By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
A coalition opposed to a $10.8 million proposal to open one of three towers at Colorado State Prison II is calling on the powerful Joint Budget Committee today to reject the proposal supported by the Department of Corrections and Gov. Bill Ritter.
Criminal defense attorneys, mental health advocates and justice reform proponents say now is not the time to be approving additional funding for new prison beds — not when the state has already cut over $2 billion in the current fiscal year and is looking at another $1.5 billion in cuts in the upcoming year.
The JBC is expected to weigh the $10.8 million proposal today.
As part of Ritter’s latest $340 million budget-balancing proposal unveiled in February, the governor is calling for opening 33 percent, or 316 beds, of the new Colorado State Penitentiary II. Supporters of the proposal point to a string of violent incidents caused by some of the state’s most violent and destructive prisoners who are being housed in regular prisons.
The new tower would house some of the state’s most violent offenders, with inmates locked up about 23 hours a day.
Proponents of the proposal point out that DOC services and facilities have been cut by $14.8 million as part of recent budget-balancing measures, making the issue a matter of public safety.
At a news conference last week, Corrections officers pointed out that there have been three inmate murders over the last several months. They also pointed to a Corrections officer who had her throat slashed by an inmate at Limon Correctional Facility and another Corrections officer who was murdered at Limon — all within the last decade.
But critics say housing the state’s most violent offenders in one unit is a poor fiscal and social move. They say increasing vocational programs and so-called wrap-around services for parolees is a better use of money. The state recently backed out of $3 million in vocational programs and $1.8 million in wrap-around services when the economic downturn intensified and budget shortfalls increased.
“It is counterintuitive and counterproductive to cut successful, research-based programs that promote productivity and safety both within prison and after release,” said Christie Donner, executive director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.
Katherine Sanguinetti, spokeswoman for the DOC, says those educational programs were not actually cut, because the programs had yet to start.
“No actual services that we currently have in place are being cut,” she said. “We’re not actually decreasing any of our programs or services in those areas.”
Meanwhile, the state’s recidivism rate has actually increased slightly since 2006 to 53.4 percent. Sanguinetti says that is a result of budget cuts in 2002 during the last recession that cut DOC services and staff. Parolees hitting the world in 2006 and 2007 had less access to educational and drug and alcohol treatment programs as a result, she said.
Critics of opening new beds at CSP II say if the DOC is truly concerned about public safety, then they’ll increase mental health services and stop housing inmates with mental health issues in restrictive environments.
“Colorado needs to stop depending on long-term solitary confinement as a correctional tool,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU in Colorado. “It is too expensive, it does nothing to prepare prisoners for their eventual return to their communities, and it has been condemned by human rights advocates as cruel and unusual punishment, especially for prisoners with serious mental illness.”
The coalition states that 37 percent of inmates housed in so-called administrative segregation units are offenders with a mental health condition. The group believes such inmates should be housed in a general population environment with a higher ratio of inmates to mental health workers.
But Sanguinetti says the issue is a balancing act for DOC officials.
“The offenders that need to be in those high-security beds, they make the whole system unsafe, and in order for treatment to be effective, you have to feel safe in your environment,” she said. “Part of that treatment and those recidivism efforts being effective is getting the right offender in the right bed.”

Persistently drunken drivers should face mandatory jail time in Colorado, a legislative committee agreed Monday, The Denver Post reports. In a unanimous vote, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill requiring at least 10 days in jail for a second drunken-driving offense and at least 60 days in jail for third and subsequent offenses. Repeat offenders also would be required to spend up to two years on probation and participate in alcohol education and treatment classes.

By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
Republicans and Democrats are at odds over a bill that is likely soon to be on its way to the governor that would require local health insurance companies to offer maternity and contraceptive coverage.
Democrats look at House Bill 1021 as providing necessary health coverage to women during such important life moments as pregnancy.
Republicans view the legislation through a fiscal eye, arguing that the bill would make coverage more expensive for everyone.
HB 1021’s Senate sponsors — Sens. Joyce Foster, D-Denver and Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood — say they are protecting mothers and their children by ensuring proper medical care and treatment through individual and group insurance policies.
“This really changes the paradigm of health care for women in Colorado,” said Foster. “Pregnancy will not be considered a pre-existing condition any longer. This is a huge step for women, their families and Colorado.”
The House bill passed through the Democratic-controlled Senate Thursday on second reading. It must pass through the Senate one more time before being sent off to the governor for his signature.

Would measure raise rates?
Republicans say the measure would only raise rates for all Coloradans because insurance companies would be forced to pass the mandated cost along to consumers.
“Whenever we put a mandate on medical insurance, we make it more expensive,” Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, simply stated in a news release.
Critics are also concerned that the measure would result in younger, healthy individuals dropping their coverage because they don’t want to pay higher premiums. They say that leads to a downward spiral in which costs increase while fewer consumers are covered.
But Democrats point out that health insurance providers in Colorado don’t provide a maternity package, which puts families at risk. Supporters of the legislation point to several statistics, including one in five women in Colorado did not receive prenatal care during their first trimester, making them three to four times more likely to die from complications; lack of proper care during pregnancy can lead to the decreased health of the child; the percentage of low-weight births has increased to 9 percent in Colorado; and one out of every eight babies born in Colorado is premature.
“Although women are making strong advances in something as complex as politics, they are not finding parity when it comes to something as basic as health care,” said Boyd.

In other coverage:

The Colorado Senate gave initial approval Thursday to a bill requiring individual health insurance plans to cover maternity care and contraception, sparking objections from Republicans who said the mandate would make health care more costly, The Denver Post reports. And state Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, called the bill “morally repugnant” for requiring coverage of IUDs and so-called morning-after pills, both of which can prevent implantation of a fertilized human egg into the uterus. Lundberg called those contraceptive methods abortion-inducing.

Two new ballot initiatives could change the way Coloradans buy booze and pot, The Denver Post reports. The first is a plan to rearrange many of the regulations limiting how and where full-strength beer, wine and liquor can be sold in Colorado. Initiative 47, backed by the Colorado-based Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, is far broader than the group’s last statewide attempt in 2006 to legalize the possession of small amounts of pot. That proposal failed by a wide margin, with 58 percent of voters voting in opposition.

Video: StateBill.com via YouTube
Maryann Hartmann testified Thursday on SB10-171, sponsored by Sen. Linda Newell.

STATE BILL COLORADO
A Colorado Springs woman, Maryann Hartmann, told a Senate committee Thursday that she listened over a baby monitor to a neighbor abusing a 2-year-old foster child. The child later died, the neighbor was convicted and sent to prison, and the case is being put forth to advance SB10-171 by Sen. Linda Newell that would create a social-services ombudsman to prevent future tragedies.
Here’s how Colorado news organizations covered the story.

Colorado Springs Gazette: A Colorado Springs toddler would still be alive if the state had more oversight of child protection programs, a witness told a state Senate committee on Thursday. Mary Ann Hartman said El Paso County child welfare officials didn’t believe her in 2007 when she told them her neighbor, Jules Lynn Cuneo, was abusing Alizé Vick, a two-year-old foster child in Cuneo’s care. Months later, Vick died from head injuries, and last month a jury convicted Cuneo of child abuse resulting in death. Hartman is backing a bill before the state Senate, SB171, that would establish a child welfare ombudsman office to oversee child abuse prevention efforts – a place Hartman said she would have taken her concerns.

KDVR: Three years ago, Mary Ann Hartman tried to save the life of a 2-year-old girl who was beaten to death by her foster mother in El Paso County. That little girl, Alize Vick, died after Hartman’s reports to the county’s child protective services department fell on deaf ears, Hartman came to the Capitol on Thursday and told her story to the public for the first time with the hope it might save the lives of future children in the state’s care. Hartman testified in support of Senate Bill 171, which would establish an independent ombudsman to oversee the state’s 64 county child protective services divisions to assure that fewer reports fall through the cracks, as hers did.

9News: Alize Vick was 2 years old when she died from child abuse and neglect by her foster care provider. On Thursday, her neighbor and the person who reported the abuse, stood in front of a state senate committee in support of Senate Bill 171.

Video: StateBill.com via YouTube
Sen. Linda Newell introduces her SB10-171 to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

By Todd Engdahl, EDUCATION NEWS COLORADO
Colorado schools have $17.8 billion in maintenance and renovation needs over the next eight years, according to a statewide schools facilities study released Wednesday.
The study, required as part of the 2008 Building Excellent Schools Today law, was the first-ever comprehensive structural review of 8,419 buildings, from large classroom buildings to sheds.
The $17.8 billion estimate covers only what the study calls Tier I buildings – basically those used for instruction.
The study found those buildings need $9.4 billion of deferred maintenance work between now and 2013. An additional $13.9 billion is needed for energy and educational suitability projects. A final $3.9 billion in work is estimated to be necessary from 2014-18.

The study was released to the State Board of Education Wednesday afternoon.
Ted Hughes, director of the Capital Construction Assistance Division, noted that the study was the first-ever statewide inventory of school buildings and their conditions.
He said the division still has to come up with a ranking system for buildings and is planning to put all the data in a searchable database, to be called Schoolhouse that will include district and individual building information. The database will be updated regularly.
Mary Wickersham, chair of the Capital Construction Assistance Board, wasn’t shocked by the numbers, saying. “A lot of us have known for a long time the broad-stroke dimensions.” Wickersham several years ago led a less extensive study of school conditions. From that, she said, researchers roughly estimated $10 billion in needs.
Board members received the report with only a few comments.
The assessment isn’t a priority list from which state officials will choose projects. That’s because BEST is an opt-in program for which districts and charters must apply. But, the construction board will use the list to help set priorities among applicants. The program also is designed to encourage use of local matching grants, with only a few projects supported fully by state funds.

Edison School in El Paso County has long been a poster child for school building problems.
The BEST program was approved by the legislature in 2008 and is funded by revenues from state school lands and some other sources but not from tax dollars. Applications are evaluated and ranked by the appointed Capital Construction Assistance Board and its staff and forwarded to SBE. The program matches state funds with local money to either directly fund construction costs or to pay off lease-purchase arrangements.
Last August the state board approved the first major round of projects. That project list totaled $210 million, including a $127.5 million state share, another $7.6 million to cover any higher labor costs that might be required by federal law and $75.6 million in local matching money.
The state made cash grants of $15 million, matched by $18.7 million in local money. The state is putting up $112.5 million to pay off lease-purchases (called certificates or participation, or COPs), which will be matched by $57 million in local money. (Two of the projects subsequently were canceled. Voters in the Mapleton Schools last fall defeated a bond issue that would have provided the local match for a $51.3 million project. A $3.1 million grant to the North Routt Charter School was canceled because the school wanted to raise its $1.6 million match using a bank loan, which isn’t permitted.)
About $98 million was approved last March for 11 other projects, several of which needed money to complete work started under previous, smaller state grant programs. Three other awards totaling $4 million were made in April.
The construction board is accepting applications through April 9 for the 2010 round of grants. The BEST law gives priority to health and safety projects, followed by those designed to relieve overcrowding and to make technology upgrades.
Do your homework
▪ Links to report, PowerPoint summary and FAQ
▪ Capital Construction Assistance Board
New district accreditation system taking shape
The state board Wednesday also took testimony on proposed new rules for accrediting school districts but delayed a final vote until its April meeting to allow more time for public comment.
Some school districts and the Colorado Association of School Boards still have concerns about the proposed rules.
Education Commissioner Dwight Jones said, “This is a very, very important milestone for the state … this is major change.”
He said to the board, “I think you’ll see that while nobody will like everything in the rules, the department has been responsive to feedback. The rules have landed in a place that I strongly support.”
Ken DeLay, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Boards, acknowledged CDE’s cooperation but still expressed concerns about the new system.
“This is a complex statute and these are complex rules. … That complexity has some implications. It’s going to change how we do business in school districts. … We are moving away from a community, locally based system … to a system that’s run out of this building and the buildings in Washington, D.C.”

State Board of Education member Angelika Schroeder, D-2nd District
Board member Angelika Schroeder, D-2nd District and a former Boulder school board member, responded by saying setting goals is the state’s role and the methods for achieving them are up to local districts. With SB 09-163, she said, “We are losing the option in our districts to allow kids to not learn.”
The rules will give school districts the guidelines for following Senate Bill 09-163, which was passed by the 2009 legislature and revamps the state systems for accrediting school districts, assisting and intervening in districts with persistent low accreditation status; the way districts accredit individual schools, and how school performance is reported to the public and parents.
Advisory committees and Department of Education staff have been working on the rules since last year. The board will vote on the rules at its April 14-15 meeting, and the new rules will go into effect in May, with implementation beginning in the fall.
Under the new law, the state board will set targets every year for how a district has to perform in key areas to gain accreditation at one of six levels.
The key areas are student growth, as measured by test scores; postsecondary and workforce readiness, as measured by ACT test scores and, later, performance on the new state postsecondary and workforce readiness test; student achievement levels on tests, and dropout rates and achievement gaps based on income and ethnicity.
The state board is to adopt targets by Nov. 30 each year that will the basis for the accreditation levels. Each year’s target will apply to the next full school year.
Once the new plan is fully in effect, the state will assign accreditation ratings every November, districts that are lower-ranked will have to submit improvement plans by January and plans would be published on the SchoolView.org website in April.
Accreditation contracts run for a year and are renewed only if a district is in one of the top two levels. The old law has six-year contracts.
The six types of accreditation are:
▪ Level 1 – Accredited with distinction
▪ Level 2- Accredited
▪ Level 3 – Accredited with improvement plan
▪ Level 4 – Accredited with priority improvement plan
▪ Level 5 – Accredited with turnaround plan
▪ Level 6 – Unaccredited. In such cases the state board will determine whether a district needs reorganization, external management, conversion to innovation status or charter or school closure.
The old law has a somewhat dfferent six-level system.
The law gives the commissioner of educationthe authority to create a state review panel that will evaluate improvement strategies and recommend interventions.
If a district fails to make adequate progress under a turnaround plan or continues under a turnaround or priority improvement plan for a combined total of five years, the commissioner can ask the review panel to look at conversion of the district. There was no timeline in the old law.
Districts are to evaluate schools on at least the same level as state requirements but can be more rigorous. Districts will assign accreditation status to individual schools that is aligned with and meets or exceeds the rigor of the state system.
Previous law included only general goals for district performance, didn’t require SBE review of targets and had no state review panel.
• CDE information on the new accreditation system, including draft of proposed rules, summaries and background.
Declining enrollment study almost done
The board received an early peek at a comprehensive study of the effects of declining enrollment on school districts.
The study was requested by the legislature in 2008 but was delayed a year because of budget cuts. It’s due to be publicly released next Monday. The study was done by Pacey Economics Group of Boulder, whose president, Patricia Pacey, also happens to be a member of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.
Although there’s been modest statewide student growth over the past several years, most of Colorado’s 178 school districts actually are declining. The issue is important to districts because state aid to schools is based on enrollment, so there are budget impacts for declining districts. (Current law allows districts to average declines over several years.)
Calling the study “an enormous undertaking” that involved analysis of six years’ worth of enrollment, teacher statistics, spending, revenues and CSAP scores, Pacey gave the board some highlights of the study, including:
Overall student performance doesn’t seem to vary by district size or location.
Because of fixed costs, school districts have little financial flexibility in responding to declining enrollment and aid.
The percentages of budget that districts spend on various items such as instruction or transportation varies little between large and small and urban/suburban and rural districts.
“School choice costs money,” meaning that both district and Charter School Institute Schools affect the finances of districts.
School district consolidation wouldn’t yield significant savings if done on an across-the-board or formula basis although it might be useful for some districts, depending on local circumstances.
Pacey said her researchers didn’t independently study the issue of “adequacy” – how much money is needed for an effective education system – but that the study does contain a summary of other adequacy research.
She did note that that other research indicates Colorado school spending has fallen 20 percent behind inflation since 2002.
Educator ID program on track
Department of Education staff told the board that the new educator ID program is on track to issue eight-digit ID to eligible teachers and some other school personnel by June 30.
The ID program, passed by the legislature last year, is considered central to many education improvement efforts, such as tying student performance to teacher evaluations.
Earlier this year the legislature passed Senate Bill 10-036, which will require that the performance of teachers in their first three years of work be correlated with whatever teacher preparation program they attended. Other future uses of the educator ID remain to be determined.

By Debi Brazzale, COLORADO NEWS AGENCY
Promoting government programs and services to the public is one thing, but showcasing partisan elected officials in such publicly funded PR is a misuse of taxpayer money. That’s the case a lawmaker tried to make at the Capitol Wednesday as he proposed a ban on such promotions, but a majority of his colleagues on the Senate State Affairs Committee rejected the proposal on a party-line vote.
“It’s a breach of the public trust and our fiduciary responsibility of the public checkbook when elected officials use state funds to turn public service promotions into self-service promotions,” Sen. Bill Cadman told committee members before the vote.
Senate Bill 105, sponsored by the Colorado Springs Republican, would have barred elected public officials from spending public dollars on public communications that could be construed as self-promotion — for example, an ad that features an elected official touting the virtues of a government program or service.
Cadman noted that every state department publishes promotional materials and places media ads to provide the public with information about their services. Departments utilize such things as calendars, TV ads, brochures and radio ads to raise public awareness. He said such outreach can be valuable but that the state should draw the line at elected officials soaking up some of the limelight.
“Legitimate communication with the public is valuable,” said Cadman. “But it’s their money we’re spending. It’s important for the people to know that their dollars are not being used for campaigning.”
Yet committee Chair Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, said he didn’t see the problem.
“These promotions have a lot more authenticity to them if an image of an elected official is attached to it because it’s not just some Joe Blow saying this,” said Heath. “It just doesn’t trouble me to the extent that I think we ought do something about it.”
Cadman told his colleagues on the committee that he has received a lot of e-mails from the public on the issue over the past year or so, prompting him to look into the issue.
“The public is sensitive to this,” Cadman said. “We should be sensitive to this.”
Heath acknowledged that he “shuddered” every time he saw an image of then-Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, when he was an incumbent seeking re-election. Heath said he recognizes the advantage elected officials have when their image is publicized at no cost to themselves. Still, he said, it shouldn’t matter.
“It doesn’t really have an effect on me,” said Heath before casting his vote against the bill .“I just really don’t see the problem.”
Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins concurred with Heath.
“I don’t see it as a problem,” said Bacon.
Cadman said he calculated around $600,000 spent in recent promotional materials from several departments, but he said he was not able to determine how much has been spent across all departments over a year’s time.

So who’s really ahead in the race to be Colorado’s next governor? It depends on which poll you’re looking at, KDVR reports. A new poll released Wednesday by Public Policy Polling shows the Democrat, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, with a 50-39 percent edge over Republican Scott McInnis, a former congressman from Grand Junction who is likely to be the GOP’s nominee. According to that survey of 580 likely voters, Hickenlooper is better known and more popular than McInnis — across the board and with independents.

Poll results here.

In other coverage:

Politico: Two polls released this week give starkly different pictures of the Colorado governor’s race. A Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday shows Democrat John Hickenlooper, the mayor of Denver, with an 11-point lead over former GOP Rep. Scott McInnis. Just two days earlier, a Rasmussen Reports poll had McInnis ahead of Hickenlooper by a margin of six percent.

Juveniles charged as adults in Colorado and awaiting trial as inmates in adult prisons find themselves part of a system that fails to educate them, provide them equal access to services like mental health care or even to ensure they are housed according to strict safety guidelines, The Colorado Independent reports. People involved in the system admit to not knowing how many young people charged as adults are presently being held by the state and in which prisons. Colorado sheriffs frankly admitted to the Colorado Independent that their adult facilities are inappropriate for managing juvenile detention.

Two state representatives who intended to vote against a bill on Tuesday accidentally voted for it, affecting the outcome in the House, the Pueblo Chieftain reports. By a margin of 33-29, the House passed HB1009. Two representatives were excused, but Reps. Christine Scanlan, D-Dillon, and Karen Middleton, D-Aurora, were not. Both intended to vote against a bill that seeks to add a physician representative and an injured-worker representative to the board’s existing nine-member board of Pinnacol Assurance, the state-run workers’ compensation insurer of last resort. The pair was preoccupied by a conversation over legislative matters when it came time to vote.