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State Issues
Colorado Wasteful Spending (FY 2024-25)
Department of Corrections: $ 7,995,411 Increase 28.3 FTE
● Transgender Unit and Healthcare
- $2,677,911 to create two transgender living units totaling 148 beds.
- $5,317,500 for “gender-confirming surgical care.
●Clinical Staff Incentives
- $6,312,464 General Fund to provide incentive payments for certain DOC clinical staff up to $25,000.
- The bill includes an increase of $6,312,464 General Fund to provide incentive payments for certain DOC clinical staff up to $25,000.
●HB 24-1389 School Funding 2023-24 for New Arrival Students (immigrants): $24,000,000
- The bill provides $24,000,000 to be distributed to school districts and charter schools for new arrival students. It increases state expenditures and school district funding in the current FY 2023-24 only.
● Office of New Americans Expansion (immigrants): $119,029 General Fund and 1.5 FTE
- $119,029 General Fund and 1.5 FTE for an administrator to manage ONA grants, coordinate with other entities, and identify opportunities for new migrant career pathway enhancement and a full-time program assistant to support the ONA Director.
-This office has had difficulty expending grants.
●SB 24-182 Immigrant Identification Document Issuance: $ 122,855
- The bill changes certain requirements for the issuance of driver licenses or state identification cards to individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States. The bill increases state expenditures for FY 2024-25 and FY 2025-26 only.
●HB 24-1280 Welcome, Reception, Integration, Grant Program:
$ 2,436,862
- The bill creates the Statewide Welcome, Reception, and Integration Grant Program to provide assistance to migrants. It transfers funds in FY 2024-25 only.
●Immigrant Legal Defense Fund: $ 350,000
- Long Bill budget amendment
- A doubling of the fund for FY 2024-25 making a total budget of $700,000. This funding is used for public defense for people facing immigration legal issues. Sponsored by Rep. Mabrey and Sen. Gonzalez.
●Office of Health Equity and Environmental Justice: $ 2,840,715
- Funding for the Office
- Mission: Build partnerships to mobilize community power and transform systems to advance health equity and environmental justice.
- What this office does to advance their mission:
1. Build relationships with communities and across sectors to address root causes of health disparities.
2. Use equity in decision-making and partner with all sectors of government to embed health and equity considerations into their decision-making process.
3. Use data to support the narrative of the social determinants of health and tell the story of what creates health.
4. De-center communications from the English language or any one dominant language, and prioritize language justice when engaging with communities.
5. Develop, implement, and provide guidance on health equity training, practice, and policies within CDPHE and across the state of Colorado.
6. Focus on upstream determinants of health, guided by the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative.
●HB 24-1197 Department of Public Safety Supplemental: $ 9,800,000
- Funding for Community-based organizations providing service for migrants.
- Funds to provide grants to community-based organizations providing services to people migrating to Colorado.
●Department of Education: $ 56,100,000
- Expanding Healthy Meals for All Program.
- Adds $56.1 million total funds for the Healthy School Meals for All Program, including $40.6 million from the Healthy School Meals for All Program General Fund Exempt Account and $15.5 million from the General Fund. This includes an increase of $56.0 million for meal reimbursements and $100,000 for consulting resources.
●HB 21-1318 Department of Public Health & Environment: $ 198,192
- Outdoor Equity Program
- This bill injected identity politics into access to the outdoors.
●Department of Public Health & Environment: $2,840,715 total funds and 8.3 FTE
- Creating the Office of Health Equity and Environmental Justice by combining two offices.
- The bill includes an increase of $2,840,715 total funds and 8.3 FTE, including a reduction of $11,349 General Fund, to join the Environmental Justice Program with the Office of Health Equity to form the Office of Health Equity and Environmental Justice (OHEEJ) for the purpose of centralizing environmental justice staff. OHEEJ is responsible for ongoing environmental justice work, including administration of environmental health mitigation grants through the Community Impact Cash Fund.
●Department of Revenue: $714,515 total funds and 8.3 FTE
- GENTAX & DRIVES SUPPORT FUNDING: The bill includes an increase of $714,515 total funds and 8.3 FTE, comprised of $442,906 General Fund and $271,609 cash funds from the Colorado DRIVES Vehicle Services. Account, in FY 2024-25. Funds will address the backlog of upgrades and system enhancements to the DRIVES and GenTax systems stemming from legislative, user experience, and system operational demands.
The 1st Amendment Still Applies
There is a line making the rounds in the charter debate, and it does not hold up. The claim is that if Republicans line up behind an amendment, or Democrats do, the amendment turns “partisan” and the support itself somehow breaks the Montrose City Charter. That is not what the Charter says, and it is not how the First Amendment works.
What the Charter actually covers
Article III, Section 5 is short. It says all special and general municipal elections for elective office of the City shall be nonpartisan. Read it again. Elective office. The rule is about how a candidate gets on the ballot for a council seat. No party label next to the name. The City does not ask candidates for an affiliation, and it does not print one.
That is a format rule for candidate elections. It is not a rule about ballot questions. It is not a rule about who may speak. It is not a rule about who may agree with whom. A charter amendment is a question put to the voters. It is not a candidate for office, and supporting one does not put a party designation on a council ballot that Section 5 never authorized in the first place.
Agreement is not contamination
A term limit is still a term limit if a party likes it. A vacancy rule is still a vacancy rule. Voters can read the text. Party support does not launder a bad idea into a good one, and it does not poison a good one either. Churches, neighborhood groups, and civic clubs take sides on local questions all the time. A political party has the same freedom. The First Amendment calls that freedom of association. It does not switch off because a city election is called nonpartisan on the form.
Treating that support as a Charter violation is a way to disqualify the speaker instead of answering the proposal. Judge the language on the page. The company it keeps is not the legal question.
The First Amendment does not yield to a label
Speech on a public question sits at the center of the First Amendment. So does the right to associate with others who share the view. A city cannot take those rights away by writing “nonpartisan” into a charter, and Montrose did not try. Section 5 governs the ballot for elective office. It does not license the City, or anyone speaking for the City, to police endorsements.
Follow the opposing claim to the end and the problem gets plain. If party support of an amendment is a violation, then a party is forbidden to say what it thinks about a change to the City’s basic law. A resident who belongs to that party is suspect for repeating it. A councilor who agrees in public has colored outside the lines. None of that is in Section 5. It is a speech code read into a sentence about ballot format.
It also cuts one way. The people most bothered by party support are bothered by the party they oppose. Support from the side they prefer rarely gets called a breach of the Charter. That is not neutrality. That is a viewpoint test wearing a Charter costume. The First Amendment does not allow the government to bless one association and treat the other as illegitimate. Residents should not do it either and call the result nonpartisan.
Unaffiliated is not the same as neutral
I know plenty of people on both sides who call themselves nonpartisan because they are unaffiliated. Some of them are the most partisan people I deal with. Drop the R or the D and the pattern does not move. Registration is a form at the clerk’s office. It is not proof of an open mind. “Nonpartisan,” as I have said before, is a myth. The word got popular with people who wanted the benefit of a side without the cost of admitting one. It looks tidy on paper. A voting record is a better measure.
Conscience does not need a costume
Most people already vote what they believe. That does not take a special label. It takes a vote. When the choices line up, election after election, with one set of ideas, the honest name for that is a point of view. Points of view come from values. Taking the party name off the door does not change the votes.
The charter fight gives it away
Opponents of the amendments have treated support itself as the offense. Back them in public, or do it alongside people who share a party, and you are told you have stepped outside a nonpartisan city. That is an odd reading of both the Charter and the First Amendment. Section 5 does not expire the right to speak, associate, or petition. Those rights do not come with a party disclaimer.
The talking point proves the larger point. The people most invested in the label are using it as a club against a side they oppose, and they are dressing that club up as a Charter violation. Partisanship with the logo scraped off is still partisanship. Owning a point of view is the honest part. Pretending the First Amendment bends to a ballot rule is the rest.
