Ref C fattening state's payroll

Conservatives balk, but Democrats say growth is necessary

April M. Washington, Rocky Mountain News

Monday, May 15, 2006

Democrats added more than 1,000 new jobs to the state's payroll this legislative session while claiming to be frugal with the Referendum C windfall, some Republicans say.Democrats say they didn't have a choice: Voters gave them a clear mandate to restore critical programs when they passed Ref C last November.

But conservative Republicans maintain the majority party has grown government.

"At the end of the day, Ref C was to make the state whole," said Sen. Jim Dyer, R-Centennial, an outspoken opponent of the tax measure. "What they're doing is creating more jobs, more programs and adding new employees for almost everything you think of."

Democratic leaders said it's true that some state agencies will see their ranks grow next year.

But for the most part, they say, the legislature is simply restoring positions cut in the past four years after Colorado's economy took a nose-dive, forcing the state to make nearly $1 billion in budget cuts.

Leaders in both parties last week took credit for a string of bills that directed about $800 million of Ref C money into public schools, health care, higher education and roads.

"This is a growing state. If we're going to invest in more roads and bridges, we're going to create positions at the Department of Transportation," said Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, chairman of the Joint Budget Committee.

"If you're going to build classroom space, we ought to put teachers in them. So yes, we added positions in schools that had been cut. We added positions in the judiciary so people can get speedy justice. It's the right thing to do," he said.

Under the state's $16.5 billion spending plan for next year:

• The Colorado State Patrol will see its ranks grow by 24 new troopers over the next two years under a bill that creates a special unit to arrest "coyotes" smuggling illegal immigrants into the state for money.

• Higher education institutions will see their ranks climb by more than 800, largely to reflect updated employee estimates.

• The state judiciary will add 98 full-time positions for the final six district court judgeships created to handle the rising criminal caseload, to beef up trial court staff, and to provide attorneys, secretaries and investigators for the public defender's office to address the growing caseload.

• Colorado Department of Corrections ranks will grow by nearly 183 positions to address prison crowding. The state is adding 263 female beds at the La Vista Correctional facility and another 400 male beds at four correctional facilities in February 2007.

In addition, the department will hire 47 parole and community correction officers and a dozen professionals to beef up the prisons' mental health and sex-offender treatment staffs.

• The Department of Education will see about a dozen positions restored, in part to oversee expanded preschool and special-education programs.

Dyer said that's just the tip of the iceberg. He said he has tracked a number of bills passed in the past month that will add about 150 full-time employees to the state payroll as a result of new programs created by lawmakers.

Jon Caldara, a leading opponent of Ref C last year, says the growth in state government is not a surprise. In fact, he and other Ref C opponents predicted it.

"Government is not measured by the number of people it hires but . . . by the services it provides," said Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank.

"When you have a twisted logic that we're just restoring positions we cut, you need to go back to see if there's a more efficient way to provide services," he said.

Caldara is pushing a ballot initiative to divert some Ref C money to cover Coloradans' heating bills.

He said Democrats are not solely to blame for spending nearly every dime flowing into the state's coffers.

Democrats, since capturing control of the legislature in 2004, have done more priority-based budgeting than the Republican leadership when it controlled the legislature, Caldara said.

That notwithstanding, he said, both parties are putting special interests before the taxpayers.

The state will bring in an estimated $4 billion in Ref C money over the next five years that otherwise would have been refunded to taxpayers.