Imprisoning the budget

As inmate population booms, state faces a crisis

Colorado is taking a hard look at its prison-sentencing system, and not a moment too soon.

Between 1985 and 2005, Colorado's prison population quintupled, rising from 4,000 to 20,000 inmates. Two years from now, the population will probably reach 25,000, meaning the number of prison inmates will have risen more than six times in 24 years. In the same period, the state's entire population rose by only about 1.5 times.

The exploding prison population comes with a significant price tag: It costs between $40,000 and $90,000 to build each new prison bed, and it costs about $26,000 annually to incarcerate each inmate. With 1,000 extra convicts a year, it all adds up.

But it doesn't compute within the confines of the state budget. In 2005, the Colorado Department of Corrections spent about $533 million, up from $57 million in 1985. In short, the cost of state prisons has risen about six times faster than the population that must fund prisons.

Why does state population matter? Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, passed in 1992, limits the growth of state revenue to the rate of inflation plus population growth. It also limits spending growth to no more than 6 percent annually.

Even with the five-year TABOR "time out" voters approved last year, the prison problem will prove difficult to manage. And since the supply of beds is so costly, it only makes sense to consider the demand.

The steady rise of the prison population is partly a product of stiff sentencing laws passed by the Legislature. The effect is a burgeoning population of inmates guilty of committing lower-level drug offenses and other non-violent crimes.

Last week, the Colorado Lawyers Committee released a report recommending the establishment of a sentencing commission, the Rocky Mountain News reported. Sentencing commissions have helped 17 states curb their prison expenditures and add a dose of reason to sentencing guidelines.

Highlighting the commissions' effectiveness, the lawyers' group noted the experience of North Carolina, which, with the help of a sentencing commission, cut its prison population by more than half in four years, the News reported.

The North Carolina Legislature adopted a new sentencing structure that stiffened punishment for violent offenders and encouraged alternative sentences for non-violent criminals. Such a system, the lawyers' group noted, might not be right for Colorado. But we would be remiss if we did not at least explore the options.

Some lawmakers are ready to take up the cause. During last fall's campaign, for instance, State Rep. Jack Pommer, a Boulder Democrat, effectively and chillingly outlined the clear and present need to confront this issue.

Sentencing commissions and sentencing guidelines are not intrinsically captivating. The topics become more compelling when one considers the looming budgetary havoc. When they return to work this week, legislators should confront this issue in earnest.

Dems want "new energy future"

By Todd Neff
03:44 p.m., January 17, 2007
DENVER — The state’s Democratic leaders will introduce at least a dozen energy-related bills during the 2007 legislative session, ranging from upping Colorado’s renewable energy output to adding power transmission lines to the state’s green-energy hotbeds.

Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Coal Creek Canyon, House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, and other Democratic leaders announced their plans to "literally embark on a new energy future for Colorado," as Madden put it, at a Wednesday news conference at the Capitol. Gov. Bill Ritter also spoke at the event, and representatives from Xcel Energy, the Rocky Mountain Farmer’s Union, wind-energy and environmental groups stood behind the podium.

"We’re going to play a leadership role in a way that in the long run makes a difference in the national energy economy and energy independence," Ritter said.

The legislators highlighted five bills, all of which remain works in process. They range from support for biofuel projects and money for school renewable-energy projects to standards for "net metering," which allows consumers to sell excess solar, wind or other power back to the utility. The two with the biggest potential impact relate to increasing the state’s energy-transmission capacity and raising the percentage of renewable energy Colorado utilities generate above the limits instituted by Amendment 37.

State Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, said he’s working on a bill that would require utilities to produce 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. Amendment 37, the state renewable-energy portfolio passed by voters in 2004, requires major utilities to provide 10 percent of energy through renewable means by 2015.

Pommer said he’s still working on the bill’s specifics but it could include smaller rural electric associations, a move Ritter said he would support.

Ray Clifton, executive director of the Colorado Rural Electric Association representing 22 member cooperatives, said the association would not comment on specific bills until they could review them. But he said associations should reserve the right to opt out of any such bill, as the Intermountain Rural Electric Association and United Power, which serves parts of eastern Boulder County, did with Amendment 37.

Xcel Energy is investigating how much renewable energy could be introduced to the system without wind power’s inherent ebbs and surges harming it, spokesman Tom Henley said.

He said Xcel supports a Fitz-Gerald-sponsored bill to help energy companies build or upgrade transmission lines by charging customers an estimated 0.5 percent surcharge on monthly bills during construction. Customers generally pay for such infrastructure as part of the price of electricity when it’s eventually delivered. Overhead transmission lines cost between $750,000 and $1 million a mile, she said.

The idea, Fitz-Gerald said, is to boost transmission capacity to the eastern plains, the San Luis Valley and other renewable-energy hot spots.

Fred Grantham, general manager of the Morgan County Rural Electric Association, questioned the cost estimate, saying buried power lines cost two or three times more, and that such costs of right-of-way procurement would add to the bill.

Madden said Democrats are doing what the public has said it wants and that utilities should follow suit.

"Before Amendment 37 passed, we heard the sky would fall," Madden said. "The sky did not fall, apparently. It’s an industry that doesn’t want to change."

Contact Camera Staff Writer Todd Neff at (303) 473-1327 or nefft@dailycamera.com.

Pommer derides enrollment exclusion

Democrat says charter schools ‘cherry pick’ students they want
By John Fryar
The Daily Times-Call

DENVER — Some Colorado charter schools are “cherry picking” the students they’ll admit and weeding out “kids that they don’t want,” a local lawmaker charged on Tuesday.
Even though semi-independent charter schools are technically public schools and get government funding, “we’ve built a separate set of schools that are quasi-private,” said Democratic Rep. Jack Pommer, whose House district includes parts of both the St. Vrain Valley and Boulder Valley school districts.
During a budget hearing with Colorado Department of Education officials, Pommer reported that parents and local school district officials have complained to him that there’s little they can do to prevent charter schools from turning away certain students they would rather not admit.
Pommer did not specifically name any such schools during the hearing. But several State Board of Education members said such exclusionary practices are illegal because charter schools have to have open-enrollment policies.
“I don’t know legally how the school can cherry-pick,” said Randy DeHoff, a Republican education board member from Littleton.
Evie Hudak, a Democratic state board member from Westminster, agreed with DeHoff but added that “it’s true that some charter schools counsel out students” who don’t fit into a school’s particular educational program.
Boulder Democrat Jared Polis, vice chairman of the state board, said the exclusionary enrollment practices Pommer described are not only illegal, but that local school districts shouldn’t allow them.
Polis said he thought the state board would be unanimous in saying that school districts should not allow preferential admissions policies by the charter schools within those districts.
But Pommer told Polis and DeHoff during a break in the hearing that school districts “all over the state” say there’s little they can do about the creation or practices of charter schools within their local jurisdictions.
Those local school districts fear they’ll be overruled by the State Board of Education, or that would-be charter schools will bypass the districts entirely and seek authority to form and operate themselves under a separate charter school law, he said.
Pommer charged that some families can’t even get their children into charter schools in their own neighborhoods because slots have been filled by children of the charter schools’ board members or employees.
Meanwhile, Pueblo Democratic Sen. Abel Tapia aired a separate charter-school-related complaint during Tuesday’s hearing.
Charter schools, which began forming under a 1993 law sponsored by Gov. Bill Owens when he was a state senator, were supposed to be laboratories for education innovations that could be adapted by conventional public schools, said Tapia, the chairman of the budget committee.
Tapia said he’s seen little idea-sharing between charter schools and public school districts in the 13 years since.
Polis suggested the blame may lie both with some charter schools, which may be too protective and “proprietary” about their techniques, and school districts with “an excess of pride” that don’t want to implement ideas they didn’t come up with for themselves.
“There is a lot of room for improvement” on both sides, Polis said.

Area Democrats prepare for new leadership posts

By John Fryar
The Daily Times-Call

DENVER — Longmont’s Brandon Shaffer will take over the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee when the Legislature convenes its 2007 session next month.
The Democrat has spent the past two years as vice chairman of that panel, which typically considers such measures as bills proposing changes in the state’s criminal-justice laws.
Shaffer also will remain on the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
In the House, Louisville Democratic Rep. Paul Weissmann will resume chairmanship of that chamber’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.
That panel sometimes is handed some of the Legislature’s more controversial measures. Last year, for example, House State Affairs was the first stop for many of the bills proposing tougher laws on illegal immigration.
Weissmann also will continue to serve on the House Appropriations Committee.
Boulder Democratic Rep. Jack Pommer stepped down as chairman of the House Transportation and Energy Committee last spring after being named to the Joint Budget Committee.
Besides serving on the Legislature’s panel of budget writers, Pommer is now vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Boulder Democratic Sen. Ron Tupa will no longer head or be a member of the Senate State Affairs Committee when the 2007 session gets under way. But he will be vice chairman of the Senate Education Committee and serve on the Senate Local Government Committee.
Those are among the assignments that legislative leaders unveiled recently.
One new lawmaker, Mead Rep.-elect Glenn Vaad, was designated by House GOP leaders to be the “ranking Republican” among the minority-party members on the House Transportation and Energy Committee.
Vaad, a former Colorado Department of Transportation employee, also was named to the House Appropriations Committee.
Other appointments for area lawmakers:
Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, will serve on the House Finance Committee and the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.
Rep.-elect Claire Levy, D-Boulder, will be on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Transportation and Energy Committee.
Rep.-elect Dianne Primavera, D-Broomfield, will serve on the House Health and Human Services Committee and the House Transportation and Energy Committee.
Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, will be a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Larimer County, is the newest member of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee and also will be on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
John Fryar can be reached by e-mail at jfryar@times-call.com.

Education mandates tie up state cash flow

By John Fryar
The Daily Times-Call

DENVER — Several key lawmakers expressed concerns Monday over the state’s annually escalating share of responsibility for covering a majority of the present multibillion-dollar system of funding Colorado’s public schools.
None of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee members or any of the other lawmakers attending a Monday morning JBC briefing objected to the overall projected $5.1 billion price tag of Public School Finance Act distributions to Colorado’s 178 school districts in 2007-08.
However, some of those lawmakers indicated that sometimes-conflicting fiscal mandates and constraints within the Colorado Constitution continue to require the state to absorb increasing portions of the cost of paying for most of the day-to-day expenses of operating the state’s public schools.
Carolyn Kampman, one of the JBC’s staff analysts, said that of the nearly $5.1 billion in spending that the Public School Finance Act might amount to in 2007-08, more than $3.2 billion would have to come from various state budget accounts. The other $1.8 billion would come from property taxes and specific ownership taxes paid directly to the local school districts.
Kampman reported that between 1993-94, when the basic framework of the state’s school-funding law was first adopted, and the current 2006-07 budget year, when funding under that act is expected to total nearly $4.8 billion, the state’s annual share of that funding package has grown from 54.3 percent of the total to about 64 percent.
“The local-share issue is huge,” Boulder Democratic Rep. Jack Pommer said after Monday’s meeting.
Amendment 23, a measure Colorado voters approved in 2000, ensures annual increases in the base level of the Public School Finance Act’s per-student funding, but other constitutional provisions have meant the Legislature might face having to cut other state programs and services to meet that school-finance mandate, said Pommer, a JBC member and Amendment 23 supporter.
House Education Committee chairman Mike Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs, another staunch Amendment 23 fan, said the shifting of school-funding burden to the state budget is a concern, “but what can you do about it” without voters approving changes to things like the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights?
TABOR and the Gallagher Amendment, a 1982 constitutional change intended to protect residential property owners from some of that era’s growing tax burdens, are provisions that voters alone could change, noted Boulder Democratic Sen. Ron Tupa, soon to be vice chairman of the Senate Education Committee.
He said, however, that he didn’t know any solutions to the state-local share situation “that are viable.”
“We still haven’t cracked that nut,” Tupa said.
Merrifield said, “We have to bite the bullet and talk to the public about how they want to finance public education” in the future.
Senate Education Committee chairwoman Sue Windels, D-Arvada, agreed: “The only real solution lies in getting public support” for one or more school-finance-related ballot items.
John Fryar can be reached by e-mail at jfryar@times-call.com.