Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I have to say Mason County Commissioner Bobby Daniel joining
me now. She had a little idea that I feel
like has opened up a can of worms and I'm
so pleased for joining me now. Bobby, it's good to
talk to you again.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you Mandy for having me, Thanks for having me
on the show. It's exciting to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
So tell me what started you down the rabbit hole
of looking into unfunded mandates from the state.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, so, I'm just I was a new commissioner and
we had our department head meeting that we do every week,
and more and more our department heads for sharing this
frustration over the unfunded mandates. And it didn't matter if
it was the landfilled the sheriff, the clerk. Everyone had
(00:43):
a story about how underfunded mandates were affecting their budget
and this was frustrating for them because it's something they
can't really control. They couldn't see for coming, and it
really took deep impacts to their budget. Just for example,
there was the landfilled liner bill that came out. It
(01:04):
affected our budget at the county. It was going to
be a two million dollar landfill liner that we didn't want.
We didn't need that we had no say, and so
it was very frustrating that kind of a cost that
comes out of nowhere really does impact budgets. And so
we're just basically compiling all that information when we were
(01:25):
as we were getting it. Each legislative session comes out
with new unfunded mandates, and so we started a tracker.
This tracker tool was able to calculate from each department
the impacts of unfunded mandates and it really grew substantially.
The first year was interesting department heads. You know, if
(01:47):
you're in a silo, you're just kind of in your
own world and you're focusing on your budget, but then
when you put it together as a county, they started
getting really excited. They're like, wow, this is this is
a lot of money. And so we're in our second
year of tracking that we're up to almost ten million
dollars in unfunded mandates that we've been able to track.
That's just annually, and that's just in MafA counting.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So the most interesting part of this whole thing is
that when did you become aware of CRS twenty nine
dash one dash three oh four point five.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, So we took our unfunded mandates to a tracker.
We went to all the counties, we shared that with them,
we started tracking them. We're like, wow, this is a
really big problem that's affecting us. How can we push back. Well,
it's great, Actually, the Constitution is fabulous in this arena
where if it's not fully funded, if it's not funded,
(02:42):
then it's optional. And so we really wanted to convey
that to the legislature. There are some unfunded mandates that
are so costly and it's really hurting what we're able
to provide. Our core services are suffering, and so we
commune unicated in a letter we're not going to be
(03:03):
combined with these unfunded mandates. Here are a few unfunded
mandates that we won't be combined with. The Constitution's clear
if you don't fund it is now optional. So we
were able to send a letter in July, and then
we have almost forty counties that have also sent their
individual letters to the governor and also House and Senate leadership.
(03:28):
So we're making a lot of headway. We have the
majority of our counties are with us on this. And
what's exciting is you have Boulder County, of Stommit County,
you have Mesa county. There are so many folks that
are coming to this issue in a very nonpartisan fashion
and really talking about numbers and budgets and how it
(03:49):
suspects they're constituents at home.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Now, let me ask you this, if this unfunded mandate
is now optional, the first thing I thought of, Bobby,
was this, all these new gun laws about concealed carry,
they are a huge burden to the individual county sheriff's department.
There's got to be a huge price tag attached, and
as far as I know, there's no money coming specifically
(04:12):
to enforce those new rules. So does that mean that
if a county like Mesa or like Douglas Sorel Paso said,
you know what, we're going to opt out of those
new requirements, is that is that argument valid?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, so far, you know, each county is taking a
look at what liability would be for their constituents, and
that's there's nuances to that, and we don't want to
give a green light to something that could be very
serious when it comes to some legal ramifications, especially with
like the military. And so what we've done is we've
(04:49):
tried to stay out of more of those polarizing conversations
when it comes to those things, I think there's legal
action that probably take place when it comes to Senate
Built three, and I think there's already some lawsuits that
are taking place right now. But as far as unfunded mandates,
we're really trying to focus on more non partisan issues
(05:13):
where we can really talk about what's being funded and
what's being not funded and when the legislature is not
really taking into account accurate fiscal notes. Sometimes in these bills,
it's really interesting it'll say minimal impact to local governments
and they just need to do a better job. Minimal
(05:33):
impact can mean a lot of different things, and it's
just not fair and it's not accurate. And so we
really are pushing back in a very non partisan way
that this has to be fixed right as being the
state legislature to fund it or fix it. And I
think this is great because we're moving into the next
legislative session and hopefully we will have even more counties
(05:58):
joining us in this coalition and to really work towards
the solution.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
I have a couple of people on the text lines
asking for an example, and when Texter said, what is
an unfunded mandate? And that is simply when the state says,
here's a new law that outlines something that you must do,
and the counties are in charge of it, but we're
not giving you any money that you might need to
take care of the mandate that we're now giving you.
So that's the sort of overall explanation of an unfunded mandate.
(06:23):
But do you have specific examples in masse accounting of
unfunded mandates that you could give us.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah. So one of the more pressing issues is we're
dealing with a Rule thirty one. This is a regulatory
rule that came out of rule making, and so this
isn't necessarily a bill that got passed, but it is
an agency mistate that is working through some of this
role making that could have some major effects. And again
(06:51):
it doesn't come with funding. And so this is in
regards to methane in a landfilled and so these are
rules that the federal government already has. Rules are established
messane in landfills. The State of Colorado just kind of
wanted to take the extra mile, but that extra mile
is going to cross mesa county landfilled. Nine million dollars
(07:13):
to implement in the first year and a million dollars
after that for each year, right, So these are sort
of if it's just an agency and it's just one
bill and it's one legislature, they're like, well, this has
good intentions, but really the unintended consequence of some of
these are just astronomical and what's going to end up
happening is smaller landfills are not going to be able
(07:35):
to come by. I mean, nine million dollars is our
entire landfill budget. That's what they'll end up having to
just shut down. And I think that's a real disservice
for our constituents and you know, and for the environment
quite frankly. And so it's just things like that. There's
we've been again, we're tracking all of this on our
funded or fixed campaign on Mesa County dot us, and
(07:58):
we really go into high level detail from our department head.
They just are automatically doing a lot of this in
their budget every year, so it doesn't cost us more
money to keep track of but it's all in on
the website. We have very detailed account of where our
taxpayer dollars are going, and I think that's a good
(08:19):
resource for anybody to go look out.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Basic County Commissioner Bobby Daniel I appreciate your time, and
of course you're trying to keep it nonpartisan, but I'm
already like, wow, this is kind of.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
A big deal.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So I'll just take that. I'll keep that to myself
and let you keep working on the nine Protistan side
of it, and hopefully you guys can get some financial relief.
I appreciate you making time for me today. Absolutely all right,
Thanks Bobby,
I have to say Mason County Commissioner Bobby Daniel joining
me now. She had a little idea that I feel
like has opened up a can of worms and I'm
so pleased for joining me now. Bobby, it's good to
talk to you again.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you Mandy for having me, Thanks for having me
on the show. It's exciting to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
So tell me what started you down the rabbit hole
of looking into unfunded mandates from the state.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, so, I'm just I was a new commissioner and
we had our department head meeting that we do every week,
and more and more our department heads for sharing this
frustration over the unfunded mandates. And it didn't matter if
it was the landfilled the sheriff, the clerk. Everyone had
(00:43):
a story about how underfunded mandates were affecting their budget
and this was frustrating for them because it's something they
can't really control. They couldn't see for coming, and it
really took deep impacts to their budget. Just for example,
there was the landfilled liner bill that came out. It
(01:04):
affected our budget at the county. It was going to
be a two million dollar landfill liner that we didn't want.
We didn't need that we had no say, and so
it was very frustrating that kind of a cost that
comes out of nowhere really does impact budgets. And so
we're just basically compiling all that information when we were
(01:25):
as we were getting it. Each legislative session comes out
with new unfunded mandates, and so we started a tracker.
This tracker tool was able to calculate from each department
the impacts of unfunded mandates and it really grew substantially.
The first year was interesting department heads. You know, if
(01:47):
you're in a silo, you're just kind of in your
own world and you're focusing on your budget, but then
when you put it together as a county, they started
getting really excited. They're like, wow, this is this is
a lot of money. And so we're in our second
year of tracking that we're up to almost ten million
dollars in unfunded mandates that we've been able to track.
That's just annually, and that's just in MafA counting.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So the most interesting part of this whole thing is
that when did you become aware of CRS twenty nine
dash one dash three oh four point five.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, So we took our unfunded mandates to a tracker.
We went to all the counties, we shared that with them,
we started tracking them. We're like, wow, this is a
really big problem that's affecting us. How can we push back. Well,
it's great, Actually, the Constitution is fabulous in this arena
where if it's not fully funded, if it's not funded,
(02:42):
then it's optional. And so we really wanted to convey
that to the legislature. There are some unfunded mandates that
are so costly and it's really hurting what we're able
to provide. Our core services are suffering, and so we
commune unicated in a letter we're not going to be
(03:03):
combined with these unfunded mandates. Here are a few unfunded
mandates that we won't be combined with. The Constitution's clear
if you don't fund it is now optional. So we
were able to send a letter in July, and then
we have almost forty counties that have also sent their
individual letters to the governor and also House and Senate leadership.
(03:28):
So we're making a lot of headway. We have the
majority of our counties are with us on this. And
what's exciting is you have Boulder County, of Stommit County,
you have Mesa county. There are so many folks that
are coming to this issue in a very nonpartisan fashion
and really talking about numbers and budgets and how it
(03:49):
suspects they're constituents at home.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Now, let me ask you this, if this unfunded mandate
is now optional, the first thing I thought of, Bobby,
was this, all these new gun laws about concealed carry,
they are a huge burden to the individual county sheriff's department.
There's got to be a huge price tag attached, and
as far as I know, there's no money coming specifically
(04:12):
to enforce those new rules. So does that mean that
if a county like Mesa or like Douglas Sorel Paso said,
you know what, we're going to opt out of those
new requirements, is that is that argument valid?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, so far, you know, each county is taking a
look at what liability would be for their constituents, and
that's there's nuances to that, and we don't want to
give a green light to something that could be very
serious when it comes to some legal ramifications, especially with
like the military. And so what we've done is we've
(04:49):
tried to stay out of more of those polarizing conversations
when it comes to those things, I think there's legal
action that probably take place when it comes to Senate
Built three, and I think there's already some lawsuits that
are taking place right now. But as far as unfunded mandates,
we're really trying to focus on more non partisan issues
(05:13):
where we can really talk about what's being funded and
what's being not funded and when the legislature is not
really taking into account accurate fiscal notes. Sometimes in these bills,
it's really interesting it'll say minimal impact to local governments
and they just need to do a better job. Minimal
(05:33):
impact can mean a lot of different things, and it's
just not fair and it's not accurate. And so we
really are pushing back in a very non partisan way
that this has to be fixed right as being the
state legislature to fund it or fix it. And I
think this is great because we're moving into the next
legislative session and hopefully we will have even more counties
(05:58):
joining us in this coalition and to really work towards
the solution.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
I have a couple of people on the text lines
asking for an example, and when Texter said, what is
an unfunded mandate? And that is simply when the state says,
here's a new law that outlines something that you must do,
and the counties are in charge of it, but we're
not giving you any money that you might need to
take care of the mandate that we're now giving you.
So that's the sort of overall explanation of an unfunded mandate.
(06:23):
But do you have specific examples in masse accounting of
unfunded mandates that you could give us.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah. So one of the more pressing issues is we're
dealing with a Rule thirty one. This is a regulatory
rule that came out of rule making, and so this
isn't necessarily a bill that got passed, but it is
an agency mistate that is working through some of this
role making that could have some major effects. And again
(06:51):
it doesn't come with funding. And so this is in
regards to methane in a landfilled and so these are
rules that the federal government already has. Rules are established
messane in landfills. The State of Colorado just kind of
wanted to take the extra mile, but that extra mile
is going to cross mesa county landfilled. Nine million dollars
(07:13):
to implement in the first year and a million dollars
after that for each year, right, So these are sort
of if it's just an agency and it's just one
bill and it's one legislature, they're like, well, this has
good intentions, but really the unintended consequence of some of
these are just astronomical and what's going to end up
happening is smaller landfills are not going to be able
(07:35):
to come by. I mean, nine million dollars is our
entire landfill budget. That's what they'll end up having to
just shut down. And I think that's a real disservice
for our constituents and you know, and for the environment
quite frankly. And so it's just things like that. There's
we've been again, we're tracking all of this on our
funded or fixed campaign on Mesa County dot us, and
(07:58):
we really go into high level detail from our department head.
They just are automatically doing a lot of this in
their budget every year, so it doesn't cost us more
money to keep track of but it's all in on
the website. We have very detailed account of where our
taxpayer dollars are going, and I think that's a good
(08:19):
resource for anybody to go look out.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Basic County Commissioner Bobby Daniel I appreciate your time, and
of course you're trying to keep it nonpartisan, but I'm
already like, wow, this is kind of.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
A big deal.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So I'll just take that. I'll keep that to myself
and let you keep working on the nine Protistan side
of it, and hopefully you guys can get some financial relief.
I appreciate you making time for me today. Absolutely all right,
Thanks Bobby,
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