Refund requests and challenges to reach vehicle owners outside its “echo chamber” has troubled the launch of the parks pass that underpins CPW’s new financial model
Joint Budget Committee
Posted inSocial Services
Colorado lawmakers to consider $5 million proposal to target youth homelessness after current programs fall short
On a typical day in Colorado, there are about 600 homeless children and 262 homeless young adults ages 18 to 24
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Colorado’s public guardianship program gets approval to expand despite 14 deaths of wards in past two years
A controversial public guardianship program created to make health and legal decisions for people with no family or friends will expand beyond Denver this summer, a legislative committee decided Wednesday. The vote by the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee settles a tumultuous few weeks of debate about the Office of Public Guardianship, which had asked for […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Republicans say Colorado is hurtling toward a possible budget deficit as a dozen new state offices are created
At least a dozen new offices have been added to Colorado’s state government over the past three years, stoking Republican fears of runaway growth as the state hurtles toward a possible budget deficit. The added offices, with ambitious goals like preventing gun violence and saving people money on health care, are a sign of ballooning […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Colorado’s controversial public guardianship program scrutinized in legislative budget battle
A controversial plan to expand Colorado’s fledgling public guardianship program for people who have no family or friends to speak for them is in jeopardy as state lawmakers debate the state’s budget. The Office of Public Guardianship, which began taking wards in 2020, is now making decisions for about 70 people who are unable to […]
Posted inNews
Here’s what’s in the $36 billion state budget proposal now being debated by Colorado lawmakers
The full Colorado legislature this week began debating a $36 billion state budget proposal that, buoyed by a strong economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and a flood of federal stimulus dollars, would boost funding to K-12 and higher education, give state employees a 3% raise and expand state efforts to improve public safety and […]
Posted inNews
Colorado’s economic outlook clouded by inflation, war in Ukraine
A new war in Ukraine, mounting inflation and lingering uncertainty about the coronavirus point to an elevated risk for possible economic downturn in Colorado this year, state economists told the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee on Thursday. Strong growth in state revenue is expected to flatten in the next two fiscal years, in part due to […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Colorado plans to expand experimental adult guardianship program despite complaints, scrutiny
The 73 adults assigned a guardian through a new state agency have dementia, intellectual disabilities, brain injuries and mental illnesses severe enough that a court has deemed them unable to make their own decisions. None have family or friends to care for them, so they have become wards of the Colorado Office of Public Guardianship, […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
$76 million could fix Colorado’s youth mental health system, study finds as kids are sent out of state for care
The operators of Colorado’s youth residential treatment centers, where children with the most acute mental health struggles go to recover, have warned for years that the system could fall apart without more funding. There are signs it’s happening now. Suicidal kids are waiting weeks, sometimes months, in hospital emergency rooms for a bed at a […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Steve Fenberg selected as next president of the Colorado Senate
Colorado Senate Democrats on Wednesday selected Sen. Steve Fenberg to be the chamber’s next president, a position in which the Boulder lawmaker will help steer the direction of the entire legislature. Fenberg had been serving as the Senate majority leader, the No. 2 position in the chamber. He was elected president by acclamation, without a […]