The JBC wrestled with an underfunded prison system and a backlog of supplemental requests, with members pressing the Polis administration for a concrete plan on prison population management before agreeing to fund additional DOC capacity; the committee also passed contested higher education executive-order reductions over Kirkmeyer and Taggart's objections and advanced several procedural and pilot program items.
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Vice Chair Bridges stated 'what we have seen from the administration is a lack of willingness to even engage in the conversation with some of our colleagues about releasing some of those lower level offenders, folks less likely to reoffend,' and said JBC analyst Justin Bracke had written 'essentially a master's thesis on what parts of the various populations in our prisons are more likely to offend, less likely to offend' that the administration had not engaged with. Director Ferrandino responded that conversations were 'picking up within the administration' and had intensified significantly in recent days, and described the governor as actively engaged in reviewing who is in DOC's prisons.
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“What we have seen from the administration is a lack of willingness to even engage in the conversation with some of our colleagues about releasing some of those lower level offenders, folks less likely to reoffend. We had our analyst here, Justin Bracke, wrote essentially a master's thesis on what parts of the various populations in our prisons are more likely to offend, less likely to offend. And we want that to be a live conversation and just haven't felt a willingness on the administration's part to even engage in that conversation.”
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Sign in to subscribeThe Joint Budget Committee will come to order. We have an agenda of supplemental request comebacks today. We will get to our staff comebacks later. So now we are going to start with agency requests and we've got the judicial branch with us to start. So who would like to begin? All right, Mr. Vasconcellis, thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Stephen Vasconcellas. I'm the State Court Administrator for the Colorado Judicial Department, and with me Here today is Mr. Luis Colon. He is the department's Chief Financial Officer. I'm here today to respectfully request that the Joint Budget Committee reconsider their vote denying the Department's supplemental request S01 regarding courthouse furnishings, along with audiovisual and network infrastructure to support the second year of new judges and staff under Senate Bill 25024. Specifically, I'm requesting that the JBC approve funding for the request at the level recommended by your staff at $1.2 million. I'd like to begin by providing the committee with a very brief overview of the fiscal policy and practice issues that have led to today's discussion. I realize there is some disagreement currently over the statutory interpretation of the financial responsibilities regarding furniture, fixtures and equipment,…
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