Current law provides whistleblower protections for workers who raise a reasonable concern about health or safety related to a public health emergency. The act expands the protection to all health and safety concerns regardless of whether there is a declared public health emergency. To implement the act, the act appropriates: $417,629 to the department of labor and employment, of which $386,579 is for use by the division of labor standards and statistics and $31,050 is for the purchase of legal services; $228,499 to the department of personnel, of which $125,000 is for use by the division of human resources for liability claims and $103,499 is for the purchase of legal services; and $134,549 to the department of law, reappropriated from the department of labor and employment and the department of personnel.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
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In 2021, the state received $3,828,761,790 from the federal coronavirus state fiscal recovery fund as part of the federal "American Rescue Plan Act of 2021" (federal funds). The act modifies administrative requirements established by the United States department of the treasury (treasury) related to these federal funds, which were implemented through the "American Rescue Plan Act of 2021" cash fund, by: Establishing deadlines for a subrecipient, which is a person that carries out a program or project on behalf of the state but is not a program or project beneficiary, to expend or obligate this money, and if not, to return this money to the state for the state to either expend or return to treasury, depending on the timing; Requiring the state controller to determine whether money has been obligated; Requiring the state controller to transmit to the treasury any money that was obligated by December 31, 2024, but not expended by December 31, 2026; Requiring the department of revenue to provide the state controller with any information about any increases in the state's net tax revenue, which is necessary for calculating the state's revenue reductions for 2022 and 2023; Clarifying that the compliance, reporting, record-keeping, and program evaluation requirements established by the office of state planning and budgeting and the state controller apply to a person regardless of whether the person is a beneficiary or a subrecipient and regardless of whether the person receives the money directly from a department or from a subrecipient; and Permitting the state controller to report any expenditures to the treasury as a government service to the extent of the reduction in the state's revenue due to the COVID-19 public health emergency relative to the revenues the state collected for the state fiscal year 2018-19. The act substitutes money from the general fund or from a cash fund that included money that originated from the general fund for allocations of the federal funds that were made in 2021, as follows: $29,894,004 from the housing development grant fund; $36.5 million from the highway users tax fund that was distributed to counties, cities, and incorporated towns; $10 million from the Colorado startup loan program fund; and $98.5 million from the affordable housing and home ownership cash fund. The act transfers the following amounts from the economic recovery and relief cash fund: $70 million of federal funds to the "American Rescue Plan Act of 2021" cash fund to be used by the executive branch for any expenditures necessary to respond to the public health emergency with respect to COVID-19; $15 million of federal funds to the affordable housing and home ownership cash fund; $1,437,172 of federal funds to the workers, employers, and workforce centers cash fund; and $10 million that originated from the general fund to the revenue loss restoration cash fund. House Bill 22-1409, concerning additional funding for the community revitalization grant program, required the state treasurer to transfer $20 million from the economic recovery and relief cash fund to the community revitalization fund. The act reduces the transfer to $19,278,042, with $4,478,042 from money in the economic relief cash fund that originated from the general fund and the remainder from money in the affordable housing and home ownership cash fund that originated from the general fund. House Bill 22-1379, concerning transfers from the economic recovery and relief cash fund to provide additional funding for the management of certain natural resources, appropriated $15 million of federal funds from the Colorado water conservation board construction fund to the department of natural resources for use by the Colorado water conservation board. The act expands the allowable uses of this money. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act requires the department of education (department) to collect and compile data and create reports based on information received from school districts and charter schools (schools) related to chronic absenteeism rates, the number of in-school and out-of-school suspensions, the number of expulsions, the number of students handcuffed or restrained, the number of referrals to law enforcement, and the number of school-related arrests. The department shall to annually update and post such data and reports on its website. The department shall ensure all student-level data is kept confidential and complies with federal reporting requirements. The act requires the department to create and post easily accessible and user-friendly school district profiles relating to school climate, including school climate surveys. The act increases restrictions concerning the use of restraints on students. If a physical restraint is used for more than one minute but less than five minutes, the student's parent must be notified on the day of the restraint. The written notice must include the date, the name of the student, and the number of restraints. If a physical restraint is used for five minutes or more, the school administration shall mail, fax, or email a written report of the incident to the parent or legal guardian of the student not more than five calendar days after the use of the restraint on the student. The written report must be placed in the student's confidential file. A school resource officer or a law enforcement officer acting in the officer's official capacity on school grounds, in a school vehicle, or at a school activity or sanctioned event shall not use handcuffs on any student, unless there is a danger to themselves or others or handcuffs are used during a custodial arrest that requires transport. If a school uses a seclusion room, there must be at least one window for monitoring when the door is closed. If a window is not feasible, monitoring must be possible through a video camera. A student placed in a seclusion room must be continually monitored. The room must be a safe space free of injurious items. The seclusion room must not be a room that is used by school staff for storage, custodial, or office space. The department has enforcement authority over restraint investigation decisions and must follow the procedures outlined for state complaints under the federal "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act" and the department's state-level complaint procedures. The act requires the peace officers standards and training (P.O.S.T.) board, with respect to the hiring, training, and evaluation of school resource officers and professionalizing a school-police partnership, to create a model policy for selecting school resource officers. The P.O.S.T. board shall consult with school board members, school resource officers, K-12 advocates, and other relevant stakeholders, including student groups, in the development of the model policy. The department shall post the model policy on its website and distribute the policy to schools for consideration and possible adoption. The model policy may be used by schools and police departments. For the 2022-23 state fiscal year, the act appropriates $516,451 to the department of education from the general fund for information technology services and the office of dropout prevention and student reengagement. An additional $30,000 is appropriated to the department of law for use by the peace officers training board from the P.O.S.T board cash fund to implement the provisions of the act. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act establishes the federal Indian boarding school research program (research program) in the state historical society, known as history Colorado, to research and make recommendations to promote Coloradans' understanding of the physical and emotional abuse and deaths that occurred at federal Indian boarding schools in Colorado, including the victimization of families of youth forced to attend the boarding schools and the intergenerational impacts of the abuse. In addition to consultation with the Southern Ute Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe described in the act, history Colorado shall consult with the Colorado commission of Indian affairs (commission) and may consult with any other federally recognized Indian tribe. As part of the research program, the act requires history Colorado to research events, abuse, and deaths that occurred at the federal Indian boarding school at Fort Lewis, which was known as the Fort Lewis Indian school. History Colorado may enter into an agreement with a third party to conduct parts of the research. History Colorado is required to provide the commission, Southern Ute Tribe, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe with periodic updates about its research and is required to deliver a final report to the commission, Southern Ute Tribe, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe by June 30, 2023. The act requires history Colorado, after delivering its final report, to facilitate consultation with the commission, the Southern Ute Tribe, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to develop recommendations necessary to better understand the abuse and victimization that occurred at, and is related to, federal Indian boarding schools and to support healing in tribal communities. History Colorado must make the recommendations publicly available. The department of human services (department) owns and operates a regional center on the property that was formerly the Teller institute federal Indian boarding school. The act requires the department to vacate the property and sell all or a portion of the property, or transfer all or a portion of the property, to a state institution of higher education, a local government, a state agency, or a federally recognized tribe in Colorado. The department is not permitted to sell or transfer the property until after the identification and mapping of any graves of students buried at the federal Indian boarding school that was located on the property and until after the department develops a plan, in consultation with tribal governments, to acknowledge the abuse and victimization of students and families related to the operation of the school. The act appropriates $618,611 from the general fund to the department of higher education for use by history Colorado for the research program. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act identifies a new at-risk measure to identify students who are at risk of below-average academic outcomes because of socioeconomic disadvantage or poverty in order to allocate resources through the state's public school funding formula to serve those students. The new at-risk measure includes: The percentage of students certified as eligible for the school lunch program based on documentation of benefit receipt or categorical eligibility, supplemented by the expansion of direct certification to participants in the medical assistance program and the children's basic health plan; and A neighborhood socioeconomic-status index that weights student needs based on socioeconomic-status index neighborhood factors linked to each student's census block group. The commissioner of education (commissioner) shall convene a working group to prepare for the implementation of the new at-risk measure in the 2023-24 budget year. The act specifies the membership of the working group. The act includes issues that the working group may consider in constructing and implementing the new at-risk measure, including collecting necessary data, constructing a neighborhood socioeconomic-status index linked to students' addresses, and testing the at-risk measure with actual student data, if available. Not later than January 31, 2023, the commissioner shall report findings and recommendations for the construction and implementation of the new at-risk measure to the education committees of the general assembly and the joint budget committee. The act requires the department of education to apply to the United States department of agriculture to obtain authorization for direct certification of students participating in the medical assistance program and the children's basic health plan. For the 2022-23 state fiscal year, to implement the act, the act appropriates $34,997 to the department of education from the general fund and provides an additional .01 FTE for administration related to public school finance; and appropriates $128,341 from the general fund to the department and provides 0.4 FTE for federal nutrition programs. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act establishes Juneteenth, which is the nineteenth day of June, as a state legal holiday. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act requires, in state fiscal year 2022-23 only, and within available appropriations, that the department of education (department) distribute supplemental payments to facility schools approved by the department as of October 1, 2022. The supplemental payments must be above and beyond the current daily per pupil revenue rate as established for the 2022-23 state fiscal year. The act appropriates $5,134,000 to the department from the state education fund for supplemental payments to facility schools. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
On July 1, 2022, the act transfers: $350,394,004 from the general fund to the affordable housing and home ownership cash fund; $350,394,004 from the affordable housing and home ownership cash fund to the revenue loss restoration cash fund; $4,639,443 from the general fund to the capital construction fund; $122,225,865 from the general fund to the information technology capital account of the capital construction fund; and $500,000 from the general fund exempt account of the general fund to the capital construction fund. The state treasurer and the state controller transferred $110,000,000 from the general fund to the controlled maintenance trust fund to be appropriated in the 2022-23 state fiscal year for controlled maintenance budget requests prioritized by the office of the state architect as level one and level two priority projects. The act eliminates the requirement that the transferred money be appropriated for the 2022-23 state fiscal year. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Senate Bill 21-291 transferred $40 million of "American Rescue Plan Act of 2021" (ARPA) money from the economic recovery and relief cash fund to the Colorado economic development fund and directed the office of economic development and international trade (OEDIT) to use $10 million of the money transferred to incentivize small businesses to locate in rural Colorado and for the location neutral employment incentive program. To ensure that the use of the $10 million complies with ARPA requirements, the act instead directs OEDIT to use the money to incentivize or support businesses in rural Colorado or to undertake any other economic development activity in rural Colorado that is authorized by specified current law in response to the negative economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Under current law, the state personnel director (director) of the department of personnel is required to annually conduct surveys and produce a report concerning compensation to determine any necessary adjustments to state employee salaries, state contributions for group benefit plans, and merit pay. The act instead requires the director to conduct surveys and produce the report every 4 years. The act also changes certain reporting deadlines of the director relating to the compensation report and removes certain substantive components of the report. The act decreases the general fund appropriation made to the department of personnel for use by the division of human resources for total compensation and employee engagement surveys related to state agency services in the annual general appropriation act for the 2022-23 state fiscal year by $300,000 and appropriates $147,429 from the general fund to the department of personnel for implementation of the act. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)