CO Dems want you to fix their mistakes such as mismanagement and overspending. They'll take TABOR in the bargain. Inform yourself to counter the assault they're launching.

Mismanagement of the Unemployment Insurance (UEI) and Family and Medical Leave Act (FAMLI) programs.

The article linked below details a new state auditor's report. There is more detail in the article (more nomenclature too), but the upshot is that the auditor found quite a few problems in both the state's UEI and FAMLI programs.

Quoting the article from two non-contiguous spots (with links intact):

"The problems uncovered with the labor department’s two largest programs were numerous. For instance, the department didn’t ensure that all employers required to register for FAMLI did so. On top of that, the labor department didn’t properly track and document the $127 million that it owed employers that were exempted from the program."


and

"Colorado’s labor department also miscalculated what employers owed toward funding unemployment insurance, setting incorrect rates for roughly 30,000 businesses. The errors resulted in some employers overpaying by about $5 million while others underpaid. 'These problems violated federal requirements,' the state auditor said. The problems with unemployment insurance stemmed from a botched rollout of a new computer system, according to CPR’s earlier reporting. Business owners in June told CPR they were being charged penalties and interest they didn’t owe for unemployment insurance taxes. At the time, companies couldn’t get an answer from the state’s labor department about what was going on."

Sadly, the problems with the state's disastrous UEI program are not new; they've been repeated fodder here. FAMLI's problems are news to me though. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, new or not. Colorado's Department of Labor and Employment is clown show. Has been for years. They've made a hash of UEI, why wouldn't they with FAMLI?

And the problems starting in the Department go beyond just screwing up. It's one thing to make a mistake. It's another to compound it by flubbing the response. Excerpting from the quote above for emphasis: "At the time, companies couldn’t get an answer from the state’s labor department about what was going on."


I know the same to be true for some who are due UEI benefits. Personal acquaintances up here near me have told me (going back about a year or so) about struggles to get benefits and/or to get answers about what the problem is, all the while eating into savings or borrowing to live.

Out of a sense of fairness, I want to make sure I quote the Department's spokesperson from the article:

“'The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment takes any findings from the Office of the State Auditor seriously and is committed to continuous process improvement across all of the agency’s divisions and programs,' a spokesperson for Colorado’s labor department said in an emailed statement. 'The Unemployment Insurance and the Family and Medical Leave Insurance divisions have already taken steps to address the issues identified by the Office of the State Auditor.'”

I hope so. Time will tell whether these words are hollow or not. I have to say they have that ring to them in light of the repeated, years-long issues.

In the post that follows this one I will cover the problems in our state budget (soon to be debated if not already begun by the time this goes up). Problems related to our state government being short on money.

The reason I put this post with the one on the budget is that they are thematically, if not topically, related. The problem with UEI and FAMLI here is not due to TABOR limits. The problem is not inflation. This government department cannot function correctly, a problem stretching back even through years when Colorado was flush with Federal dollars, because its not competently run.


I want you to remember that when reading the next post and when you hear the politicians who are deciding our budget complain about how they don't have enough money to run this state correctly. The problem can sometimes be a lack of money, but sometimes it's just plain mismanagement.

https://www.ksut.org/news/2025-03-26/state-audit-sharply-criticizes-financial-oversight-of-paid-family-leave-and-unemployment-insurance

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Colorado's "unsustainable" budget.

Continuing the theme started in the first post today, I want to talk about our state's budget woes. I want to also offer you some counterpoint to the Democrats' talking points regarding the budget.

Because, while it is true that our state does have a lack of money to meet its bills and will have to make some cuts, it's not true that the problem is TABOR or the amount of revenue that comes in.

The first link below is to a Colorado Politics article that offers you some context on the claims made by the Democrats who have run Colorado and thus who have controlled its budget for the last four years.

I'll leave it to read and get specifics by the Democrats quoted, but the repeated theme is one of our state budget not having enough money and the reason is our balanced budget requirement and TABOR. The quotes in the article are not coming from as rabidly progressive a place as what you'll see in the third post today, but they echo the same themes.

In order to provide more counterpoint to this theme than you'll see in many media outlets, in order to help you better advocate against the kind of policy changes that you'll likely see coming (again, I point you to post 3), I present you with a series of links which address this theme directly.

Links 2 and 3 below are to a pair of Complete Colorado op eds, one by former legislator Mark Hillman, the other by fiscal policy analyst for the Independence Institute Nash Herman. I'll leave it to you to read them, but the theme here is one of chickens coming home to roost.

In past years, when our state was flush with cash from the Feds among others, the politicians (some Republicans engaged in this too if we're to be honest) way overcommitted our state. They used Federal dollars to pay for things they wanted to do: handouts, giveaways (see "Related" below), programs that strayed our government away from its core functions like education and infrastructure, giving state employees a union, increasing the size of government, etc.

Now that the Federal money has dried up, rather than tightening their belts and reprioritizing, rather than trimming the fat in the budget and revisiting earlier giveaways, the politicians running this state bemoan the lack of money and want to pin it to measures that enforce fiscal responsibility.

No. It's a spending problem. It's not a revenue problem.

For those that prefer video to text, I want to point you to the fourth and final link below. It's a great interview between Free State Colorado and Natalie Menten on this same topic. Again, presented so you can get some much needed information to aid you in what will be a concerted effort to remove the fundamental restraints on politicians that have kept this state financially sound for years now.

See you in part 3.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/news/colorado-state-budget-unsustainable/article_71777823-a80b-4ffa-a18f-8c9826cfd55e.html

https://completecolorado.com/2025/03/27/colorado-legislative-binge-billion-dollar-budget-hole/

https://completecolorado.com/2025/03/30/colorado-lawmakers-budget-crisis-state-spending-grows/

Related:

My own contributions to the body of work on Colorado's frivolous and wasteful spending on giveaways.

The first a link to a newsletter describing how an earlier bill obligates us to pay for prisoner phone calls, a program proving so popular among the incarcerated as to way exceed its original budget figures.

The second link is to an op ed about a bill by some of the same progressive lawmakers who want to erode TABOR which removes prisoners' co-pays for voluntary health care.

https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/concerned-about-local-control-got?utm_source=publication-search

https://completecolorado.com/2025/03/06/house-bill-1026-freebies-inmates-digs-fiscal-hole-deeper/

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Colorado Democrats made a hash of the state's finances, but they want YOU to pay to fix it.

In this post I want to flesh out some of the many assaults on TABOR and fiscal responsibility the Democrats are cooking up for this legislative session.

The previous two posts were all about financial problems in this state. Problems that arose from mismanagement of state rules and money. Problems that arose from out of control spending. Problems that arose from politicians not being willing to do what families are forced to do every single day: adjust their spending to their income and choose among priorities.

In this final post of the series, I want to outline some of the ways in which Colorado Democrats--the party that has completely run this state for the last 4 years mind you--are going to try and make THEIR choices into YOUR problem.

I will outline some of the ways in which they want to remove fiscal restraints you have put into law, restraints you have put into the Constitution, so that they're free to take more of your money and put it to their pet programs.

After all, they know better what to do with your money than you do right?

If you want an overview in the form of an article, the first link below is to a Denver Post article listing some of the various ways Democrats are going to try and crack TABOR. Read up on it if you'd like, but I will excerpt some of the highlights below to give you more detail.

Link 2 below is a just-introduced joint resolution which would enable the state legislature to sue in Colorado courts to end TABOR. As a quick aside, note they would be suing with your money.

In a supreme irony given that TABOR is an actual amendment in the state constitution (see screenshot 1 attached), the lawmakers sponsoring this resolution say that revenue limits along with the requirement that they ask you before taking more of your money in taxes are somehow a violation of the guarantee of a republican form of government.

Let me run that past you again.

Having to ask you before taking more of your money is a violation of a republican form of government. Having to hold to a budget restriction that voters enforced on the legislature is a violation of a republican form of government.

I think it is possible to get dumber, but you'd really have to work at it.

Links 3 and 4 below are novel in that they are clever workarounds to reclassify existing sources of state revenue so as to make them exempt from TABOR.

Screenshot 2 attached comes from the fiscal note for SB25-173 (linked third below) and it describes what the bill does.

There are some forms of state revenue that lies outside of TABOR limits. I.e. there are certain income streams the state is not required to track and put a cap on: "damage awards" and "property sales" (quotes to indicate that this is the language in the actual TABOR amendment).

As their names suggest, damage awards are monies the state brings in from things like penalties and property sales are from things the state sells. The things that currently qualify for this TABOR exemption would be added to under this bill; it would expand the lists.

Screenshots 3a and 3b list the new things put under the TABOR exemption. Quite a few items if you ask me. Oh, and incidentally, what possible problems could there be for incentivizing collecting more fines so that we can have more TABOR-exempt revenue. Golly if there are any, I sure can't imagine them!

SB25-270 is the fourth and final link below. Would that it were the final assault on TABOR, but if I did every bill this post would be longer than it already is.

SB25-270 is noteworthy because it also presents a novel strategy (to me anyway) of working around TABOR revenue limits while still allowing Dems to fund all their various social engineering projects.

As I have written about before, any revenue that goes into a state enterprise (a government-run business that charges fees for services rendered--such services sometimes more speculative than others) is not subject to TABOR limits.

Screenshot 4 is from SB25-270's fiscal note and it outlines the shell game the Democrat sponsors are playing. They are basically going to reclassify what was regular state revenue (subject to TABOR limits) to enterprise revenue (NOT subject to TABOR limits).

If Colorado Democrats get wind that this strategy works, anyone care to lay bets on moves like this in the future?

If you are not already, get involved. Start sharing information on the Democrats' insulting response to their mistake with others. Start speaking up and joining the fight.

If you don't you will soon wake up to a state where there is little to not statutory fiscal restraints. Put that with the beyond progressive legislature we have now and we'll all be in more fiscal trouble here than we currently suffer with.

https://www.denverpost.com/2025/04/01/colorado-tabor-reform-lawsuit-income-tax-change-democrats-legislature/?utm_content=tw-denverpost&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16MlWzQM0f4pfoImwQqNIlphm_H4OuNtE/view?usp=sharing

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb25-173

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb25-270