Census Bureau and the State Demographer’s office. Because TABOR generally limits revenue collections to the prior year’s amount plus population growth and inflation, the state’s population is an important figure in determining available revenue to appropriate. Differences in the federal and state estimates of Colorado’s population meant that the Joint Budget Committee would need to address between $160 million to $225 million in lower revenue than previously projected. The state’s economic and revenue forecast from March noted some moderate threats to the budget given the “outlook for corporate income tax collections remains especially uncertain, and the outlook for individual income tax collections has become murkier with recent collections data” . Voters approved a reduction in the individual income tax rate from 4.55% to 4.4% beginning in 2022. Personal income tax collections overall were projected to decrease by 4% for a total of $10.52 billion with a rebound expected in the next two years. Corporate income tax collections were projected to grow by 4.2% for a total of $2.74 billion . A sales tax revenue increase of 5.2% in the last fiscal year is projected to slow to a rate of 2.2% this year, u planting gutter but further accelerate in subsequent years with receding inflationary pressures and personal income gains.Tax revenue generated from marijuana sales decreased again in 2023, although not as substantially as the decline from the prior year.
Figure 2 reports annual revenue from marijuana taxes for each year since the recreational sales began in 2014. Tax revenues increased annually by an average of more than 20% until reaching a peak of $423.5 million in 2021. Sales in 2021 reached a record-high of $2.2 billion but fell considerably to $1.5 billion in 2023; the lowest sales total in seven years . The adoption of marijuana legalization in additional states, including several in the West, resulted ina shrinking market for cannabis tourism, while a greater supply of marijuana and marijuana products drove down prices. Alongside the many partisan divisions on spending priorities included in this year’s budget, intra-party disagreements existed between Democrats on the Joint Budget Committee and Governor Polis. Among the most notable of these were differing approaches to higher education funding. Although the governor sought tuition increases limited to less than inflation, a legislative analysis concluded that the budget proposal for state colleges provided insufficient funding to continue operations without raising tuition. The Office of State Budget and Planning forecast included a projection for stable enrollment levels and proposed a tuition increase for out-of-state students. Rising operating costs and increases in compensation for state employees would translate into a major funding shortfall under the governor’s proposal, which the Joint Budget Committee opposed. The committee ultimately provided an additional $115.8 million for state public institutions if tuition increases did not exceed 3%.
The revised spending plan advanced by the Joint Budget Committee provided increases in spending for most departments for a total of $16.3 billion in General Fund spending. Table 1 reports the proposed and enacted funding levels for state departments and changes from the prior year’s budget.Growing ideological polarization in Colorado’s General Assembly, which has surpassed the California legislature as the most divided in the nation, often produces bitter partisan conflict . Another term of unified Democratic government with historic legislative majorities resulted in progressive policy change on key issues including gun control and reproductive rights as Democrats used parliamentary tactics to advance their agenda. Republican lawmakers alleged that Democrats devoted too much time to “ideological” issues and insufficient attention to issues affecting all Coloradans such as property taxes and inflation. Given their large majorities and willingness to invoke Rule 14 to end debate by majority vote, Democrats achieved liberal policy change on many agenda items including the state budget. Once again during this budget cycle, the Democrats possessed the votes to pass their preferred budget without need for Republican support. Final passage of the Long Bill witnessed substantial partisan disagreements that characterized many other recent debates in the legislature. Ultimately the three Republicans serving on the Joint Budget Committee—Representative Rick Taggart, Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, and Senator Jeff Bridges—were the only members of the minority party to vote for the budget’s final passage. These few deffections from committee members with responsibility for drafting the budget resulted in a 44-16 vote in the House and a 23-10 margin in the Senate.
The finalized budget provided meaningful funding for the governor’s top priorities by increasing spending by 7% from the prior year at an overall price tag of $40.6 billion in Total Funds and $16.3 billion in General Funds. Governor Polis signed the budget into law in a ceremony at the state capitol on April 27.Beyond legislative policy making, statewide ballot measures have also driven policy change on consequential tax and fiscal policy issues including TABOR reform. Although reformers celebrated the passage of referendum C in 2005, voters have since rejected several recent proposals to modify TABOR’s revenue and spending limits. The state’s electorate likewise rejected multiple measures to increases taxes for education or transportation, while also voting to curtail the use of government “enterprise fees” to circumvent TABOR restrictions. Thus, while Democrats have advanced many liberal policy reforms along with successfully funding the governor’s agenda in large part, results from statewide ballot measures in recent years have at times preserved the status quo or resulted in fiscally conservative outcomes. In this regard, the Colorado public and state constitution have served as a more meaningful check on Democratic overreach than the state’s withering Republican party has managed in the General Assembly.Vitis vinifera grapevines originated approximately 65 million years ago from Eurasia and have been cultivated for at least the last 8000 years for its fruits that are crushed to make wine. Grapevines are now grown throughout the world in many kinds of environments. Grape berry development is a complex process involving three developmental phases and multiple hormones. It is in the latter ripening phase that many compounds involved in flavor and aromas are synthesized, conjugated or catabolized. Most of these compounds reside in the skin of the berry and seem to develop in the very last stages of berry development. Aroma and flavor are important sensory components of wine. They are derived from multiple classes of compounds in grapes including important volatile compounds from the grape and from yeast metabolism during grape fermentation. Each grape cultivar produces a unique set of volatile and flavor compounds at varying concentration that represents its wine typicity or typical cultivar characteristics. Esters and terpenes are volatile compound chemical classes largely responsible for the fruity and floral aromas in wines. Esters are largely produced during yeast fermentation from grape-derived products such as aliphatic alcohols and aldehydes. Grape lipoxygenases are thought to provide the six carbon precursors from fatty acids for the synthesis of the fruity aroma, hexyl acetate, planting gutter in yeast during wine fermentation. Terpenes mostly originate from the grapes and are found in both the free and bound forms. Both plant fatty acid and terpenoid metabolism pathways are very sensitive to the environment. Climate has large effects on berry development and composition. Besides grape genetics other factors may influence metabolite composition including the local grape berry microbiome, the soil type and the rootstock. While there is evidence that rootstock can affect fruit composition and transcript abundance, this effect appears to be minor relative to other environmental factors. Many cultural practices used by the grape grower may directly or indirectly affect the environment sensed by the grapevine .
Temperature and light are major contributors to “terroir”. Terroir refers to the environmental effects on grapes and how it contributes distinctive characteristics to the typicity of a wine. The terroir term includes biotic and abiotic factors, soil environments as well as the viticultural practices. In the present work, we will use the term “place” to address all of the above except for the viticultural practices. Recently, a transcriptomic approach was used to elucidate the common gene subnetworks of the late stages of berry development when grapes are normally harvested at their peak maturity. One of the major subnetworks associated with ripening involved autophagy, catabolism, RNA splicing, proteolysis, chromosome organization and the circadian clock. An integrated model was constructed to link light sensing with the circadian clock highlighting the importance of the light environment on berry development. In this report, in order to get a better understanding of how much of the gene expression in Cabernet Sauvignon berry skin could be attributed to environmental influences, we tested the hypothesis that there would be significant differences in gene expression during the late stages of Cabernet Sauvignon berry ripening between two widely different locations: one in Reno, NV, USA and the other in Bordeaux, France . The analysis revealed a core set of genes that did not depend on location, climate, vineyard management, grafting and soil properties. Also, the analysis revealed key genes that are differentially expressed between the two locations. Some of these differences were linked to the effects of temperature and other environmental factors known to affect aromatic and other quality-trait-associated pathways. Many gene families were differentially expressed and may provide useful levers for the vine grower to adjust berry composition. Among others, these families encompassed genes involved in amino acid and phenylpropanoid metabolism, as well as aroma and flavor synthesis.To test the hypothesis that the transcript abundance of grape berries during the late stages of ripening differed in two locations with widely different environmental conditions, we compared the transcript abundance of grape berry skins in BOD and RNO. The vineyards were originally planted in RNO in 2004 and in BOD in 2009. The RNO vines were grown on their own roots, whereas the BOD vines were grafted on to SO4 rootstock. A vertical shoot positioning trellis design was used in both locations. BOD is located at a slightly more northern latitude than RNO. This resulted in slightly longer day lengths in BOD at the beginning of harvest and slightly shorter at the end of harvest . On the final harvest dates, the day length differed between RNO and BOD by about 30 min. RNO had warmer average monthly maximum temperatures than that in BOD, but minimum September temperatures were cooler in RNO . Thus, RNO had a larger average daily day/night temperature differential of 20 °C, whereas BOD had a smaller average daily day/ night temperature differential of 10 °C during the harvest periods. RNO had warmer day temperatures by about6 °C and cooler night temperatures by about 4 °C than that of BOD. The RNO vineyard location was much drier than the BOD vineyard location . The monthly precipitation totals for RNO in September were 2.03 mm whereas it was 65.5 mm in BOD; the average relative humidities were 34 and 74% for RNO and BOD, respectively. The soil at the RNO vineyard was a deep sandy loam with a pH of 6.7; the BOD vineyard was a gravelly soil with a pH of 6.2. No pathogens, nutrient deficiencies or toxicity symptoms were observed on or in the vines at either site.The analysis of transcript profiles of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes harvested in RNO in September of 2012 was previously described. Individual berry skins were separated immediately from the whole berry and the individual total soluble solids level of the berry, which is mostly composed of sugars, was determined. The Cabernet Sauvignon berry skins from BOD were harvested in a similar manner as the RNO berry skins. The berry skins in BOD were harvested from midway in September, 2013 until the first week of October . The berry skins were separated and the °Brix analyzed in the same manner as that in RNO. Grapes were harvested at a lower °Brix range in BOD than in RNO because fruit maturity for making wine is typically reached in the BOD region at a lower sugar level. Transcript abundance of the RNA-Seq reads from both RNO and BOD was estimated using Salmon software with the assembly and gene model annotation of Cabernet Sauvignon. The TPM were computed for each gene from each experimental replicate from berry skins at different sugar levels ranging from 19 to 26°Brix . Principal component analysis of the transcriptomic data showed clear grouping of experimental replicates with the largest separation by location = 51% variance and then °Brix = 22% variance of the berry skin samples .