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Counties forced to pay: State landfill mandates come without funding
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Counties forced to pay: State landfill mandates come without funding

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Funded mandates on county landfills? One of the consistent complaints coming out of municipal and local governments is the sheer number of unfunded mandates our state government puts on them. For some context on that, I link to an Advance Colorado report on them first below. Not all mandates come from the state legislature either. Sometimes they come from one of the copious unelected boards running more of the state than they should. A recent decision by the unelected Air Quality Control Council imposed significant costs on smaller, municipal landfills regarding methane controls. As usual, this mandate did not come with any dollars to help fund it. My state senator, B Pelton, has put forward a bi...
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Colorado Senate Advances Bill to Ease Landfill Regulation Burden
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Senate Advances Bill to Ease Landfill Regulation Burden

By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado DENVER – A bipartisan bill to backfill county governments for an unfunded methane emissions mandate is counting on money from existing state grant programs, which, according to Sen. Byron Pelton, is necessary to ensure Colorado counties don’t go bankrupt from the environmental rules put in place by unelected boards appointed by Gov. Jared Polis. Senate Bill 26-101, Local Government Landfill Methane Emission Reduction Regulations, will allow counties to use money from the community impact cash fund, air quality enterprise cash fund, and local government mineral impact fund “for the purpose of complying with landfill methane emission reduction requirements adopted by the air quality control commission, a division of the department of public h...
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Behind the zero: What Colorado’s opening day didn’t say about the true cost of lawmaking
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Behind the zero: What Colorado’s opening day didn’t say about the true cost of lawmaking

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “Governor Polis told us we should please work together,” Sen. Janice Rich said Wednesday, recounting a recent exchange as she stood on the Senate floor during opening session. Inside the chamber, legislative leaders spoke about shared goals and economic pressure on families. What didn’t make it into the speeches, according to Rich, was where many of the real financial consequences of those bills are already hiding. Rich, the Senate Minority Whip and vice chair of the Statutory Revision Committee, said the optimistic tone often masks how legislation actually moves once the gavels come down—particularly in how costs are presented, debated and ultimately shifted onto taxpayers and local governments. “They say they want to work...
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If you’re not at the table: Why Matt Soper says counties need leverage now
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

If you’re not at the table: Why Matt Soper says counties need leverage now

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Unfunded mandates have become a flashpoint between Denver and Colorado’s counties, with local governments warning they are being asked to do more with less. State Rep. Matt Soper has been vocal in support of counties banding together through the Fix It or Fund It coalition.  He represents Delta and Mesa counties in the Colorado House and is serving his fourth term, with term limits preventing another run. The Delta County commissioner seat he is pursuing is also opening due to term limits. “It has been the honor of a lifetime to represent Delta and Mesa Counties in the Colorado House of Representatives,” Soper said in a campaign announcement. “As the pressures from Denver spill over into Delta County, it is important t...
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State accessibility law exposes gap between lawmakers’ intentions and local reality
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

State accessibility law exposes gap between lawmakers’ intentions and local reality

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project How is our state’s accessibility law playing out? Part 1 If you spend your days immersed in politics, things don’t really sneak up on you; you watch a bill work its way through the process, then get signed, then get enacted. If you have other things occupying your attention, say you have kids and a family and a mortgage, bills can sometimes be a surprise. The 10 cent bag fee is a great example. Despite lots of news coverage, you didn’t see a lot of fuss about it in the public square until the bag fees were enacted, until Wal-Mart said they were just going to stop putting bags out altogether. HB21-1110 is like those bag fees, though perhaps it won’t intersect with as many lives as grocery bags d...
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Colorado’s Land Board swaps agriculture for a revenue experiment
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s Land Board swaps agriculture for a revenue experiment

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Acquiring the Lake Fork Ranch to expand “conservation opportunities”. I saw an interesting press release from our Governor recently. It’s linked first below.Quoting:“The Colorado State Board of Land Commissioners (State Land Board) has approved the acquisition of the approximately 800-acre Lake Fork Ranch, located just west of Leadville in Lake County.”Governor Polis, DNR Director Dan Gibbs, and State Land Board Director Nicole Rosmarino all gushed about the new acquisition. To save space, I attached their quotes from the press release as screenshot 1. The quotes here, touting success for rural communities (Polis) and preserving agricultural use (Gibbs), put me in mind of an earlier rundown of the Nat...
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Child-care costs surge under Biden-era rule and state law, forcing counties to freeze CCCAP
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Child-care costs surge under Biden-era rule and state law, forcing counties to freeze CCCAP

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado’s child-care system is staring down a financial hit driven by new federal mandates from the Biden administration. The rules were pitched as a way to make child care more affordable nationwide, but they shift the cost burden onto states—leaving Colorado to absorb millions in unfunded requirements at a time when access is already tight. A new analysis from the Common Sense Institute shows what this means for families: fewer available slots, county-level enrollment freezes, and real consequences for Colorado’s workforce. The change came from the Federal 2024 CCDF Final Rule that rewrites how states run child-care assistance programs. Under the new rule, families can’t be asked to pay more than 7 percent of their income,...
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Mesa County sheriff appeals budget constraints that could cut 28 deputies
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Mesa County sheriff appeals budget constraints that could cut 28 deputies

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Mesa County Sheriff Todd Rowell appeared before the Board of County Commissioners on Nov. 6, 2025, to warn that this year’s budget proposal could undo nearly a decade of progress under the 2017 voter-approved 0.37% public-safety sales tax. The budget appeal on the third floor of the county administration building doubled as a press conference, drawing commissioners, staff and reporters eager to see what “doing more with less” means for Mesa County public safety. Sheriff Todd Rowell, right, speaks with Commissioner Bobbie Daniel and Undersheriff Matt King during the Nov. 6 budget appeal in Grand Junction. Rowell said the math no longer works. “I gave up five deputies to submit a flat budget… 13 more were defunded… $980,000 in line-item...
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Commissioner Daniel: It’s Time for Fiscal Common Sense in Colorado
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The Business Times, Approved, Commentary, Local

Commissioner Daniel: It’s Time for Fiscal Common Sense in Colorado

By Bobbie Daniel | Commentary, The Business Times In the business world, there’s one principle that separates success from failure: You can’t spend what you don’t have. If a company tried to launch a dozen new initiatives without funding them, investors would walk, creditors would call, and the board would be out by morning. Yet somehow, that’s exactly how the State of Colorado has been operating. Each year, new laws are passed that sound good on paper but come with no money to make them work. Those costs get quietly pushed down to local governments — and ultimately to taxpayers. We call them unfunded mandates, and they’re the public-sector version of bad business. Here in Mesa County, we’ve been tracking these costs for two years, and the numbers tell the story. This year alon...
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Colorado Counties Push Back on Polis Over Costly ‘Unfunded Mandates’
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DENVER7, Approved, State

Colorado Counties Push Back on Polis Over Costly ‘Unfunded Mandates’

By: Allie Jennerjahn | Denver7 In Mesa County alone, Commissioner Bobbie Daniel tracked down almost $10 million a year in unfunded mandates. DENVER — More than 40 Colorado counties have voiced concerns to Governor Jared Polis about laws being passed without funding. They claim it's putting a burden on local governments, and in some cases, leave taxpayers to foot the bill. The concern started in Mesa County when Commissioner Bobbie Daniel started to notice "unfunded mandates" getting brought up constantly when discussing budget. "I asked, 'Anyone tracking this? Is this something that we're, collectively as an organization, tracking?' And no, and we weren't at the time," Daniel said. "And so I said, "Let's continue looking at this. Let's track it and see what we come up with.'"...
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