TABOR
Early voting continues today in Denver .
Here's Part IV of the Rocky's series on TABOR effects [October 19, 2005, "Refs C&D: Budget Breakdown In financial handcuffs"]. They write, "Criminals don't obey TABOR. The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights says Colorado state government can increase its annual spending only by inflation and population growth. Any revenue beyond that must go back to taxpayers. But there is no limit to the number of burglaries, assaults, robberies, drug deals, murders or other mayhem that criminals commit from year to year. And therein lies the rub for the state Department of Corrections. Each year, the number of inmates coming into Colorado's 31 public and private correctional facilities sets a record. Two years ago, an average net gain of 60 criminals a month showed up in need of a cell. Last year, that growth rate jumped by more than 50 percent, to 95 new inmates each month. And this year looks to set another record. Through September, prisons added an average of 137 more inmates per month. That works out to an annual growth rate of 8 percent. As of Sept. 30, there were 21,115 men, women and youthful offenders in state custody - another record. Colorado's prison population has more than doubled in 10 years. It took 120 years of statehood to surpass 10,000 people in prison; it took less than 10 more years to hit 20,000."
Here's an article from the Rocky Mountain News looking at the effect on prison population with respect to the War on Drugs [October 19, 2005, "High cost of drug sentences"]. From the article, "Any debate over the growth in prison population eventually grows into a debate over the war on drugs. Nonviolent drug offenders are the largest single classification of prisoners in the Colorado Department of Corrections. How society decides to handle them has great potential to raise prison costs or reduce them. The proportion of drug offenders in prison has almost doubled from 11.1 percent of all inmates in 1993 to 21.5 percent in 2005. In 1993, among Colorado's 8,754 prison inmates, 974 were drug offenders. This year, with total inmates reaching 20,445 as of June 30, 4,395 were drug offenders. That's a jump of 4 1/2 times in 12 years, a growth rate almost twice as fast as the rate for the general prison population. Today, there are more drug offenders in Colorado's prisons than there were total inmates of all kinds in 1987. Proponents of sentencing reform, particularly for drug crimes, say taking up prison space with drug offenders doesn't reduce crime, a notion with which prosecutors disagree...Taxpayers paid an average of $26,248 last year to keep each inmate behind bars. Substance abuse treatment outside of prison, depending on its intensity, frequency and duration, runs $3,500 to $5,000 a year per person. Ironically, to meet needed budget cuts, the prison system has reduced the scope of its in-house substance abuse program by $2.9 million, about a 40 percent cut from the $7.4 million budgeted in 2003."
Another article from the Rocky profiling drug offenders and treatment [October 19, 2005, "Facing their demons"].
Here's an article about the effects of illegal immigration on the state budget from the Denver Post [October 19, 2005, "C and D foes target illegal immigration"]. From the article, "According to the state Department of Health Care and Financing, illegal immigrants and new, legal immigrants had a combined Medicaid impact of $38.4 million last year. They are allowed medical care under Medicaid only for emergency treatments. That coverage is mandated by the federal government."
The Denver Post fact checks the "Protected" TV ad from Vote Yes on C and D. Here's the link to the Vote Yes on C and D TV ads.
Category: Denver November 2005 Election
5:54:23 AM 
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