By Ed Sealover | The Sum and Substance
The Colorado Treasurer’s office, to be blunt, is a pretty boring post. It invests some $17 billion in state tax revenues and oversees a smattering of financial programs but is largely limited in the things it can do to impact the state and its business community.
This year’s race for the open office, however, will serve as a referendum of sorts on whether voters want it to keep its traditional focus or would prefer it expand the ways in which it invests and safeguards Colorado taxpayers’ money. That’s because the two men seeking to replace term-limited Democratic Treasurer Dave Young have very different visions for how they intend to use the power of the office.
Kevin Grantham — the last Republican to serve as Colorado Senate president and a current Fremont County commissioner — believes the duties of the treasurer should remain limited to maximizing the investment of state tax dollars. He wants to do what he can as treasurer to keep state expenses in check and make life more affordable for residents, but he largely sees the bully pulpit afforded by the office as his way to weigh in on subjects that don’t fall under its traditional purview.
Jeff Bridges — a Democratic state senator from Greenwood Village and vice chairman of the powerful Joint Budget Committee — believes the treasurer should play a much bigger role in making housing and childcare more affordable and in overseeing state expenditures. Among other changes, he’d like to create a fund of state tax revenues to be invested in housing and infrastructure projects rather than in traditional stocks and bonds and would seek to launch a forensic auditing division to examine other state agencies’ spending.
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