Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

Tag: Department of Local Affairs

Colorado’s homelessness and housing funds recorded $153 million in phantom federal money, audit finds
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s homelessness and housing funds recorded $153 million in phantom federal money, audit finds

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado wanted more control over its share of federal pandemic aid before the money hit its federal spending deadlines. So in 2024, the state moved it. It pulled hundreds of millions in American Rescue Plan money back out of four state programs, three of them tied to housing and homelessness, and replaced it with state general funds, so it could spend the federal dollars elsewhere before the deadlines ran out. Then the Department of Local Affairs set those funds up in the state's accounting system as if they were still federal. Every time the department spent a state dollar out of the four programs, the system automatically booked a federal reimbursement that was never coming. By the end of the fiscal year the departm...
Read More
This metro district charges 115 mills and is still behind on its bonds. A state audit found it isn’t alone.
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

This metro district charges 115 mills and is still behind on its bonds. A state audit found it isn’t alone.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Homeowners inside the Riverdale Peaks II Metropolitan District pay one of the highest tax rates of any special district in Colorado. Their metro district levied 115.019 mills in 2024, good for fifth place on a list of eleven districts statewide charging 100 mills or more. That levy pulled in $428,566 in property taxes for the year. Riverdale Peaks II is one of 19 districts that told the state, in their own financial filings, that they have been or will be unable to make principal or interest payments on their debt as those payments come due.  It taxes its residents at more than 100 mills and still reports to the state that it can't keep up with the full payments on its bonds. That combination is the core finding o...
Read More
Six cities sue Colorado over zoning and parking laws as state stays silent
No Comments
State, Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice, Top Stories

Six cities sue Colorado over zoning and parking laws as state stays silent

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “As of this writing we have not heard back from the State.” That’s how Greenwood Village Mayor George Lantz summed up the status of a lawsuit the six Front Range cities filed in May against the state of Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis, the Department of Local Affairs and its executive director, Maria De Cambra. The case targets two 2024 laws—HB 24-1313 and HB 24-1304—that, according to the cities, trample Colorado’s constitutional guarantee of Home Rule. The mayors say the fight is about constitutional rights, not political turf wars. “Contrary to some criticisms, the current fight is not based on party politics… Our residents deserve to have a voice about land use in their own communities and neighborhoods,” they wrote in a joint open July 14 let...
Read More