Legislative staff question proponents on how two Colorado ballot measures would direct sporting-goods sales tax to conservation

Legislative Council Staff and the Office of Legislative Legal Services held a review-and-comment hearing on April 2, 2026, for proposed initiatives 308 and 309, which would designate certain sporting-goods sales tax revenue as voter-approved conservation revenue and create related funds and allocation rules.

Greg Sovetsky, representing Legislative Council Staff, opened the hearing and read the measures' purposes and distribution formulas. Initiative 308 would direct, beginning in the 2027-28 fiscal year, 47.5% of the designated revenue to the Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Fund, 47.5% to a newly created Colorado Wildfire Prevention and Water Fund, 2.5% to an Outdoor Equity Fund and 2.5% to an Outdoor Recreation Economic Development Cash Fund; initiative 309 proposes a different split: 38% to Great Outdoors Colorado and 57% to the Colorado Wildfire Prevention and Water Fund, with 2.5% shares to the two smaller funds.

Sovetsky also read implementation details included in both measures: a July 1, 2027 effective date for fiscal-year distributions; a requirement that Legislative Council Staff adopt a methodology to calculate the annual "wildfire and conservation revenue" amount; a $10,000,000 initial allocation to the prescribed fire claims cash fund out of the Colorado Wildfire Prevention and Water Fund for the first year; and authority for the state forester and the Department of Natural Resources executive director to determine program-level splits for certain funds.

Proponent representatives answered staff questions about the measures' scope and intent. When asked whether each initiative meets Colorado's single-subject rule, a proponent representative replied that both measures share a single subject: "conservation funding for wildfire prevention, water, land, parks and wildlife." When staff asked how the measures would prevent those new dollars from "supplanting" existing funding streams, the proponent representative said the language is included to make clear "the voters' intent is for the money from the Conserve and Protect Colorado's Water, Land and Forests Fund to be additional dollars for the receiving funds and that it should not take the place of current funding streams," and that the legislature would resolve questions about budget treatment when it sets future appropriations.

Staff also asked whether the proponents intended to change prior language from an earlier draft (initiative 228) related to payments to local governments for certain lost property-tax revenue; the proponent representative confirmed the proponents intended that removing that language would not change the distribution amounts required by the measures despite interactions with the state's revenue-cap rules.

There were no motions, votes or formal actions taken during the meeting; legislative staff offered to go through technical comments, which the proponents declined. The hearing concluded at 9:10 a.m.

The measures will proceed through the statutory review process; any future changes or technical edits would be reflected in subsequent filings and staff memoranda.