Accomplishments

The NCLA is very proud of its successes and accomplishments since its establishment in 1992. A brief list of the NCLA’s accomplishments follows:

ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH

Serve as leading business group to help pass a bill to expedite the federal H2A visa certification process, allowing up to 4,000 temporary foreign agricultural workers into the state
Increase small business exemption from business personal property tax from $2,500 to $7,000 by 2012 and increasing with inflation thereafter
Direct millions of dollars from the state’s Limited Gaming Fund toward the Bioscience Research Grant Program
Defeat effort to empower county assessors to audit business’ property and books and adjust tax returns of businesses suspected of filing incorrect returns
Create monetary incentive for businesses that create new jobs
Expand Bioscience Discovery Education Grant Program to include biofuels
Exempt equipment and infrastructure used in clean rooms from sales and use taxes
Help pass a host of renewable energy initiatives to help make Colorado a leader in the booming industry
Launch the Bioscience Discovery Education Grant Program with $2 million for bioscience research and discovery
Achieve major Enterprise Zone reform
Defeat Amendment 24 in 2000
Pass major growth legislation package

ON TAX POLICY

Passage of a measure to allow dynamic modeling when considering tax policy changes
Creation of first legislatively-mandated interim committee to study the business personal property tax and how to reduce or eliminate it
Passage of $2,500 business personal property tax exemption
Helped reduce Colorado corporate income tax rate
Launch $100 million business personal property tax refund
Help form the Colorado Commission on Taxation
Create research and development sales tax credit

ON TRANSPORTATION

Pass 0.08% DUI bill to ensure $50 million in future federal funding
Pass$20 billion long-term funding package
Expedite construction of segment IV of E-470
Pass TRANS referendum for bonding of federal highway dollars
Authorize rural transportation authorities

ON EDUCATION

Serve as lead business organization supporting bill to allow schools to use up to 15% of their special education funding on identifying and helping previously undiagnosed students with special needs, especially in grades K-3
Support bill allowing schools to have more control in their hiring, budgeting and curricula setting, even allowing schools to opt out of collective bargaining agreements
Pass measure to allow CSU and Mesa State University to manage and invest their respective assets
Pass bill to incorporate financial literacy into high school math standards
Pass legislation to provide matching grants in support of federally-sponsored grants
Pass bill directing excess federal mineral lease revenues to fund higher education capital construction projects
Support P-20 Council to address challenges from pre-school through grad school
Secure increases in higher ed stipends Increase capital construction spending by $80 million for priority statewide projects
Approve College Opportunity Fund to fund students rather than institutions and allow schools to qualify for enterprise status
Secure equitable state funding for Northern Colorado school districts
Pass comprehensive education reform package in 2000

ON LABOR

Pass bill to prohibit employees in the state personnel system from striking
Amend bill making it an unfair labor practice to punish employees for discussing wages so that it does not confer broader rights to workers than the National Labor Relations Act
Kill measure to raise the ceiling on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases and remove physical impairment and disfigurement from the non-economic damages classification
Help veto bill that would have made it easier to bring a union into a business
Secure business-friendly amendments to workers’ compensation legislation to allow for more physician choice for employees and other potentially dangerous bills.
Defeat bill creating incentives for “whistleblowers” to report contracting fraud even if the claim is fraudulent.
Defeat bill prohibiting employers from requiring employees to attend or participate in anything that expresses the employers’ political or religious view
Defeat bill mandating employers grant time off for employees to attend school events
Defeat bill expanding the base period for calculating unemployment benefits
Defeat bill to allow employees to choose their own physician in workers’ comp injuries
Defeat bill to allow unemployed benefits to locked out employees
Pass measure to decrease the unemployment insurance solvency tax
Defeat measure requiring employers grant employees access to their personnel files
Secure a permanent 20% unemployment insurance tax credit for business
Defeat of continued efforts to undermine 1986 workers’ compensation reform

ON HEALTH CARE

Defeat effort to include the children of dependent children on health insurance policies
Defeat the “Wal-Mart Bill” requiring large businesses spend 11% of wages on health insurance or give the difference to the state
Defeat “Wal-Mart Bill 2” requiring applicants for Medicaid reveal their employers and requiring businesses to report how many of their employees are on Medicaid Defeat bill requiring the state to become a re-insurer (an effort that only benefits employers not already offering health benefits to employees)
Pass legislation to make association health plans and health savings accounts a reality in Colorado
Defeat of “Any Willing Provider” legislation
Defeat of a variety of proposed mandated benefits
Remove barriers to provider network adequacy
Create Rural Health Care Task Force

ON WATER

Create rotational crop management “fallowing” program, allowing farmers to lease rather than sell water rights
Secure funding for basin roundtables and their projects Implement basin roundtables
Defeat measure limiting or prohibiting transbasin diversions and mandating specified mitigation standards
Pass bill giving the state engineer power to approve diversion or replacement plans for three years for 1,500 well pumpers along the South Platte River