House Finance Committee advances amended bill to cap and phase tipped wage offsets

Representatives on the House Finance Committee voted 11-2 to send an amended version of House Bill 1208 to the Committee of the Whole after hours of debate on March 14, 2025.

The bill, presented by Representative Valdez and co-prime Representative Woodrow, includes an amendment (L-018) that preserves the current $3.02 tip offset as a statutory floor, adjusts the offset for inflation beginning in 2026, and requires localities that set a higher overall minimum wage to bring their tipped minimum wage to 75% of the local minimum over a multiyear phase-in. Sponsors described the package as a compromise intended to protect restaurant operations while restoring some of the purchasing power of tipped workers.

Supporters said the amendment balances competing pressures: rising local minimum wages in cities such as Denver and Boulder have outpaced the static tip offset the Legislature set in 2019, creating a widening gap that restaurants say makes operations financially unsustainable. Representative Valdez told the committee, “we have L‑018, and it does 3 things,” listing the amendment’s inflation adjustment for the…