Current law allows only a county department of human or social services or a child placement agency to certify foster homes. The act updates statute to allow for a federally recognized Indian tribe pursuant to applicable federal law to certify its own foster homes.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act clarifies that it is unlawful to operate an off-highway vehicle on the public streets, roads, or highways of the state, regardless of the state or other jurisdiction in which the off-highway vehicle is registered or titled, except under certain existing exceptions.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act authorizes a person with a club license (licensee) that allows the sale of alcohol beverages by the drink to members of the club and their guests for consumption on the premises of the club to commingle any alcohol beverages purchased by the licensee for the purpose of a special event with alcohol beverages in the licensee's inventory.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act:Makes current laws concerning governance and transparency for cooperative electric associations (associations) applicable to nonprofit generation and transmission cooperative electric associations that provide wholesale electric service directly to Colorado cooperative electric associations that are its members; Eliminates an exemption to those requirements for associations with fewer than 25,000 members; Allows an association to authorize, in its bylaws, its members and directors to participate in meetings electronically; Allows an association to authorize, in its bylaws, members to vote in an election through a secure and verifiable electronic voting system; Clarifies that members voting or participating in a meeting electronically are considered present in person for the purpose of establishing quorum; Defines joint memberships and clarifies how joint memberships can vote; Amends the deadlines and requirements for notice of an election; Requires an association to adopt written policies concerning the compensation of board members and disclosures of conflicts of interest for board members; Requires board members to fulfill their duty of loyalty to the cooperative association at all times; except that, if a director serves on the board of both a generation and transmission association and a distribution association, the director owes fiduciary duties to both associations and shall not be required to give priority to the duties the director owes to one association over the duties the director owes to the other association; and Requires associations to post on their websites information about their rates and net metering requirements and to make financial audits available to members on request.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Under current law, a cooperative electric association with an electric easement on real property is authorized to install or to allow a commercial broadband supplier to install broadband facilities on the real property, subject to notice and procedural requirements. The bill expands the authorization to also apply to either of the following entities with an electric easement: A generation and transmission cooperative electric association; or The federal western area power administration within the United States department of energy.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)
Before passage of the act, the adult education and literacy grant program (grant program) was focused on workforce development partnerships to provide adult education that leads to increased levels of employment. The act recognizes that, in addition to increasing employment, adult education is necessary to ensure an adult population that is better prepared to support the educational attainment of the next generation and actively participate as citizens in a democratic society. The act expands the grant program to provide grants to adult education providers that enter into an education attainment partnership with elementary and secondary education providers or higher education providers to assist adults in attaining basic literacy and numeracy skills that lead to additional skill acquisition and may lead to postsecondary credentials and employment and that assist adults in providing academic support to their own children or to children for whom they provide care. The act allows the state board of education, in awarding grants, to give preference to adult education programs that serve populations that are underserved by federal funding. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act aligns Colorado statutes on hemp with federal law, including adopting federal definitions; requiring authorized samplers to collect samples from each lot; changing the appointing authority for the industrial hemp advisory committee to the state agricultural commission; requiring that all key participants provide a criminal history record check from the federal bureau of investigation; eliminating authority to grow hemp for research and development purposes but authorizing a separate registration and waiver requirement; creating new reporting requirements; specifying unlawful acts and creating civil penalties for violations; and giving the commissioner of agriculture investigatory and subpoena authority. The act appropriates $55,620 to the department of public safety from the Colorado bureau of investigation identification unit fund. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act appropriates $1.5 million from the species conservation trust fund for programs that are designed to conserve native species that state or federal law lists as threatened or endangered, that are candidate species, or that are likely to become candidate species as determined by the United States fish and wildlife service, allocated as follows: Native terrestrial wildlife conservation, $454,505; Native aquatic wildlife conservation, $295,495; Platte river recovery implementation program, $670,000; and Selenium management, research, monitoring, evaluation, and control, $80,000.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
