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<br />and the flack about the state Hospital, Colorado state university, <br />and the penitentiary greatly overrunning their budgets by millions of <br />dollars. The Appropriations Committee has been hard put to determine <br />how much will be available, until they take care of these supplemental <br />appropriations. And there is a continuing battle now about future <br />appropriations for the institutions of higher learning and now the great <br />decision that was rendered here in Denver the other day about the <br />School Financing Act. <br /> <br />This week and next week, the Appropriations Committee will start turn- <br />ing out bills.' If they don't turn Senate Bill 325 out by a week from <br />Friday, it's dead. That is the final day for cOmmittee action on <br />bills in the house of origin. So I will be devoting mOst of my time <br />between now and then in trying to get that bill through the Senate <br />Appropriations committee. We don't really anticipate any problem. It <br />is just simply the pressure that those people are under. They have 50 <br />Dills pending in that committee that they have to act upon within the <br />next lO days. If we ever get the bill out on the floor of the Senate, <br />it will pass, I think, very readily. The Legislature has now established <br />deadlines for everything that happens in this session. By the 23rd, a <br />week from Friday, all bills must have cleared all committee action in <br />the house of origin. The Senate bills have to be out of all Senate <br />committees by the 23rd, and 'they must be passed on the floor of the <br />Senate or the House, as the case may be, by the 9th of April. So our <br />bill, Senate 325, has to be out of committee the 23rd and has to be <br />passed by the floor of the Senate by the: 9th of April. And then it must <br />pass the House. :'It has to go' back through all the cOmmittee action again <br />in the House and has to be out of the House and passed by the House by <br />May 7. So we will know shortly. I just don't know what else we can do. <br />We have' a:, lot of people working on that bilL The leadership, both' <br />Republican and Democratic leadership, are attempting to push the'bill, <br />as well as the Governor, and a number of organizations are helping us. <br />The Denver Board of Water Commissioners is helping us and the City of <br />Denver. Practically all the municipalities around the state and the <br />Colorado Counties adopted a unanimous resolution to support the bill. <br />I just don't know what else'we can do at this point. ,I will start <br />pursuing it again tomorrow' morning, and I am hopeful that we will get <br />it out. That is the best report I can give you at this time on it. <br /> <br />Are'there any-'questions up to this point? I have one more item. <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />MR. FETCHER: What about the companion bill? Was it 170? <br /> <br />MR. SPARKS: 170 is the bill that related to mineral severance taxes, <br />and there are several bills in relating to mineral severance taxes, <br />and it is just bogged down. <br /> <br />I told the' COmmittee' that if we get 325, we don't care about 170. So <br />the Republican leadership, at least, and I think the Democratic leader- <br />ship as well, has decided to settle upon 325 as a method of financing <br />state water projects. We have 36 sponsors on that bill, that 325. <br /> <br />MR. FETCHER: That is via the sales tax? <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />-38- <br />