How much will you pay so Colorado WINS? Make the PTA keep their promise. Up on the Roof...
Details on how much you'll be paying so that Colorado WINS
Toward the end of September, Governor Polis signed the latest contract with the state employees' union Colorado WINS (see the first and second links below for a Colorado Newsline article and the union's webpage respectively).
I know Colorado Newsline well enough to have wanted to look up the actual agreement rather than taking their glowing praise of it. Before moving to that, however, let's look at a couple financial toplines from the article:
"[Union president Skip] Miller said the state agreed to cover 100% of any increases in health care premiums over the three years of the new contract, meaning state employees will pay the same health care costs as they are now."
"The union also negotiated a new minimum wage for state workers, increasing from $15.75 per hour to $16.55 per hour. State workers will all get cost of living adjustments as well, starting with a 2.5% raise on July 1, 2025, and a 3.1% raise on July 1, 2026."
Now the agreement itself. I link to it third below. I'll leave it to you to poke around in there to your heart's content. There were some things that I was interested in and I'll share those along with a handy way to find things you might be interested in.
If you open it (or any other document or webpage) and hit the control key plus f, that is CTRL+F, a search bar will open up and let you find words or phrases. In screenshot 1, I did this to find all the instances of the word "equity". The search bar is highlighted in red in the upper right.
Clicking on the up or down arrows in that search box skips you around in the document to points where that word appears. I took screengrabs of the first few times equity comes up. Those are screenshots 2 - 5.
If you read them, you might come away (like I did) scratching your head and asking yourself, "Okay, yeah, but what does this mean exactly? What are they talking about specifically in terms of concrete actions?"
A scattering of, but by no means exhaustive list of, tangible policy actions is in screenshot 6.
Can I pause to remind you that you're paying for this?
One last thing. In the Newsline article it mentions something about a promise to help pay for affordable housing for state employees.
Turning again to my magic ctrl+f search box, I entered "housing" in the state's agreement. The results of that search, the details on this housing assistance, are in screenshot 7.
So, pay more for salaries. Potentially pay to help state employees get housing (in whatever they define as "high housing cost areas"). Potentially pay more for equity initiatives.**
With provisions like these, I think it's clear that Colorado WINS when you and I lose (money).
**To repeat: these second two depend on the legislature playing ball and finding a way to finance these things. The agreement here stipulates that both parties "seek" the money, not that they're guaranteed to get it.
https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/09/24/colorado-agreement-union-state-workers/
https://www.coloradowins.org/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yPPD1bhNPF2HRmvNWpRD8b6lIq6iNp8D/view?usp=sharing
Make the PTA keep their promise.
In screenshot 1, I want you to take note of what the PTA says about its advocacy.
The PTA here says that in its advocacy, they want to give "... YOU [emphasis mine here to help reflect the fact that the text for you is a different color in the graphic] a voice in legislative issues that serve all children and families."
Mr. Sengenberger recently wrote an op-ed alleging that the exact opposite of this is the case in JeffCo's PTA.
I'll leave it to you to read the op ed and make up your own mind on the allegations there. I do want to note a few things of my own though.
1. I've testified on a lot of bills before the Colorado Assembly and every time I've heard the PTA giving it's perspective on a bill, they are in complete adn total agreement with the CEA, the state's public school teachers' union.
2. I am not comfortable making a sweeping statement on every single bill the PTA steps in on, but to the best of my recollection, for the bills I've waited to testify on, they have testified opposite of me (a mostly-conservative Libertarian).
3. The PTA is a statewide group which regularly touts its statewide membership numbers in its speeches on bills. Given #1 and #2 above, surely what they are saying cannot encompass the feelings of all of Colorado in their chosen positions. One wonders whether or not they even hit a majority.
As I have written in other cases, I want to encourage you to (despite the above and the op-ed's claims) take the PTA at their word.
If they say that they indeed wanting to give you a voice, let them hear your voice. Are you a member of the PTA? Join their legislative committee. Details on the committee and the method to sign up are in the second link below.
Pass the info along to other conservatives that you know are in the PTA (or that would join) and tell them to sign up.
Let's fill that committee up so that we give the PTA a chance to live up to its rhetoric.
If you want more information, write to this email: legislative@copta.org
p.s. I was waiting and waiting for my young one to get into school so I could join up and sign on to this committee (for at least a couple, three years now), but alas, there is not PTA out here. I'll keep watching and if one starts, I'll volunteer for the committee the morning after I sign up.
https://denvergazette.com/opinion/columns/jeffco-s-politicized-pta-hijacked-by-the-left-jimmy-sengenberger/article_ca2cb957-3f5c-53db-b4f3-5ce889934546.html
https://copta.org/legislative-committee/
Up on the Roof...
That time of the week again, time for something fun, something not related to politics.
It took some doing, but not too long after I convinced my mom that I wouldn't die, I was able to transition from a sport I was NOT made for (soccer) into one I was made for (football). I started my first rec-league season when I started middle school.
Not too long after that, I started lifting weights: a neighbor down the street offered to help me and my brother learn how, so I took him up on his offer. I have always been big (9 pounder at birth), but by learning to lift weights I could be big and strong (and do better at football).
Fast forward a few years to high school. I was still playing football my freshman year. I was still lifting weights with my neighbor in the off season. That was enough sport for me.
But, out of nowhere the wrestling coach along with a lot of the older wrestlers started being friendly, wanting to talk to me, telling me how much they'd love it if I wrestled, and telling me how good I'd be.
Young and naive as I was, I thought that this was genuine interest. I was flattered. So, I paused on the weightlifting to give wrestling a try.
You know what I found out?
I found out that, while I am a lot of things, being a successful wrestler my first year out is not one of them. Wrestling is a learned skill (like chess). You need to be ready to be bad at it for a while. This is especially the case if you clear the bar for the heavyweight category by a couple pounds and everyone else in that category is older with (sometimes) 60 pounds on you.
I was flat terrible, stank like rotten fish. I finished the season and haven't gone back. Didn't go back to football either after another year. Lifting weights and strength sports is my true calling: it's the best match to my abilities and psychology I suppose.
Long way 'round here to finally come to the point. Besides bad memories of public embarrassment, I have some good memories of that year: The Drifters.
This would have been early 90's and CD's were a couple years old. My brother and I got a CD player for the first time ever that year. One of the CDs we had was "The Drifters Golden Hits" (image at the top of post is the album cover, and the link below is to a YouTube playlist if you want to listen).
When I hear these songs, I think back to a younger me having to go to sleep early early on a Friday night so I could be up long before dawn and off to a tournament. The drifters was in the CD player while I drifted off. I thought you might enjoy listening to the songs yourself (or, if you're already familiar, getting a reminder to listen again). They're a nice mellow group, mellow songs, good to fall asleep to.
If you have any memories associated with songs you want to share, please post in the comments. I'm always on the lookout for new songs to listen to, and who doesn't like a good story?
That's it til Sunday. Have a good Friday night, perhaps falling asleep to the Drifters yourself.
p.s. I later found out that the reason they'd invited me to wrestle was not due to ability or personality. It was because the football coaches, not believing when I told them that I trained with a neighbor, wanted to keep tabs on me and keep me exercising in the off season. Wrestling seemed as good as any. I don't bear any ill will to anyone about it; we are the sum total of the things we live. None of the above sits heavy on my heart. At this age, the memories of what I've done in life are there more as milestones to mark the path that led me to who I am than things to be sore about.