either we we recognize the tenant side of it i don't think we've sufficiently acknowledged the landlord side of what a losing economic proposition eviction actually is but by pushing this out by pushing it out really we're moving it from three are from three days up to ten days before you can start the procedure by pushing it out we're saying we're increasing the potential cost on any landlord they know now that anytime i get into a situation as a landlord they are going to have an in if an eviction comes about or is going to be needed they're going to have an increased cost of that and so any good economic actor in this situation is going to go back and say well to handle the risk the potential of increased cost i need to deal with that on the front end and so i'm going to increase the cost of the application in the first place i'm going to do a better job of weeding out those who might potentially be at risk of non payment be at risk of needing to be evicted and so really all we're doing is we're shifting the tail and the cost of the eviction the tail end of this rental process up to the front end and we're making it even harder for people to get in and we say oh no we're just trying to help folks but the reality is someone has to absorb this cost someone has to absorb the cost and even if we don't absorb the cost on a rental application fee even if we don't absorb the cost on a on a that the questions that get asked about that potential tenant that costs will get absorbed in a few extra dollars of rent a month idomeneus twenty dollars maybe it's maybe it's thirty dollars but that cost has to be absorbed somewhere and we haven't dealt with that in this bill i think we have good intentions on this bill but we haven't dealt with the cost and the end result of what we're doing is we're actually just going to make seven has formally been moved senator hill thanks mister chair colleagues here's what thirty seven does thirty seven i i think actually does a good job of of addressing both sides of this challenging equation i and i know it's it's a it's a big change to the bill but right now the way the bill works is it says a landlord has to wait ten days until they can start that they can file eviction fiction proceedings which means it takes another fourteen days for that hearing to happen which means from the from the time of deciding on an eviction to a hearing on that we're looking at twenty four days the challenge of twenty four days that's almost a full month that's a full month's rent and you think hey on average rent even if we're just talking about one thousand two hundred dollars that one thousand two hundred dollars now needs to be absorbed in the eleven the other eleven months out of the year so that's going to be spread further out what this amendment does it says hey you still have the three days that you currently have however we're giving time to cure for those fourteen days until the hearing happens so it means in all practicality you will have seventeen full days for a tenant to make right with the landlord and to figure these things out right now we have three days this amendment would move that out to seventeen days and it goes a step further it goes a step further because it addresses a concern that i have it addresses a challenge that i mentioned in my may be overly wordy explanation before getting to this  amendment but if you look at section b they're starting at line twenty one it now says that just because you filed doesn't mean in the future you cannot use the filing of an eviction order against that person in future rental applications so it means if you come into some tough times you make it right you get right with your landlord you figure it out it means that eviction is not a matter of public record going forward so it solves two problems one is it actually gives more time than we currently have more time it solves much of the cost problem in terms of saying we've got to push this back out and absorb these costs in another way for a landlord and it says something we don't currently have in law right now you cannot use eviction orders going forward based on this process against potential new tenants so it it addresses the problem of folks who may be in and out of different rental situations not allowing these eviction orders to be used against them colleagues i know we've got some partisan moments that we have down here and i think that's just it's part of the system we have set up i think this is actually this this does a good job of taking arguments from both sides of our political spectrum and moves us forward in a way that would actually work within the context of our challenging rental market right now again the problem that we have because colorado has been so economically successful i look forward to some debate on this amendment and ask for your support to the amendment further discussion senator fields thank you mister chair well you heard the the senator from colorado springs indicated that he felt like this was a good problem to have i beg to differ on that this is not a good problem to have i represent a community and oftentimes i will see a eviction notice on their door i've seen their contents of what was inside that apartment thrown out on the front yard this is not a good problem to have people all across the state of colorado are struggling as relates to affordable housing and once you get evicted it's not a good problem to have it's not a good problem it creates all kinds of other dilemmas so what this amendment will do and you heard the the bill sponsor already mentioned the the amount of days this doesn't do anything to help that tenant at all once you're evicted from your home and you have to try to find another place it's not that easy provides a little relief it's doing the right thing and what this amendment will do will push us back to what we already have and it creates much more trauma and issues for that tenant so members please vote no on this amendment senator williams thank you mister chair and thank you for those comments from my colleague from a rapaho county and members l basically is asking for is to go back to last year's version of the bill where we negotiated and worked with stakeholders on allowing a tenant to be able to cure that rent before the court date is set and what i'm concerned about is that this bill failed last year and for those of you who want to go back to last year's version i don't know understand what's different about this year and why that wasn't accepted last year when we tried to protect those who are being evicted but what i will share with you is that seven days is  ten days is going to be more reasonable right now and we've moved from fourteen days and by having a moving date and having the tenant and the landlord not know when that court date is going to be can cause confusion as a sponsor i feel like ten days is solid both sides will know you have ten days to cure your rent before the eviction notice is filed and also in this amendment it says that a landlord or any other person shall not use an action by the landlord now how are we going to monitor this this is this is a complicated process and when a notice would show up on a tenants record it automatically comes up on the screen there is nothing that says we're going to clear your record and show tell anyone how to be accountable about not using this in the event that the tenant has a ding on their record that they had late they were late there was an eviction so this is another obstacle that we cannot allow to happen because there's no way to monitor whether a landlord would use this information on think the bill sponsors for bringing this i would urge you members to think about three groups of people that this bill affects the bill is focused specifically on one group of people that's people who may face eviction and it's trying to get a pathway that is more comfortable more understandable quite frankly longer substantially longer in their behalf but there's two other groups of people that we need to consider and that's one of the traps we fall into so frequently here as we write public policy we come with a bill to get at an issue and it gets at that issue but it gets out a bunch of other issues that affect a bunch of other people and we need to consider those other groups of people now you've heard a little bit of discussion around the second group of people that's landlords now they deserve to have a give and take a balance that we should seek in the process of solving this problem and that's important because the landlord's the investors who choose to put money at risk to put roofs over people's heads should not be unnecessarily discouraged from doing exactly that we want to have more apartments available we want to have more homes available and if we do things that unnecessarily restrict and make it difficult to invest money in order to do that on behalf of people you know what happens the apartments don't get built the growing population of colorado competes for the remaining apartments that are available and the prices go up and up and up and if you think they're unaffordable now wait until you start to restrict the flow of money into the development of projects to put roofs over people's heads and that's in fact absent this amendment exactly what i believe this bill will do which is why this amendment is such an important balance but let's talk about the third group of people that i mentioned that would be so dramatically and negatively affect affected by this bill without this amendment in colorado today we have about four hundred and twenty thousand apartments for people to live in less than ten percent of those apartments are what we're discussing here it's less than ten percent of the individuals on an annual basis that fall into eviction proceedings that fall into a challenge and difficulty the other ninety percent of the people the forgotten men women and children of colorado who will be pinched who will have more difficulty finding a roof to put over their head are the folks we should be thinking about and i would argue that this amendment amendment thirty seven does exactly that it says let's consider everyone in this conversation let's consider the ninety percent of people who never will be affected by this bill one way or the other except if this bill passes without the amendment they would be affected truth not interest rates but rental rates would go up and up and up and make their housing less attainable less affordable and less available so this seeks to strike a balance it simply says to the landlords you will get your day in court it will come within a reasonable period of time and it says to the folks facing eviction that in fact you will have time to get there and here's the thing if you should not be able to cure in the extended time that is made available under this amendment if you should not be able to cure that in fact then you will not have that blemish chasing you around as a scarlet letter in fact this makes it illegal this amendment does for someone to use that information in an adverse way against someone who would seek to rent an apartment in the future now the reality is the information will be out there let's be candid about that however it's still illegal based on what will go into the red letter books or the red books and the black and white letter of the law for someone to use that information against someone who is seeking to rent an apartment the future it's challenging this particular concept this particular idea but you know what if we care about all of the folks who are seeking to rent an apartment to find that first step on the economic ladder to put a roof over their head and their family's head this amendment helps strike an important balance and i urge broadly across the aisle support for this amendment any further discussion on amendment zero three seven seeing none the question before us  adoption of l zero three seven that division has been called the division has been requested all those in the chamber not entitled to vote please thank you please be seated all those opposed please stand zero thirty seven is lost to the bill senator london members thank you to your attention to the ongoing debate that was what i perceived to be an offer at a pretty good balance this balance isn't quite as good of a balance but it's still yet another thank you very much mister chair and i thank the bill sponsor again for engaging in this ongoing conversation about making this bill better so in in the bill as it's written right now that it's moved i'll make clear that  moved it has been moved again thank you all right i'll move it a third time if it gets me any closer to the correct number of votes here i move at a third time at the advice of my colleagues in all seriousness this seeks to find a balance that we did not achieve in the previous amendment this simply says the clock starts ticking we've got a trigger date in the bill it used to be there currently is three days so you're in an apartment you've got a  waiver period you've got a grace period of typically four or five days before anyone can say you're in you're in trouble you know you're in trouble because you haven't paid the rent once you get past that grace period  landlord has a number of days currently it's three days that they must wait before they can put a notice on your door that says you're behind you're beyond the grace period you now have a limited number of days currently that limited number of days is three this bill would make it ten now keep in mind what happens at the end of that period is that's just the the notice that it's happening and then you head towards a court hearing so there's still more time before you get into court what this balance we're seeking to do here is to protect the interests of the tenant the individual who's in the home who's in the apartment and the landlord to make sure that we both know when that time is happening and that it's a reasonable period of time the bill says make that ten days so  period then you get your ten days then in fact you have got an eviction notice which is a trigger date and then you move to court following that this bill or this amendment l three eight simply would make that day smaller from ten days to seven days still for it or it fit four days more than what's in the current law so we're still expanding that we are seeking to find that balance but it's three days less than what's in the rien gross bill so in the thank you mister chair and members i asked for a no vote on l three eight i asked you not to reduce from ten to seven days we have heard from organizations where our tenants may need assistance and it is exactly ten days is what is needed to help those who may deed need assistance we heard from the action center who provides funding when assistance is available from the time they take the initial appointment and when the landlord received the checks can take a minimum of ten days i feel as though if we reduce this to seven days we are not helping tenants who may need financial assistance i think ten days is still clear ten days is enough it's helping those we don't want people to go into poverty or in the condition this bill is narrowly defined it's a limited very limited number of people that this bill is working to help and that's commendable but consider the nearly four hundred zero other families whose rent is likely to be a division has been requested all those in the chamber not intel of the vote please be seated once again a division has been requested all those in the chamber not entitled to vote please be seated the motion before us is the adoption of l zero three eight two house bill one one one eight all those in favor of the amendment please stand thank you please be seated all those opposed please stand senator williams thank you mister chair and members thank you for this conversation i just want to reiterate that we are not trying to harm landlords with eleven eighteen we just want to try to balance the scales of justice we want to give people the opportunity to stay in their homes we do not need poverty we do not need homelessness and this bill will help us here in colorado to reduce the eviction rate across the state just having a filing on your record even when it's later dismissed can make it impossible to secure housing in the and eighteen the median rent for a one bedroom apartment was one thousand four hundred and thirty two dollars up since ninety seventy nine percent since two thousand and ten statewide rent prices are more than fifty percent even without an eviction on the record it is increasingly difficult to find housing a recent polls showed that sixty percent of voters statewide agree that we are in a housing crisis in their communities and forty percent strongly agree forty three percent of the millennials and thirty six percent of rules agree we are in an expensive housing market for both renters and homeowners with record profits for developers since two thousand and fourteen the median rib for one bread room apartment in this state has risen twenty two point four percent that's twice the nationwide increase we want working families they should be able to afford housing still give enough money to pay for the basics like food and clothing and health thank you mister chair and i've been talking on the sidelines with my colleague from colorado springs and he reminded me about my statement that i made about this is a good problem to have and through that clarification in that conversation i just want to make it clear that what he was saying is that he believes that the economy in the state of colorado is strong we have an active economy it's strong and because of that we do have a rising cost as it relates to rental property that's the good problem the bad problem is that some folks may not can afford the rising rates of rental property so i just wanted to make that clear that we are a strong economy and because we have a strong economy people are moving to the state of colorado property values are up and when you have property values that are up so is rental property but the problem still exists that we have far too many people who can't afford housing in the state of colorado i'm not quite sure what the average rental property is in colorado but i understand the average home might be starting at what three hundred thousand dollars and when you think about rental property right now the average rent i read and in denver is probably around what eighteen hundred dollars a month something like that and so what people are having to do often time is they have to get more than one person to occupy that rental space to be able to make ends meet so it is a problem that we do need to address and i think that this house bill does exactly that so members please vote yes on house bill  i just want to say thanks to the previous speaker for clarifying that we have good problems we have bad problems the good problem is we have a strong economy which is driving cost up which is making it it's making opera it's creating opportunity for a lot of folks but it's making the housing problem more difficult the bad problems that i think we seek to address and i'll argue later on that this this bill doesn't do it is eviction is a bad problem to have is non payment is a bad problem to have is the tension between landlords and tenants is a bad problem to have and and i worry that we're actually making that problem worse with this bill senator bridges thank you mister chair there are fantastic landlords out there there are people who when a tenant is late on their rent they call him up and they say hey you're late on your rent what's the story they listen they find a way to get back on track there are excellent landlords out there but if all humans were angels we wouldn't need government this bill is to make it clear and fair for both landlords and tenants exactly what the expectations are moreover this bill helps people stay in their homes and we know that when people stay in their homes they need fewer government services this bill is a fiscally responsible bill it is rare in the legislature that we can do something that both saves the state money and is good for the people of this state in a morally righteous way this bill is good fiscal policy it is good moral policy and i ask for an aye vote senator tate would say kind of anecdotal challenges that we see with individuals and families struggling economically and then we have legislation that's a blunt instrument that affects everybody in the class in this case everyone that has a tenant landlord relationship and so i would like appreciate the comments from my friend from greenwood village yes there are landlords are great i would i would actually argue based on the testimony and with my knowledge of industry i'd say the overwhelming overwhelming majority of landlords worked with tenants why the cost of losing a tenant are extremely high no landlord wants to lose a tenant willy nilly and so the incentive structures are really aligned to have landlords keep tenants as best they can but again i recognize the anecdotal challenges that are always present and issues like this no legislation we have this year i do want to offer a maybe a debbie downer comment i don't really think that this bill will lower eviction rates two main reasons i think if you think about the reasons for an eviction there is our non economic or economic ones would be like a tenant who's causing damage causing disruption a threat to other tenants things like that they're gonna get evicted and it's just a matter of by law we're just putting it really just comes down to economic challenges that people have that aren't solved within one week period of one week period i will say i'm very appreciative of the senator from denver accepting an amendment related to in home owners and tenants i mean landlords that own very few properties the reality is they're most likely fully leveraged and renting out property out and any disruption from a tenants ability in terms of attendance ability to pay and willingness to pay puts them in financial jeopardy in terms of making mortgage payments on the property and so i have appreciate wrong appreciation for my colleagues  denver a sensitivity toward that we heard a lot about that in committee anyways just want to share my thoughts in the and i guess ultimately as he might ascertain i'll be voting now in the bill thank you business transactions has gotten far beyond what is necessary it's almost becoming tyrannical in a lot of ways it stated that this bill creates relief and i asked for who is the property owner responsible for the tenant unable to make rent for the tenants economic status no he's not does the tenant have any sort of feelings of the position he put the landlord or the property owner in for now delaying money coming in for that rent so that takes away from the land owner being able to pay mortgages to pay property tax and the ability to protect his property which is what i'm going to get into now because when you let somebody stay in your home because you can't a victim are you aware you've certainly come out for the person who is in there and how he should be able to stay in there but do you know what they can do to that property when they stay in there i'm going to tell you because across the canal from where i live an unfortunate property owner went through almost nine months trying to get a person evict add what was more than one person but one was on the lease out of the home during that time the gas and the heat was  so what did the people do they went out and they started cutting down the trees the trees that have been there before i even moved into my property which was forty seven years ago they cut him down and they were burning him and they set up a makeshift gas apparatus into the house to which when i was out feeding my horses fire started out of the side of the house i called the fire department we didn't know if it the makeshift gas line or whatever had gone awry or if the house was going to be burned down they did occasionally open and close their garage door to which you got a great view of what was inside that garage which was over a year's worth of trash weeds were ramp the house used to be a really nice place by the time the renter's got done and were evicted from the house it took the people who owned that house a year and a half to get it back to where it was livable again when people rent your house a lot of times even though they are not allowed to have pets they bring in pets this is another story to which i know you've heard time and time again and we have problems with this here at the capital we see is pets who come in and urinate and defecate on the carpets and floors and they're never cleaned up the trash builds up not just in the garage but inside of the house and who's going to take care of that it's the landlord the landlord the landlord that put their money in their risk into buying this property so hopefully they could make a little income to live off of and the property value hopefully hopefully would increase so if they sold it they would be able to have some sort of retirement the properties are but with an investment in mind but the way that we treat property owners here in the state of colorado i know that a lot of these owners of rental property are selling and i do not blame  government is more responsible for creating homelessness than any property owner and yet you are making the property owner responsible to take care of these people that the government created is this going to help government took force landlords into renting their property out to people who really can't afford it yeah government loves to get some release of people on the street but i think government created that problem this is not a good bill and this is not the role of government have a little heart for the person who's putting out their life savings their liberties their work their money to buy a place like this and then open it up to someone to rent have a little heart for them to it goes both ways i feel for those people who cannot afford it but to go out and rent something that you yourself know you can't afford that's a personal responsibility level and this bill does not do anything for that it does nothing to help the problem it helps create a bigger problem and i wish all renters could pay the rent we all do but let's look at why they can't and let's not make property owners responsible for them not turning in their rent check so i am a hard no on this bill and i ask you to really think about what you're doing senator taped thank you mister chair and i guess i'm a sympathetic no but one thing i forgot to mention and it's a kind of a trade off on all these kinds of issues is that in some ways will probably be slightly modifying the rental market by which deposits will increase nominally possibly will few see fewer quantities of rentals just based on the implicit costs of having tenants and this is a trade off to keep in mind and all these things whether it be the family leave bill other things as you know or minimum wage issues are we are we happy with in the trade off of a fewer quantity in the market for the balance of the quantity being different in some ways i think it's better to have more rather than less but that's just me and thank you very time any further discussion chair i come down here as a renter because that's what i do and as i understand the bill we're going from three days to ten is that correct i do not believe that this will impact the market i think the only impact you're gonna have is those people that were delinquent for three days may very well be ten days but the idea of a rental is to make sure the you know your renters are and that's why we have the application so i don't i just don't have a problem at this bill three days is really not very long and i think that you know the the people that i ran from here in denver i don't think that they have a problem with it either because there's very very little turn in the process so i'm not sure you know i'm not sure that that how this is effect yeah i don't think it'll affect the economy i don't think it'll affect their rental problems but i just i don't see that there's a big issue with three to ten yes on it because i don't think it's a it's a very it's an issue d and you know actually to give a little bit more disclosure i'm involved with i own five rentals and it's it's just it's problem free as long as you make sure who's getting in there so uh you know i don't see i don't see why we're having an issue with this particular bill it does not affect anything as long as our economy continues to grow population will come in the real estate  entities claim they like to keep a seven percent vacancy on rentals and that's what stabilizes it as i understand it homeowners the the cost of a homeowner has dropped two percent on value and the rentals will follow i think this thing will stabilize but but only when the the amount of of vacant apartments or exists but i agree with the senator from colorado springs that this is a good problem  thanks mister chair colleagues i think we've actually had some really good discussion in here on seconds i know that often doesn't happen a lot of folks were paying attention engaged on this front i think there's some genuine concern that really what we're doing by the way the current bill is written is that we are shifting the burden we were shifting the burden back further into the rental process either at the application process or at the ongoing rent and payment or the amount that will be required for a security pot  deposit you name it but but this is it it's like a balloon you squeeze on one side and that pressure is gonna go somewhere else and we're squeezing on the tail end of this in an eviction process and it's going to expand elsewhere so with that mister chair i'd like to offer amendment three nine and then the period of time before you actually have the hearing and right now we should be able to count in both of those times to be able to make a cure the goal is to solve the problem the goal is not to tilt the scales to on favor of one or the other the goal is to actually solve and mediate this problem i think this policy approach actually does that that it says you can cure both during the seven days up until the the eviction notice is filed along with the other fourteen days until which by law answers do according to section one thousand three hundred and forty one thirteen i mean it's still clarifies you can't if a cure is made which is the goal remember the goal i think both sides have agreed the goal is a cure if a cure is made that that that filing doesn't get to be used against you in in future applications it makes sense it solves the problem colleagues i ask for your support of a member thirty nine  chair and members we've discussed this we feel like ten days is reasonable seven days is just not enough to help those in need i'm just gonna ask you for a no vote on this we've discussed this and we want to keep it at ten to be able to cure the rent it clarifies it it's not confusing to the renter andor the landlord so i'll ask you for  her thank you mister chair i actually come down in support of this amendment and here's why i think seven is a good compromise i think what we've heard today is a good balanced discussion between you know this is too much and this is not enough and so i think we need to find something that kind of meets in the middle the that recognizes that not every landlord is a bad actor that not every renter is a bad actor but not every landlord is a good actor and not every renter is a good actor as well so we just have to recognize that the circumstances are different on both sides and i think this is a good compromise of landing in the middle of finding a way to definitely increase it beyond three because three is too little at the same time you know ten ten is too much so i would be in favor of of landing on a compromise seven is a week i think that that's good i also really believe that this section be here of this amendment is really critical i want to make sure that people that are experiencing an unfortunate event maybe a medical emergency or something in which they they just are having difficulty that particular month but they find a way to cure i don't want that coming back on them and making it more difficult for them to find housing in the future i i would like it so that there is no adverse credit action what if they couldn't cure even though they were given the extra time and they weren't able to cure then then it's gonna be very hard for them to find housing but if they were able to do it i i wouldn't want this negatively affecting their credit for everything else in their life when they were when they managed to find a way to cure so this second half section b i think is really important i don't want to have this kind of thing hanging over the tenants heads if they're able to cure so i would ask for an aye vote is there any further discussion on l three nine the the question before us then is the adoption of l three nine a division has been requested all those in the chamber not in t members of division has been requested all those in the chamber not entitled though please be seated the motion before us currently is the adoption of l zero three nine two house bill one one one eight all those in favor of the amendment please stand thank you please be seated all those opposed please stand thank you please be seated l three nine is lost to the bill senator williams thank you mister chair and members i want to thank everyone on both sides of the aisle for the conversation and the perspectives on house bill one thousand one hundred and eighteen and just keep in mind that we're trying to keep families out of poverty we're trying to keep them out of homelessness they're trying to be reasonable we are not trying to punish landlords we are just trying to give tenants an additional time if they face a financial loss or some type of emergency so i'll senator danielson thank you mister chair thank you colleagues guests in the chamber and out in the lobby it's nice to see you here today today we come before you with senate bill one hundred and ninety six and i'm gonna keep my remarks brief and defer to my colleague senator pete lee who's been working on these similar issues for a long time but i will just say that my investment in this bill is driven by  commitment to the hard working folks all across the state construction workers literally build our communities and for that we are grateful and we want to do right by the workers who build up our communities we want to do right by the families that they have to provide for we want to do right for their job security in their future and part of that is ensuring the best wages possible for this kind of difficult work safety on the job and investment in apprenticeships and building for the future and providing these hard working coloradans with enough to provide for their families and we've got that in senate bill one  six and i hope that you'll consider an aye vote on this important measure for the hard working folks all across the state constant even though we've heard this bill at least partially before you still need to move the bill in order for us to actually technically discuss it senator garrison could you just moved the bill thank you mister chair i move and ninety six all right thank you senator lee thank you mister chair so just as a reminder we were talking about this bill on friday and the bill was significantly modified from its original form so the bill that we are considering is the strike below that was passed out of the state veteran military affairs committee the original purpose of this bill was to provide apprentice training programs but during the course of those discussions with the stakeholders including the colorado contractors and the associated general contractor's the people that build the things in colorado a proposal was put on the table  all the unions were in that room at the same time craft unions af of l cio and they the discussion revolved around a proposal from the contractors to have a statewide davis bacon prevailing wage senator danielson and i collaborated over the implications of that and ultimately the implications of that are extraordinarily good both for the state which gets high quality projects built by skilled labor it also raises the wages of employees throughout the state the advantages of doing this are both in the present and in the future the davis bacon prevailing wage law provides that employees excuse me that employers have to make contributions to health and welfare plans to vacation plans to pension plans and significantly from my standpoint to apprentice training programs what i have been hearing ever since i've been at the capitol is that we have a tremendous statewide shortage of skilled trades we have contractors across the state who do not have the capability to complete projects or even bid on projects because they don't have enough p electricians and sheetmetal workers and cement finishers and mechanical equipment operators what the davis bacon prevailing wage law does is require contributions to apprentice programs what this bill will do will build the workforce of the future for the state of colorado so i urge your support for this bill thank you any further discussion zero zero five please proceed thank you mister chair we we've been like i said from the beginning working with a number of different interests and in an effort to make this bill  more easily accommodating to some of the interests at the table we needed to make some significant changes in the amount of money the the basic the lowest level of money that would qualify the contract for under the bill and so we've changed that and we've raised bill as initially an initially proposed was fifty thousand dollars so all contracts over fifty thousand dollars would be required to be in compliance with the bill after listening to some of the major builders around the state the universities that have projects we acquiesce to the request of higher education primarily and agreed that the floor for the contracts will be five hundred thousand dollars and i'm told with this amendment that we have the support of cu and csu on this bill as a result of  those this amendment so we would urge an aye vote for zero zero five any further discussion on l zero zero five seeing none the question before us is the adoption of l zero zero five all those in favor say  mister chair on friday last i i believe my colleague from el paso county who is a sponsor of this bill came down and i don't want to misquote him but there was some comment that this was a collaborative effort of the the construction trades and the contractors and they all agreed on this and  was a great moment of coming together and i don't think because it was second reading everybody's talking anyone heard me exclaim back there when i when he said that of course they did of course they did and why did they do that because the one stakeholder that needed to be at the table was not at the table as is so often the case and legislative decisions who is that stakeholder the taxpayers of colorado because what this does by requiring what is essentially davis bacon wages under the federal davis bacon act is to drive up the cost of every construction project covered and what we've had since friday is a new a revised fiscal note you might take it out i invite my friends over here on this side of the aisle if you're gonna vote for this bill at least take a look at the fiscal right number or seven percent or five percent chop it down if you want and call it twenty million dollars the fact of the matter is this bill is going to make every construction project covered for our state universities are non cdot projects every one of them more expensive now i don't think that by and large construction contractors are big fans of davis bacon but i have to tell you if they're sitting at the table and they all have to a bit against davis bacon wages they just know what they need to do they just bed for a little more and that's a bit more revenue to their their company and that all kind of works out for them members just know that what you're voting on is higher construction cost for every project in the state of colorado now there's another piece to the bill now what i just talked about is a is a reason to vote no on the bill altogether but if you are going to vote yes on the bill i would say this the bill also requires certification and the bill really is the strike below it's the state veteran the military affairs committee report and what it requires for these contracts is that the general contractor that's awarded the contract document to the contracting organization the agency that apprenticeship programs registered with the department of labor and employment have a proven record and this is to require these subcontractors to have workers who've participated in the apprenticeship program ok good enough programs that workers can go to that they can do their job and go and get there in a reasonable time in the evening to do this apprenticeship program now there is a request for waiver provision in the strike below at page two and three and they can request a waiver of these apprenticeship worker  for workers in these trades to have attended an apprenticeship program that the agency the state shall grant the waiver if the public project is in an area of the state where registered apprenticeship programs are not available within a reasonable distance for apprentices to participate in after their workday otherwise we're going to lock out people in these trades who are at projects in rural areas that would provide work for them and someone will come from denver colorado springs or greeley or fort collins they'll come to the western slope or out on the eastern plains to build that state project because these folks won't be qualified because they live in a rural area and don't have an apprenticeship program another waiver requirement would be if there are not more than two subcontractors available that satisfy the requirements for  mechanical electrical and plumbing portions of the public on public project this is a good amendment because it accounts for rural colorado it accounts for smaller contractors is only for those where there's not a program within a reasonable distance that can be attended by these workers i ask for an aye vote on thank you mister chair and thank you senator gardner for talking about the waiver and the requirements of a waiver as you correctly pointed out there is waiver in the bill right now we don't think it's necessary to expand the waiver provision and so we would ask for a no vote on the gardner amendment in addition i would note that the amendment proposed by the good senator from el paso county has a loophole through which a large contractor truck could be driven through the last provision says that a contracting agency may the requirement even if the contractor does not request a waiver so i think it's a little broad i have talked with our contractor friends about the waiver language in the bill and they're prepared  subsequently after the bill passes to talk about the possibility of a waiver in addition all of these bills we'll be subject to rulemaking and we can certainly take a look at what waiver language ought to be i think the el paso senators waiver is a little broader than we are comfortable with so we asked for no vote on the  general contractor's in our own el paso county requested this because they are concerned that the current waiver in the strike below is too narrow and too rigid for that reason i ask for an  six is lost senator or taped thank you mister chair i have a question for the bill sponsors the one part of the bill i think i'm interested in or sympathetic with is the apprenticeship program aspect and is there a reason why the apprenticeship programs are restricted just to a couple trades versus all trades as being a former construction professional i have a lot appreciation for how some trades are more technical lee thank you mister chair the bill is reasonably expansive in the inclusion what we want to do is to include the mep the mechanical electrical plumbing contractors they were  the the largest group we are certainly willing to talk about expanding the bill to include other trades along the way but right now the bill is as it is but we are interested in having further discussions as the bill moves forward we realize the carpenters are an important part of the building trades and we want them to also have access senator  thank you mister chair members i'll be very brief we had the state architect speak to us in regards to the cost of this just alone on the state buildings and yes he said there would be an increase didn't know what it is your fiscal note shows up to about a ten percent increase but let me tell you what that equates to as far as the capital that we spend our money on in capital development currently we funded through prioritization number twelve this year if this bill were in effect this year and the assumptions were correct we would have to then go to line nine there would be the last line that we funded which means the department of personnel and administration their historical property rehabilitation would not have been funded the auraria higher education center which has several campuses down area center to replace the heating and hot water system a capital renewal project go colorado school of mines their frontiers building gone so if we indeed we're gonna pay the cost of higher expensive buildings let's understand what's going to be cut let's understand what impact it will have because i don't care where you draw the line on the list next year five to ten percent of those projects will be eliminated because you have to move the line to adjust for the additional cost members this is not a being a good steward of our money so you have to ask the question what is the problem we're trying to solve do we currently have safety issues in building these state buildings the answer is no are we currently having substandard contractors do the work and have sub standard completed projects the answer is no so you have to ask yourself what solution this bill is providing for what problem thank you very much mister chairman have you ever walked into a movie ten minutes late kind of you don't know what's going on you missed the first act you don't know who the characters are you don't know what the plot is you don't know how things are developing you have to hurry to catch up you have to run to catch up i kind of felt that way on this bill when i got the new fiscal note this morning thirty four million dollars the argument is of course all the stakeholders were involved except one and the stakeholders that were at the table  i've done contract in my past i've done time and materials contracts i've done cost plus contracts and of course if you increase the basis of the work i'm doing and i've got a contract that says i'm going to get fifteen percent for overhead and another ten percent for profit and that number is going to get expanded i'm going to say sure let the number get bigger the challenge is the taxpayers are missing out on that and it's our job to provide their voice to this conversation and say what is the most efficient way what is the safest way what is the best way to get this done and you heard the previous speaker the good senator from we'll call it the northeast quarter of colorado just spoke to this we don't have safety problems we don't have efficiency problems what are we trying to solve here and how much are we willing to spend to do it  i feel like i'm racing to catch up to this train this pink sheet that showed up on my desk this morning that said thirty four million dollars more and i'm not willing to jump on that train i do not think that is an appropriate use of the taxpayers dollars  opposition to this particular bill senate bill one hundred and ninety six surly thank you mister chair and again i very much appreciate the dialogue and comments of my colleagues on this bill you know what we're trying to do is invest in the future that's really what we're looking at we want to train workers for the future so the colorado can still build the infrastructure that it needs going forward  over the past few years we have had seven hundred and fifty million dollars worth of low bid contracts low bid contracts do not provide any investment in apprentice training programs if the state is going to spend money to build things i would like to see the state spend some of that money to train the workforce of the future i think we have an obligation as legislators as taxpayers to look to the future would contest the thirty four million dollars set forth in the bill first i would note it's not in the upcoming year it's a year away but i think the fiscal note misses the mark and itself a couple of respects one despite the fact that we have an amendment that raised the contracting amount from fifty thousand dollars floor to five hundred thousand dollars floor the bill the fiscal no still premise thanh the idea of a fifty thousand dollars public project also and even more significantly the estimate of thirty plus million dollars is based on five to ten percent increase in cost on the public projects and they the fiscal analyst took the entire budget for the fiscal project in fact only twenty percent of a project is labor cost so only twenty percent of the project should be subject to the potential escalator of five to ten percent i would also suggest that the  a five to ten percent increase in cost was a wag a wild guess that it was not a specific precise estimate of the i think we need to remember what the basic implications of this bill include and what we're doing with the prevailing wage component of the bill is leveling the playing field for all contractors so that it's no longer a race to the bottom to see who can compete for the lowest wages to pay these critical workers prevailing wage benefits all of us the workers wages job safety on the job training efficiency in using better trained workers it makes better products and we're doing right by the hard working construction workers all across the state if we need to do more to try and be more inclusive on the apprenticeship utilization piece they have my commitment to work towards that goal we're doing our best but what we have in front of us is an extraordinary tool to lift up these hard working construction workers all across the state while we're facing a tremendous workforce shortage this bill addresses that if we ignore the work shortage it'll be an exponential increase to the cost of the tax plate pair we will have qualified dedicated people building these projects and hired right here in colorado sen and ninety six will lift up construction workers all across the state and it's an investment in the future for the quality of the projects that the state engages in and i urge your aye vote on this  so i would rejoin that conversation the conversation that says that by introducing the davis bacon the prevailing wage component to this it's not a race to the bottom and i would say that's what it is is is a race to less the answer is there are projects that will not get done now with the finite resources that the state has the capital expenditures budget the intentions to spend money that we have it means we're going to do less instead of do more with less rodgers we're just going to do less and that is a significant and important perspective that the taxpayers deserve to hear about deserve us to represent and to deserve us to fight for we should be doing more with less not doing less for the taxpayers of colorado i again rejoin the effort to urge opposition to one  thank you mister chair and thanks to my colleagues i i just have to respectfully disagree there's dozens literally forty different studies from this same kind of legislation from all across the country that proved that w prevailing wage laws are enacted to protect the workers and lift them up it does not result in higher costs and construction projects there's no data to show the prevailing wage increases construction costs we're investing in these workers we're investing in quality product we're investing in on the job training we're investing in apprenticeship utilization we can't do without this kind of protection thank you thank you mister chair you must have read the thought bubble across the top of my head i was not actually thinking about coming back in but i was feeling compelled to come back in and say exactly this i've been on both sides of this project i've been a contractor i been a contractor that paid market rates and i've been a contractor that paid prevailing federal rates the reality is when you pay the bigger rates you get less bang for your buck the work doesn't change the product doesn't change the end of the project doesn't change what happens is you get less for the people who hired you to do the work and in this case the conversation is who's hired us do the work the people of colorado and what are they calling us to do get more done with less on a daily basis because that's what they're doing with their family budgets that's what they're doing with their business budgets they expect us to do the same this bill turns from that idea of doing more thank you mister chair i move the committee risin report seeing no objection the committee will rise and report to residential warranty of habitability sarah williams thank you mister president i move that the senate adopt the first report of the first  mold is a very difficult issue and so what we did is we moved the notification of the repairs from twenty four hours to ninety six hours after a landlord has completed the written electronic notice and then we made some adjustments of course to any of those properties that might be funded through federal low income tax housing credits or any type of tax credits i asked you scott minority leader hill marble crowder ta thank you mister president good morning happy tax day hope everyone has their taxes in and are done on time you have till midnight i just want to remind you again as soon as we get off the floor to come up to room three table to learn how to dispose of drugs that you no longer need in your home thank you seven thirty a m so see you in the morning sara williams thank you mister president members of the senate business labor and technology committee we will meet today at we have several tara danielson thank you mister president i request a moment of personal privilege granted thank you mister president colleagues i just wanted to take a brief minute over in the house this morning they did a very nice real mentor to me and it was my honor to even get to know her let alone work with her and benefit from her support and her guidance and i would have liked to have participated in the memorial over there this morning and i'm sure a number of you would have as well she didn't serve in the senate so we can't honor her here in the same manner but i just i can't sum up in two minutes how much i care for her but probably more importantly the impact that she had on the state and very acutely in the jefferson county community when she took the time to listen to me and then ended up supporting me my first run it meant something personally because i held her so high on a pedestal and respected her so greatly but it also impacted my race because the electorate respects and trusts her still and her word really meant something because she earned it and the integrity that she had and kindness and warmth and she was an effective leader and it's something that i will always strive to live up to and so i guess i would ask if you knew representative greene just say hi to her husband dan and offer your condolences to their family was a tough loss and if we could mister president please take a moment of silence and honor representative green sarah danielson if it's okay the others want speak on this and then we'll observe the moment of silence at the end thank you mister president thank you so much colleagues sure court thank you mister president i request a moment of personal privilege granted thank you when i first came to the house senator representative green was there and she was so lovely and gracious to the the new members and i had known her previously when i was also here as an aide but i remember when she was running for re election one of the pieces that went out said vote for the fight and granny i wasn't quite as old then as i am now so i thought i wonder if that's flattering well folks at this stage i think it's really flattering and she was a fightin granny she was a wonderful woman we will all miss her very very much thank you  my husband worked on so maybe a bad thing for some people but he he worked for her in jefferson county and he always talked about you know her the type of leader that she was when there was a check that came in on something she didn't just agree with she would send it right back and the way that she always stood by her values was in every at every level  did they did call her the fighting granny and i remember when she showed up to my townhome and it was a controversial bill and she was there to support us and i remember her waving her her cane up and yelling back at the person because she was fierce but she was also somebody who valued her family and public service and so i think that she has been somebody for all of us to look up to on what we should do in the time that we have here and we will miss  yulan having no further discussion the senate will renew senator danielson's request for a moment of silence and the senate chimes will be wrong mister president fellow senators today is the colorado carpenters day at the capitol you may have seen them walking around with their orange shirts they're out having a rally on the west steps today these are the men and women who are building colorado with their hands and i want to take this moment a personal privilege to recognize their dedication to excellent craftsmanship the cars the carpenters operate a state of the art apprenticeship program and several of those apprenticeships are here today to visit with you and learn more about the legislative process so notice them with the orange shirts and they brought burritos this morning to