Archive for May, 2010

Parole Reform; fighting recidivism, saving money and making Colorado safer

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Governor Bill Ritter signed my House Bill 1360 into law today in a ceremony in Denver.  The bill establishes a number of intermediate sanctions prior to re-incarceration of technical parole violators.  Technical violators have not broken any new crime, but have broken the terms of their parole – like missing required meetings.  Currently these offenders are often sent back to prison when they commit a technical violation.

I got the idea for his bill after touring the Therapeutic Community (TC) Program at Crossroads Turning Point in Pueblo.

I learned that the recidivism rate for an offender who completes a therapeutic community program is 8%.  That’s a lot lower than the typical 50% recidivism rate in a DOC facility.  Then I learned that therapeutic community costs about $14,000 less per year than full incarceration.  So, I started to wonder whether we could be smarter about what we do with those technical parole violators who haven’t committed any new crimes.

The bill saves $15 million annually from the Department of Corrections by opening up Community Return to Custody beds to more parolees and by using a graduated risk-based assessment to determine the number of days that a technical parole violator will spend re-incarcerated.  Most of the savings go into several recidivism reduction programs – like therapeutic communities, intensive residential treatment, mental health beds, and drug and alcohol treatment programs.

I’m proud of the work we accomplished in a collaborative fashion on house bill 1360.  Law enforcement officials, including the Department of Corrections and the DA’s Council, supported the bill.  The bill saves the state millions of dollars by providing more intermediate sanctions for technical parole violators, like community return to custody beds, mental health and addiction treatment. These programs not only save the state money vis a vis incarceration, but more importantly they are proven though research to reduce recidivism rates. That means fewer crimes, fewer victims and greater cost savings in the future.

Thank you Governor Ritter for signing it into law today!

Posted in Colorado's Budget - Tough Decisions, Criminal Justice | No Comments »

Transparency for your tax dollars

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Yesterday Gov. Bill Ritter issued an executive order with language that came directly from my Corporate Transparency Bill, HB 1350.  I passed my bill through the House before it died in the Senate this past Friday.  On Wednesday, Sal Pace and the House Democrats called on Governor Ritter to sign the executive order.  The executive order will help lead to more transparency for our taxpayer dollars that are given away by the state to corporations in the form of grants, loans or tax credits.  Millions or our taxpayer dollars are spent on economic development incentives for companies with very little record of whether they are actually creating the jobs that they are intended to.  I believe it’s my responsibility as a legislator to ensure that we are investing our taxpayer dollars wisely.  The goal of the bill is to get concrete numbers of how many jobs are created when the state provides money to corporations.  Transparency checks corruption, bolsters public confidence in government and promotes the fiscal responsibility of corporations who receive public monies.

The complete text of Executive Order D  2010-009:

D 2010-009

EXECUTIVE ORDER

Directing the Colorado Economic Development Commission to Report Certain Job Creation Activities and to Prepare a Plan for Tracking the Success of Grants, Loans, and Tax Credits Intended to Generate Jobs

Pursuant to the authority vested in the Office of the Governor of the State of Colorado, I, Bill Ritter, Jr., Governor of the State of Colorado, hereby issue this Executive Order directing the Colorado Economic Development Commission to report certain job creation activities and to prepare a plan for tracking the success of grants, loans, and tax credits intended to generate jobs.

I.                   Background and Purpose

Pursuant to C.R.S. § 24-46-104(2), on February 1st of each year the Colorado Economic Development Commission prepares and submits a report  to the General Assembly detailing the work of the Commission over the course of the previous year.  In order to assist assessing the effectiveness of job creation projects, the report should also include information regarding the number of people employed as a result of any project identified in the report and the average and median salaries of any people employed as a result of any such project.  Moreover, the State lacks an effective tool for measuring the number of jobs created as a result of the grants, loans, and tax credits it provides.

Therefore, I am directing the Colorado Economic Development Commission to include additional information in its annual report and to develop a plan for identifying the number of jobs created as a result of each grant, loan, or tax credit intended to generate jobs.

II.                Directives

A.                The Colorado Economic Development Commission’s report submitted pursuant to C.R.S. § 24-46-104(2) shall also include the number of people employed as a result of any project identified in the report, along with the average and median salaries of any people employed as a result of any such project.

B.                 The Colorado Economic Development Commission shall prepare a comprehensive plan detailing how the State can implement a program for tracking the success of every grant, loan, or tax credit program intended to generate jobs.  The plan shall include a means of determining a method for identifying on an annual basis the number of jobs created as a result of each grant, loan, or tax credit.  The plan shall be prepared and submitted to the Governor and the members of the finance committees of both chambers of the General Assembly by December 31, 2010.

III.             Duration

This Executive Order shall remain in force until further modification or rescission by the Governor.

GIVEN under my hand and the Executive Seal of the State of Colorado, this twelfth day of May, 2010.

Bill Ritter, Jr.

Governor

Posted in Colorado's Budget - Tough Decisions | No Comments »

Why I’m a NO on Senate Bill 191, regarding teachers’ jobs

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Senate Bill 191 is a bill that would tie teachers’ jobs to the performance of their students on standardized test.  I do not support the bill and I voted against it yesterday in Appropriations Committee tonight.  I will be voting against it again tonight on second reading in the House.  Teachers have an enormous impact on our children’s lives; and I support evaluating our teachers.  But, this bill is a step in the wrong direction.  For starters, the governor’s Council for Educator Effectiveness was just formed in January to examine these issues and it should be given the opportunity to find consensus on these questions with all stakeholders at the table.  But, when teachers jobs are tied to standardized tests it creates a vast array of problems for Colorado’s educational system.  The bill requires that the State Board of Education adopt guidelines for a system to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers and principals and requires that all school districts must adjust their local performance evaluation systems to meet the adopted guidelines.  The bill also requires that at least 50% of the teacher and principal evaluations come from the growth of the students on standardized tests. For starters, we would have to implement new standardized tests in Colorado that would cost millions to create.  CSAPS today cost us $21 million annually for just 4 subjects and for just 6 different grades.  I do not believe that you can assess the complete student curriculum on multiple-choice standardized tests.  Curriculum like creative writing, art, music, social studies, physical education, and history currently are not tested on the CSAPs.  Creating all of these new tests for every grade level will cost millions at a year when education funding has been cut more than $300 million.  But, more importantly, values like social skills, maturity growth, and learning how to learn (and not just facts) are not tested on standardized tests.

One of my concerns about Senate Bill 191 is that it eliminates due process for teachers.  The current due process system has worked sufficiently.  But, if we’re going to make a change then it should be done with all parties at the table talking collaboratively.  It does not always make practicable sense measuring teachers by growth on standardized tests.  Children have vastly different levels of support networks at home.  Some students have parents at home who demand that they complete their homework nightly; other students have less than perfect family networks.  The success of these students on standardized tests are often vastly different from one another.  Yet, under SB 191, teachers could place their job on the line when they teach higher risk students.  Teachers will feel induced to move to schools where students perform better on their tests for better job security.  This will discourage teachers from teaching at some of higher risk schools.  Similarly, there are several other variables that could affect the success of students on standardized test, like whether students take several sick days during the year.  However, the teacher will be held responsible when those students do poorly on their tests and could lose their job.  Teachers will have to pray that they have a classroom of students who are healthier.  I also have concerns that if this bill passes, that students will have the power to fire their teachers because they are “too tough.”  Students will realize that when a teacher assigns too much homework or makes them work too hard that they can get the teacher fired by intentionally bombing their standardized tests; and students have no personal benefit or risk in doing well or poorly on the standardized test.

The vote on 191 will take place sometime tonight on second reading.  I will be a no vote, and will be presenting amendments to try to make some improvements to the bill.  But, with this bill being pushed through in the final two weeks of session, and without proper vetting and negotiations, I cannot vote for it tonight.

Posted in Education, Workers' Rights | 3 Comments »