Keep those per diems coming! Especially since taxpayers pay! "Colorado has become a glaring example of what not to do when it comes to business policy."
Keep those per diems coming! Especially since it comes on the backs of taxpayers.
Just in case you're not familiar. A per diem is a daily amount paid to someone to cover their daily expenses. In the case of our state's legislators, it's a daily amount paid to cover their expenses while the Assembly's in session. This is on top of the salary legislators earn.
Right now, any legislator living within the Denver Metro gets $45 a day, those outside the metro get $235 a day. This is on top of mileage.
The bill I link to below, sent to me courtesy of my state senator (Byron Pelton),** would increase the per diems for our state Assembly members.
The increases would be, quoting the bill's fiscal note, "...$71 [Denver] and $254 [rural], respectively, in FY 2025-26".
Would you like an increase in your per diem? Would you like a per diem at all?
On top of the increase, the bill creates yet another appointed board to look at changes to the salaries for legislators (among other state offices like the AG, the governor). Who appoints them? Why it's the governor and the Assembly leadership.
Oh, and one more detail. In case you're thinking the board's recommendations on salaries would be binding, you should know better. The Assembly can accept or reject the commission's findings.
If you don't already know and want to see how our state elected officials are paid, check the second link below.
Let's look at some numbers to put all this in perspective.
Legislators work 120 days per year for session (legislators make $99 per day plus per diem for any committee work outside the session, but we'll ignore that for the purposes of this post). They make $40,000 salary for this work. Dividing gives $333 per day for salary.
Putting that with the per diem, Denver-area Assembly members get $378 per day and those outside the Metro get $568 per day. These are the current numbers, not the suggested increases (which would give $404 and $587 respectively).
Statewide average wages (hourly and salary) for Coloradans gives $56,400 per year, equal to about $216 per day. There is no state standard on per diems. Some get it, some don't. Same with mileage.
Since I'm an educator, I went looking at a couple local school districts to compare to the legislators.
I pulled salary schedules for RE-1 Valley and Buffalo RE-4J district (this would be Sterling and Merino, the two closest to me). The schedules are linked third and fourth below, respectively.
A starting teacher makes $40K a year (plus benefits) in Re-1 and $39K a year in Re-4J. For a standard 168 day teaching contract, this comes out to $232-238 a day.
As Senator Pelton noted in his email to me, why on earth are we taking from Coloradans so we can give yet more to legislators (and possibly other state offices)?
Particularly irksome when you note the number of people struggling to pay their bills now, and when you compare the numbers to what a starting teacher gets--and not even less compared to per diem + wages. I mean less on the daily rate alone!
Particularly irksome when you note that people like Sen Hansen has an outside job teaching at CU and people like Rep Garcia can make hundreds of thousands a year in their outside job (see my post from last Thursday linked at bottom).
This one's up for committee on the 22nd if you'd like to speak on it. If you do, I would like to invite you to give a rough daily income for people in your area and whether or not you get per diems for your daily expenses.
**So that you're aware, Senator Pelton, in is email, indicated his opposition to this bill. Quoting his email: "It’s a sad day when we as legislators think that we need more money to create laws that cost the people money that we serve!!"
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1059
https://leg.colorado.gov/agencies/legislative-council-staff/salaries-legislators-statewide-elected-officials-and-county
https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/945/RE_1_Valley_School_District/3165520/Teacher_Salary_Schedule_2023-2024_BOE_Approved_6.19.23.pdf
https://www.merino.k12.co.us/common/pages/DownloadFileByUrl.aspx?key=GlCjiEpL3CYdYAnHKbtR3uN2JVamokzT7t00XNH%2b39M9JlIz6yLD28hpOBU0X%2bFzTi%2ftNmn89J58spSEd3ULlB5mxQw8hq9S7nkLjiSEw6lex7y6NWZq%2fUIujnU%2fUviaU2jcYQzV1%2f3Pyb5c5T16uXEY1dnX0nB0OigFU5g3k1aaQbnnnhlIlfx07RkVojc1RkDgTord%2bu573J%2f%2fQOrpn3Xdgxs%3d
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/you-didnt-really-want-a-gas-powered?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
"Colorado has become a glaring example of what not to do when it comes to business policy."
The quote above comes from the op ed linked below. Let me give yo the full quote that I excerpted above because it's even more striking with the context than without. It was too lengthy to put a the top, so I attached it as a screenshot.
Yes. Colorado's policy choices are actively hurting our economy. There are plenty more examples in the op ed, which I'll leave to you to read, but I'd like to point out something that doesn't get near enough mention in discussions like these.
I want to call your attention to the disparate impact that this has on small businesses. It hurts all business, but the kinds of rules and regulations this state is printing like money have an especially harmful effect on small businesses.
Small businesses do not have legal and/or compliance departments, and we live in a finite world. Rather than devoting their attention to their business, small business owners face a tough choice: should I take time from trying to run or grow my business to handle the regulations or should I have to pay retail to have someone do it for me?
Now put yourself in the position of that same small business owner and think over how likely it is you want to try and expand (opening yourself up to yet more rules and regulations).
What the Democrats who have been running this state since 2019, the date the Arizona report cites as when the regulatory atmosphere in this state took a turn for the worse, have done for us is to stifle economic activity.
This is especially so at the margins, the small business level where the risks are bigger but where opportunities are too, coincidentally the area where the real generation of new economic activity takes place.
That is, the existing tissue that our body has will get damage, but some parts of it are seasoned enough to weather some shocks.
The real damage comes because we've let the Democrats pass through and wipe out the marrow, the bleeding edge where this state generated new growth.
https://denvergazette.com/opinion/columns/perspective-colorado-has-fallen-behind-in-economic-growth/article_f5a2b8a4-3fdc-5f8d-8734-d3d1a72b20d4.html#google_vignette