Rocky Mountain Voice

Tag: Taxpayer Accountability

Enrollment drops but Denver schools keep growing administration
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, Local

Enrollment drops but Denver schools keep growing administration

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Denver Public Schools administrative bloat -- with some interesting counterpoint The Gazette article linked first below touches on a subject that I’ve written about multiple times. It’s administrative bloat in schools. It seems as though DPS has gotten its ranks of administrators while at the same time enrollment has fallen. This pattern also seems to be playing out in school districts around the state. Quoting (with link intact) from the article: “This finding [that DPS is beefing up administration while student numbers fall] mirrors a statewide trend identified in a report by the Common Sense Institute (CSI) that found Colorado school districts continued to grow their administrative staff despite declin...
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser Faces Scrutiny Over Access to Lawsuit Records
Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser Faces Scrutiny Over Access to Lawsuit Records

By Adam Herbets | The Center Square (The Center Square) - Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has filed dozens of lawsuits against the federal government, priding himself on his ability to fight and win cases against the Trump Administration, but he has yet to answer questions about the costs of those lawsuits to taxpayers. His office publishes a partial list of cases but otherwise keeps the full list behind a $331 paywall. While the partial list highlights "the total amount of federal funds successfully defended" by Weiser's lawsuits, it doesn't tell taxpayers the cost of pursuing the lawsuits. It also doesn't show whether taxpayers paid outside firms to do any of the work. Unlike a number of neighboring states, Colorado state law does not requir...
Questions Grow Over Weiser’s Role in Boulder Climate Lawsuit
Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Questions Grow Over Weiser’s Role in Boulder Climate Lawsuit

By Kyle Kohli | Complete Colorado For years, City and County of Boulder officials have defended their ongoing climate lawsuit against energy companies by pointing to its outside counsel arrangement, where lawyers work on a contingency fee agreement along with repeated assurances that local taxpayers would not be paying for the arrangement. However, new comments from Boulder District Attorney and Democrat state attorney general candidate Michael Dougherty raise serious questions about whether Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser – and potentially Colorado taxpayers – helped support that legal operation from behind the scenes. If so, it would represent a clear flip flop from Weiser, who has long voiced skepticism about the legal merits o...
PERA Bonus Payouts Draw New Scrutiny From Colorado Lawmakers
The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

PERA Bonus Payouts Draw New Scrutiny From Colorado Lawmakers

By Brian Eason | The Colorado Sun The proposal comes in response to a Colorado Sun investigation that found PERA has paid its investment staff millions of dollars in performance bonuses in recent years. Democratic lawmaker says he plans to introduce legislation next year to limit the bonuses that the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association pays to its investment staff. The proposal comes in response to The Colorado Sun’s investigation last week that found PERA has paid its investment staff millions of dollars in performance bonuses in recent years — including $10.2 million in payouts following the stock market’s disastrous 2022. That year, the pension lost $9.8 billion on its portfolio, but PERA still beat many of the benchmarks used to measure it...
Who checks the groups spending Colorado eviction-defense money?
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Who checks the groups spending Colorado eviction-defense money?

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Following up on Community Eviction Defense Project Update as of 6am on 6/8/26: This post was updated to change the statement that CEDP offered per their request this morning. After writing a deep dive on the Community Eviction Defense Project (CEDP), see the first link below, I had a reader mention something on Twitter that I thought worthy of a follow-up. At about the same time, I heard back on an email I’d sent to the Eviction Legal Defense Fund regarding their grants to CEDP (the Fund being a major source of revenue for them). I’ll cover both in this post, starting with the video from Twitter. The second link below is to a Twitter account that shared a video of testimony before the Denver City Co...
Oz Warns Millions Of Obamacare Enrollments ‘May Not Be Legit’
Breitbart, Approved, National

Oz Warns Millions Of Obamacare Enrollments ‘May Not Be Legit’

By Nick Gilbertson | Breitbart News As many as 35 percent of enrollments in the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” might “not be legit,” according to the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Dr. Mehmet Oz. Oz laid out the eyebrow-raising projection during Tuesday’s White House press briefing while filling in for press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is out on maternity leave. https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/2061869210574143620?s=20 When asked about expired Obamacare subsidies and whether there are any policy adjustments he would like to see, Oz emphasized that the number of people on Obamacare has more than doubled over the last decade. READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT BREITBART NEWS
Where did the road money go?: Examining Colorado transportation claims
Approved, Colorado Accountability Project, Commentary, State

Where did the road money go?: Examining Colorado transportation claims

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project HB26-1430 (see the first link below for some earlier context) is the Colorado Democrats’ measure to kneecap Initiative 175, the measure that would enforce that road dollars actually go to building roads. The measure passed the legislature with some last-minute fussing, and included some new amendments. The Sum and Substance article linked second below details how things went down in the last days of the legislative session. The purpose of this post is not to look at HB26-1430 in its final form or how that will affect (or not) Initiative 175. There’s more coming in the saga and I’ll hold off on updates til something concrete pops up. No, I wanted to share a couple of quotes from Democrat politicians appearing in the Su...
Federal Agencies Failed To Stop Nearly $186 Billion In Improper Payments
The Federalist, Approved, National

Federal Agencies Failed To Stop Nearly $186 Billion In Improper Payments

By Christopher Jacobs | The Federalist Will the public sector ever come to grips with the scale of the problem? The past year-plus has seen a focus on fighting fraud within government programs seemingly unprecedented in recent history. Yet, like the mythical Sisyphus pushing his rock uphill or the many-headed ancient Hydra, each success is seemingly matched by yet another scandalous source of government corruption. Multiple reports in recent weeks show how reformers have their work cut out for them. On the federal level, improper payments continued to grow (although the most recent fiscal year examined included the final months of the Biden administration). Meanwhile, state Medicaid programs have not fully complied with a federal requirement designed to gua...
New Federal Reforms Target Billions In State Fraud And Waste
The Federalist, Approved, Commentary, National

New Federal Reforms Target Billions In State Fraud And Waste

By Christopher Jacobs | Commentary, The Federalist A recent congressional hearing showed the scope of the state waste, fraud, and abuse problem our nation faces. A recurring theme of public policy — one that leftists often ignore — is how people respond to incentives. If the federal government runs programs that give individuals carte blanche to steal, then some unscrupulous actors will exploit those weaknesses to do so. But those incentives go beyond individuals and also extend to the fight against waste, fraud, and abuse. In many cases, states have taken little action to crack down on fraud and waste within government programs because the federal government provides the bulk of the funding for said programs. If Washington gives states a blank check regardless of wh...

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