Now in her third year on the Joint Budget Committee, Rep. Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, serves as chair of the legislature’s most powerful committee for 2022. She became the second representative from Summit County to sit on the JBC and as its chair, following Rep. Millie Hamner, whom McCluskie succeeded in the House District 61 seat after Hamner faced term limits in 2018.

Prior to running for the General Assembly, McCluskie served as communications director for the Summit County school district, although she also spent two years – from 2011 to 2013 – as communications director for then-Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia, where she got the itch to run for the legislature.

Colorado Politics: What was it like, taking on the chairmanship of the Joint Budget Committee?

Rep. Julie McCluskie: I shared with my colleagues on the JBC, as well as JBC staff that I really hope we have a much more stable, routine, plain-old vanilla sort of budget-making season than we’ve had these last two years. As an overall comment, both years, even though I would say last year, we were in much better shape than we’d anticipated. Revenues were coming back stronger than we had forecast. That created some challenging dynamics to have additional revenue. We still have money that’s one-time. Making the right strategic one-time investments can be challenging.

We’re wanting to make sure this is a more typical year, getting back to that routine and working with the committee members, very grounded in what we know best about the state’s budget, really being focused on this special moment. Many people recognize COVID is now a part of our life. The challenges we’re facing in this moment with our healthcare system, a spike in disease, is a good warning for us. It helps us temper our enthusiasm with one-time dollars, to remain focused on a healthy recovery, both from the economic perspective and the human perspective, and making sure we’re thinking about investments that lift up and support the healthcare system.

Those guideposts will help us as we make decisions about investments with one-time state dollars, as well as the ARPA funds we now have available to us.

CP: Who do you rely upon for advice or coaching?

JMC: This is not going to be a surprise to you certainly, but I am blessed to have both as a coach and a mentor and a friend [former Rep.] Millie Hamner, who served on the JBC and was the chair of the JBC.

It is not uncommon that I will pick up the phone and give her a call and ask for her thoughts and her wisdom. I’ve done that since Day One, but I would also throw in there that I have great respect for some individuals from past years who have really proven to be helpful and really powerful thought partners: Henry Sobanet, Todd Saliman (both former directors of the office of State Planning and Budgeting), and Mark Ferrandino (former House Speaker and JBC member).

All of them have brought fresh perspectives, creative ideas. They were good mentors for me.

Some of the best advice I received was from our Majority Leader, Daneya Esgar. I asked her, “Okay, I’m going to be the chair, what’s your best advice?” She said, “Remember, you’re not in this alone, and to ask for help and seek the counsel of others.”

Certainly the JBC staff – they have been there for an extended length of time – really have history and previous experiences that help shed light on this moment now and how we might approach some of our decisions. So, I feel very fortunate to have those people in my life to serve in that role.

CP: What put you on the path to wanting to be on the JBC?

JMC: People often talk about the importance of timing in politics, things happening for you at the right moment. The 2019 session was certainly filled with a bit of magic. It was a moment for me when I was able to realize and accomplish some things for my community, and ultimately my House district, that made improvements and changes for the people, for my neighbors, for my friends. That was incredibly exciting and meaningful.

I think all of us that are in the legislature were called to these jobs because we have a desire to serve. But in 2019, I saw success with reinsurance. In Summit County, the epicenter of some of the highest healthcare costs in the nation, reinsurance dramatically changed people’s lives. I saw that happen within a year. It was like a drug to be able to do something that good for so many people.

When the unexpected opening occurred in 2020, while I had not anticipated the dominoes that fell with Senator Hansen [moving] to the Senate that created that opening on JBC, I certainly had Representative Hamners’ experience on the JBC as an exemplar, a model of other types of meaningful impacts one can have on the budget side of things.

As you probably know, I am very passionate about funding for public schools and our colleges and universities. I really felt like it was a moment for me to take those interests and be able to do something that made a difference for the people that I serve. And just six weeks later, we were in a COVID shutdown. There were certainly moments, in all honesty that if I had seen that coming, I would’ve run the other way.

Being so new to JBC, and then having the weight of the world on our shoulders to try and figure out all of those horrible reductions that we took, having to slash services and funding to my two greatest loves, K12 and higher ed, it was a miserable time.

But because of those reductions, we’ve set ourselves up to be in a position of fiscal strength, to make good investments to protect the state for many additional downturns. Now, I feel like we can, really do something bold with next steps.

CP: What do you do in your spare time that you might be able to hang onto while you are chair of the JBC?

JMC: I love to knit. I am working on a sweater right now.

(Editor’s note: McCluskie went on medical leave for a couple of months in fall 2021 after doctors discovered a benign tumor in her head and neck. She went through radiation therapy but is doing well, and said she’s lucky that they found it in August and finished treatment before she had to be back for JBC work in November.)

That gave me time to rest and take care of myself, and I picked up my knitting and took on bigger and harder projects than I have in a while. It’s nice to be doing that as a bit of mental therapy.

My other great love is just getting outdoors. My husband and I like to go “skinning” when we can at Arapahoe Basin, head up to the resort, skin up the mountain, ski down. There’s very few people and it’s a chance to really enjoy what we’ve loved most about our mountain home.