City staff delivered a legislative update at the Pueblo City Council work session, summarizing bills the city is watching in the current Colorado legislative session and flagging a resolution on the council agenda opposing changes to municipal court procedures.

The update summarized why the items matter to Pueblo: amendments to the Colorado Voting Rights Act, child-care fee regulations, proposed changes to failure-to-appear charges and municipal-court sentencing, and a bill to classify nuclear energy as a clean resource for utility regulation.

The staff member giving the briefing told council that the 2025 session had produced hundreds of bills so far — "282 bills have been introduced in the house, 78 in the senate" — and that the city’s lobbyists are tracking items that could affect Pueblo.

One high-priority item identified was the Colorado Voting Rights Act (referred to in the briefing as SB25-001). Staff said amendments narrowed the multilingual-ballot requirement so it now applies only to municipalities in the 20 counties that meet a threshold for non-English-speaking electors; Pueblo was not included among those counties. The staff member said the narrowed language removes an immediate requirement for the city to print Spanish-language municipal ballots and would therefore avoid the printing costs if the bill’s amended language remains in final form.

Staff also described SB25-004, a change to state rules on child-care program fees. Under the amendments described to council, the legislation shifted from a flat $25 cap on wait-list fees to a refundable wait-list fee structure: families on a wait list for more than six months could obtain a refund if they withdraw, and providers could withhold a reasonable administrative fee. The update said deposit rules were relaxed so centers could apply deposits at any point rather than only to the first month’s tuition, and new transparency requirements would require providers to give families a current fee schedule at registration.

On municipal-court law and related bills, staff identified SB25-062 (failure-to-appear charges, discussed as having passed the Senate with amendments) and a House companion cited as HB25-1276. Staff said the city has been active on this topic and will bring a resolution opposing a separate measure on fairness and transparency in municipal court to the council agenda; staff and the mayor planned to testify in Denver.

Staff also flagged HB25-1040, a bill to define nuclear energy as a clean energy resource in Colorado’s utility regulations, which had advanced through early committee stages.

City staff emphasized that some bills remain in flux and that further amendments are likely. Council members were encouraged to review the lobbying group’s emailed legislative update and to contact staff with specific questions or requests to relay positions to the city’s lobbyists.

Ending: Staff said the city will continue monitoring the measures and that mayoral and staff testimony was planned on at least one municipal-court measure. Councilors were invited to review the written update distributed by the lobbyist group and to request briefings if they wanted more detail.