The Rocky Mountain Partnership has identified four collective work areas so far this year to make our vision and mission a reality.

For the remainder of the 2022 state legislative session, we also have a set of annual policy priorities that we're continuing to monitor that impact overall economic and social mobility. Below, learn more about policy updates that impact each of these four work areas, as well as the policy priorities established for 2022.

RMP has voted to support HB22-1281 Behavioral Health-care Continuum Gap Grant Program. This bill establishes a new grant program under the Behavioral Health Administration (BHA) that would provide community investment grants to community-based organizations, local government, and non-profit organizations to support expanding youth-oriented and family-oriented behavioral health-care services. It would also support the development of a behavioral health-care services assessment tool that grant applicants can use to identify regional gaps in services.

Learn more about this bill by clicking the button below.

This bill joins the two other bills RMP has already voted to support in this legislative session:

Below are a few new bills the Policy & Legislative Action Network is monitoring. Click on the bills below to learn more about them.

We're here to keep you up to date on the legislation being monitored or supported by the Partnership! Below you'll find some updates on where bills are at in the process. Please note that several of these bills impact more than one of the four collective work areas.

Below you'll find critical news related to Clear Pathways to Top Jobs, a collective work area of the Partnership. Learn more about this work HERE.

South High in Denver Public Schools is overhauling the traditional practice of having separate honors and regular courses by putting all students in the same class. Honors courses offer a higher level of study and are a stepping stone for students who want to take classes, such as advanced placement, or AP, courses, to earn college credit while in high school.

The tradition of separating students into honors and regular classes comes from the practice of tracking, which perpetuates racial and class inequality as students of color are placed in lower-level classes more often than their white peers, argued educators and an expert.

Colorado’s job recovery has returned to pre-pandemic levels (we actually hit 102% in February, state economists said last month). But a group of people unlikely to return are those who retired or retired earlier than they expected.

Colorado’s official apprenticeship program has extended its Scale Up grants deadline for two weeks. That means organizations and companies still have time to get a financial assist on creating future-employee training programs. Grants between $10,000 to $50,000 are being offered and the deadline is now April 27 at 5 p.m.

Below you'll find critical news related to Improved Hiring, Retention, & Employee Advancement Practices, a collective work area of the Partnership.

Learn more about this work HERE.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced an initiative this week to drop college degree requirements for thousands of state jobs. At a news conference, Hogan said he will partner with the state’s departments of Labor and Budget and Management to recruit and market roles for job seekers in their Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STAR) program.

Those eligible in the STAR initiative are 25 years of age or older, are active in the labor force, have at least a high school diploma, and have developed their skills through alternative institutions such as community college, apprenticeships, military service and employment. According to the statement, 47 percent of the 2,869,000 workers in the state are considered STARs.

The University of Colorado’s Board of Regents on Monday disclosed a demographic breakdown of candidates they have considered in their search that began last September to select a new president but did not name any of the candidates.

Hundreds of people expressed interest in the job, the regents said, and they relied on a Pennsylvania-based firm, Storbeck Search, which presented a 19-member search team with a pool of 39 candidates.

The governing regents announced that these included “13 women and 26 men – 13 candidates from Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) groups – from 20 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and international candidates.”

Below you'll find critical news related to Housing Outcomes Move Education (H.O.M.E.), a collective work area of the Partnership. Learn more about this work HERE.

Denver’s plan to increase the number of affordable apartments and condos built in the city cleared a hurdle this week, but also faced scrutiny over its mechanism for rewarding developers with decreased parking requirements and whether the policy is equitable.

The Denver Planning Board voted 8-0 on Wednesday to forward the “Expanding Housing Affordability” policy to the City Council and recommend that the council adopt it.

The policy, made possible by a change in state law last year, would require developers of most new condo or apartment projects of at least 10 units to set aside 8% to 15% of that housing for people making less than the area median income or face steep fees. It would also greatly increase fees charged on all other types of development that feed other housing efforts.

HopSkipDrive provided the solution when Jerene Petersen was struggling to find rides for foster youth who had been placed in homes far from their regular schools.

At the time, she was the deputy executive director for the Colorado Department of Human Services. She knew that getting students back to their home schools would increase their chances of graduating high school and building stable lives. It’s also required by federal law — but drivers were hard to find.

HopSkipDrive — a rideshare service similar to Uber or Lyft that specializes in transporting children — now contracts with more than a dozen Colorado school districts, as well as human services agencies, to provide rides for vulnerable children: homeless youth, those in foster care, and students with disabilities whose specialized education plans include transportation.

Below you'll find critical news related to Addressing the Opioid Crisis, a collective work area of the Partnership.

The bill to combat Colorado’s fentanyl crisis is being criticized for not including stiffer criminal penalties, specifically for those who possess the drug. It’s also being criticized for relying too heavily on criminalization when handcuffs and jail cells have proven ineffective at treating drug addiction and stopping drug trade.

Now, just before the bill debuts for its first committee hearing at the Capitol Tuesday, it seems clear which side is more likely to get its way. Conversations with more than a dozen lawmakers, including almost all of the House Judiciary Committee, reveal the question is not whether progressives can succeed at removing criminalization from the bill, but whether they can hold the line against an upcoming push to make it a felony to possess fentanyl in any amount.

Matthew La Crue, Managing Director, Dentons

Policy & Advocacy Co-Champion

Ryan McCoy, Executive Director, Front Range Community College Foundation

Policy & Advocacy Co-Champion

We've gotta say it: This information is subject to change. In addition, some updates may be sourced from organizations that have read limits or limits on how many articles you can access in a given time period.

Rocky Mountain Partnership | rmpartnership.org