Enough is enough. That is the bipartisan message county commissioners across Colorado – including here in Montezuma County – have been delivering to state lawmakers, and The Journal’s editorial board agrees.
State and federal laws that impose new responsibilities without providing funding are steadily eroding counties’ ability to deliver basic services, from public safety and jail operations to health care, roads and core administrative functions. For rural counties with limited tax bases and staffing capacity, the strain is becoming unsustainable.
Fifty of Colorado’s 64 counties have now formally raised the same concern. That level of unanimity does not happen unless the problem is systemic.
Montezuma County commissioners spelled out those concerns clearly in an Aug. 26 letter to Gov. Jared Polis and legislative leaders. The letter cites an expanding list of unfunded mandates imposed through legislation and rulemaking, including SB20-217 on enhanced law enforcement integrity, HB21-1250 on law enforcement accountability, HB24-1054 on jail standards, Proposition 123 on affordable housing, SB25-142 on wildland-urban interface regulations, HB21-1110 on digital accessibility requirements and HB21-1286 on building energy performance standards.
As the commissioners wrote: “These unfunded mandates require counties to allocate financial resources in staff time, upgrade systems to include software, enter into contracts for services, and implement procedures and methodologies to comply with the unfunded mandates imposed by the State of Colorado, without funding.”
Each mandate may have merit in isolation. Together, without funding, they create a fiscal burden that undermines local control and basic service delivery.
The county also pointed to proposed state rules – such as CDPHE’s Rule 31 governing county landfills – that impose costs regardless of whether they make practical sense for local conditions. Rural counties are too often expected to comply with regulations designed for urban systems, without the scale, infrastructure or staffing to do so efficiently.
Those concerns were echoed regionally on Jan. 5, when county commissioners and administrators from across Southwest Colorado – including all three Montezuma County commissioners and the county administrator – met in Pagosa Springs to press the issue directly with state lawmakers (Journal, Jan. 7).
Sen. Cleave Simpson and Rep. Katie Stewart attended that meeting, and the editorial board thanks both lawmakers for showing up, listening to county officials and acknowledging the growing urban-rural divide – a Legislature dominated by Front Range realities passing laws that ripple very differently through rural counties.
Local officials have been clear this is not an ideological fight. Montezuma County commissioners, representing varied political viewpoints, have emphasized that the problem is not policy goals but the absence of funding and realistic implementation standards. That concern is reinforced by state law itself. Colorado Revised Statutes §29-1-304.5 is explicit: If the state imposes a new mandate or increases the level of service for an existing one, it must provide funding. If it does not, the mandate is optional.
Stewart has also illustrated how unfunded mandates cascade downward from federal to state to local governments. In her recent column, she warned that new federal Medicaid work requirements – unsupported by federal funding – could saddle Colorado with billions in added administrative costs, burdens that fall heavily on counties that administer programs with limited staffing and resources (Journal, Jan. 14).
Yet counties are routinely presented with legislation supported by fiscal notes that focus almost entirely on the state budget. Local impacts are often acknowledged only in passing, with no dollar estimates, no ranges and no explanation of scale. Counties are left to absorb unknown costs while relying primarily on property taxes to fund essential services.
That disconnect is especially damaging in rural Colorado, where staffing shortages, aging infrastructure and geographic distance already stretch local governments thin.
The solution is not complicated: fund the mandates, build flexibility into implementation, allow opt-outs where requirements make no sense and tier obligations by population and capacity. Above all, fiscal notes must spell out real local costs before laws are passed.
Fifty counties are not crying wolf – they are sounding the alarm and asking for transparency, partnership, and respect for Colorado’s statutory protections of local government. It is time for the Legislature and the governor to listen and act.
