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