Weld joins counties in opposition to collective bargaining legislation
Published on February 22, 2022
The Weld County Board of Commissioners joined 37 other counties from across Colorado in voicing their opposition to any legislation mandating collective bargaining for public employees. Rumblings of proposed legislation seeking this change have caused elected officials and various agencies across the state to sound the alarm with the General Assembly.
More than 100 county commissioners, including four of the five Weld County Commissioners, signed a formal letter addressed to state legislators urging all members of the General Assembly to “oppose any efforts to advance such legislation” citing that “a top-down, mandated approach would impose a significant unfunded mandate on the undersigned stakeholders, and contradict Colorado’s long history of local control.”
“Any such proposed legislation will cause irreparable harm to Colorado taxpayers,” said Weld County Chair Scott James, who worked closely with commissioners across the state on the drafting of the opposition letter. “Such a shift in policy is short-sighted and unwarranted. It is a solution no one asked for to a problem that doesn’t exist.”
The Colorado county commissioners join the Colorado Association of School Boards, the Colorado Association of School Executives, the Colorado Municipal League, the Special District Association and others in expression opposition to any such proposed legislation.
The letter was addressed to Speaker Garnett, President Fenberg, Majority Leaders Esgar and Moreno as well as Minority Leaders McKean and Holbert.
The letter does state “the undersigned do NOT oppose collective bargaining as a policy – we believe this is an individual employer/employee decision,” before going on to stress that unfunded mandates and unwelcome insertion into local governments, schools and higher education institutions and their budgetary matters by the state is harmful to Colorado on many levels.
Please click here to view the letter(PDF, 176KB).