A hugely “insolvent” unemployment fund, overwhelmed by claims and now preparing to lay off between 30 to 100 employees, Brian Maas of Denver’s CBS Channel 4 reports things are going from bad to worse at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE).
According to the article, “Some federal funding for CDLE jobs has run out, [...]

Defining precisely what a so-called green job actually is and how many have been created in Colorado is perhaps the only job as hard as actually creating such emerald-hued employment— and a University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business survey due later this spring attempting to quantify the growth and qualify the nature of the [...]

Rep. B.J. Nikkel (R-HD 49) earned another win for transparency when HB 1002, a bill that COST profiled two weeks ago, received unanimous bipartisan support in clearing the House Transportation Committee on Wednesday on an impressive 12-0 vote.
A recap of what the transparency bill requires of the Colorado Department of Transportation:
This bill requires the Colorado [...]

Cash-strapped Adams County School District–in a school year that featured salary freezes and a three percent budget reduction among other cost-cutting measures–could ill-afford to waste precious resources and yet, it appears that was the case, as CBS 4 in Denver revealed:
Adams County School District 50 squandered precious taxpayer dollars month after month by not [...]

In an email to a legislative staffer, State Representative John Kefalas (D-Fort Collins) directed her to use taxpayer-funded resources to send out what looks to be a fundraising invitation for Greater Good, a project of The Progress Group an organization with a motto: “Connecting Business & Community for the Greater Good.”
According to The Progress Group Web [...]

Taxpayers may think they are the only ones footing the bill for government spending.  State Representative Amy Stephens discovered that gifts, grants and donations are often used to fund interim committees and pilot programs established in various pieces of legislation. Stephens bill, HB 10 1178
directs any state agency that receives gifts, grants and donations to [...]

COST just discovered that Colorado’s Department of Human Services, on behalf of taxpayers, paid Radio Disney $1010 for “other marketing expenses.” COST has no idea what taxpayers received because the Web site provides no explanation.

COST has been playing around on the Governor new transparency Web site TOP (Transparency Online Project).  We found a lot of interesting things. Below are just a few.

According to our search of expenditures by department for FY 2009, state government departments spent $32,018, 031,398.93.   That’s substantially more than the $18.7 billion that the state claims it spent.  COST [...]

Technically the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights prevents lawmakers from raising taxes without a vote of the people.  They can raise fees but fees are supposed to cover the cost of services provided only.  And the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny are real.
Natalie Menten and Face the State cooperated to show us just how much the General [...]

Maybe.
COST learned that while Independence Institute Investigative Reporter Todd Shepherd was doing some research on school district expenditures he discovered that several districts paid Office Depot more than $250,000 for supplies between July and December 2008. 
That’s doesn’t necessarily raise any red flags unless you are Todd and know that the giant office supplies retailer “has been or is being investigated by a total [...]