Denver Business Journal – by Ed Sealover
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed several business-related bills into law Wednesday.
Those bills include:
• Senate Bill 31, sponsored by Sen. Mark Scheffel, R-Castle Rock, which excludes tax-increment financing from being used for gambling-related facilities in tourism enterprise zones.
• Senate Bill 112, sponsored by Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, which lets businesses use deductible programs to help reduce workers’ compensation insurance rates and requires the state commissioner of insurance to publicize aggregate loss and payroll data used in workers’ compensation rate making.
If companies can save money through deductible programs, they can spend more creating jobs, Kopp said.
• Senate Bill 116, also sponsored by Kopp, which requires public entities to reimburse contractors on an ongoing basis if change orders are made to contracts rather than to wait until a change order agreement can be reached.
The bill is particularly important at a time when construction industry unemployment hovers around 27 percent, said Michael Gifford, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Colorado.
