Fiscal Impact Summary	FY 1999/2000	FY 2000/2001
State Revenues General Fund
State Expenditures General Fund
FTE Position Change	0.0 FTE	0.0 FTE
Other State Impact: TABOR
Effective Date: 90 days after adjournment unless petition is filed
Appropriation Summary for FY 1999-2000: None
Local Government Impact: See Local Government Impact Section)

The reengrossed version of the bill pertains to the issuance of concealed handgun permits and includes the following provisions:

• states that the issuance of permits to carry concealed handguns is a matter of statewide concern;

• defines “sheriff” as the sheriff of a county, or his or her designee, or the official who has the duties of sheriff in a city and county, or his or her designee;

• requires each sheriff and police chief to issue within ten days of application a written permit to carry a concealed handgun to any person who applies and who is eligible to purchase a weapon under state and federal law;

• permits to carry concealed handguns do not apply in areas 1) in which the carrying of a firearm is prohibited by federal law; 2) any building that houses any office of state or local government; 3) any high school, college, university, or professional athletic event that does not involve the use of handguns; or 4) any building in which preschool through twelfth grade education occurs, except in cases when possession of a handgun is for use in an educational program approved by the school;

• continues the provision that permits a sheriff to request that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to conduct a criminal history check to determine whether an applicant is eligible to purchase a firearm pursuant to state and federal laws, with such check no longer required to include the processing of fingerprints;

• specifies that a sheriff or police chief shall not be liable for any damages resulting from the granting of a permit issued in good faith;

• permits the sheriff or police chief to impose a fee for the issuance of the permit, with said fee to reflect the actual costs of issuance, with no fee to exceed $100;

• the issuing agency may not impose additional criteria or requirements on any person applying for a permit;

• any additional information, such as weapons training and legal issues involving the use of weapons, may be provided;

• the issuing agency is not permitted to request any information concerning other weapons that may be owned by the applicant;

• permits issued by other states would be valid in Colorado and persons proving residency of a state in which concealed handguns may be carried without a permit may carry a concealed handgun in Colorado as if he or she possessed a permit issued pursuant to the provisions of the bill; and

• the carrying of a concealed handgun by a person in a private automobile who is carrying the weapon for any legal use is excepted from the statute concerning the unlawful carrying of a concealed handgun.

According to the Department of Public Safety, the deletion of the requirement that the background check include, but not be limited to, processing of fingerprints for state criminal history information using fingerprints to access arrest history records that are maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation will not affect the number of background checks requested. The bill continues to permit sheriffs to request that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation conduct criminal history checks to determine an applicant's eligibility to possess a handgun under state and federal laws.

The bill allows the sheriff or police chief to charge a fee to cover actual costs incurred in issuing permits. A sample of current practice found that law enforcement officials are charging between $85 and $100 per application. A spokesperson for the County Sheriffs Association reported that the deletion of the fingerprint requirement will result in a lower actual cost for processing applications. For the purposes of this fiscal note, it is assumed that sheriffs and police chiefs will charge and collect a $50 permit fee for an estimated 20,500 new permit applications annually. This assumption yields first-year revenue of $1,025,000 dispersed among county and municipal governments statewide. The County Sheriffs Association reports that actual costs to administer the permitting process could be as low as $20 per applicant.

The projected number of applicants is based on the number of permits issued by the State of Arizona upon passage of a similar concealed weapons bill. The Arizona law, which contained a requirement for background checks, in the first year yielded an application rate of 0.5 percent of the state's population. In the second year the application rate was equal to 0.35 percent. For the purpose of this fiscal note, the 0.5 percent figure was applied to Colorado's population of 4.1 million persons. It is possible that the deletion of the background check could result in a higher percentage of persons applying.