Gaines: Instead of schools, state grants funded advocacy for equity, gay forestry—and ‘indigenizing’

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

In an earlier post (see the first link below), I mentioned a couple of state expenses to the environmental advocacy group Cultivando that had caught my eye in their TOPS expense report.

The first was a line item for $500 labeled as “personal services — professional” charged to the Colorado Energy Office (CEO). The other was a grant for $24,700 to Cultivando charged to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

I wrote in and got the records back for these expenses. I thought them interesting enough to share. Perhaps they’re not big dollar amounts, but they are representative of the kinds of thought processes among policymakers and bureaucrats that put us in the financial state we’re in–you know the state where we are short money with crumbling roads, etc.

The invoice for the $500 from the Energy Office to Cultivando is linked second below. According to the department spokesperson, the payment helped to sponsor Cultivando’s EcoFiesta so that CEO could get the word out to the people that would attend the fiesta about CEO’s program offerings and electrification programs.

For some background if you want it, I found an old flyer for the 2023 EcoFiesta (see screenshot 1 attached) and a link to the 2024 event which I put third below.

The DNR grant had some more detail involved. It is, I was told by the records custodian, the final payment of a larger amount of money awarded to Cultivando as part of the Outdoor Equity Grant program.

For background, I link to the 2021 bill that created this grant program fourth below. Screenshots 2a and 2b are from the bill’s fiscal note. A couple of highlights are noteworthy.

In summary, the legislative purpose of this grant was to help underserved youth and their families experience Colorado’s rich outdoor wonder. A worthy goal.

In order to do this, revenue caps in the government were removed. On top of that, money originally intended to solely go to public schools (via going into the state’s Public School Capital Construction Assistance Fund), was first diverted to fill the Outdoor Equity Grant Program. That being accomplished, money could then be sent to help schools.

So what did we get for the money we sent Cultivando? Which underserved population did they help?

The fifth link below is to the grant invoice to Cultivando which dates from 2022 (as opposed to the TOPS item referenced above which was the final payment and which happened later). The grand total, including the $24,700 which caught my attention, we paid was $61,750.

This money, per the invoice, was paid to a group Cultivando created and ran called Forteleza Famliar. That group’s website is linked sixth below.

I link to the group’s statement of work (what they promise to do for the money they’re given) seventh below. Screenshots 3 and 4 come from that document and show what goals Forteleza had for their project and what they promised to deliver respectively. There is more in the document that’s worth looking at, but this summarizes what you and I got to fund.

I have to admit that in reading some of the goals, I’m a little baffled at this. I struggle to see how our state would open up its checkbook and start writing based on the goals and deliverables. Some of what they write doesn’t read like English, at least not English as I know it.

I’m all for expanding access to the wonderful outdoor opportunities our state has, but we shorted capital construction at schools for things like (quoting): “Indigenize and reclaim outdoor activities”, outdoor workshops regarding “LGBTQ2S+ safety”, and just the general idea that somehow we need to make the outdoors more accessible to people that speak different languages or that are gay.

I mean, did I miss something the last time I was outdoors? Couldn’t you have just led trips for people that may not have the resources out into the woods and let them explore?

This $60K could have replaced carpet at a school. It could have freshened up a paint job. It could have updated some mechanicals.

Instead, it went to an advocacy group who spent it on indigenizing and gay forestry.

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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