Let’s talk about appropriations

The expenses that are allocated within a governmental budget are known as appropriations. Appropriations are decided upon by the legislative body that controls expenditures within a political entity. For example, the Arvada City Council controls appropriations for the city of Arvada. e Colorado General Assembly decides what monies shall be appropriated how and where for the state of Colorado. is is correct because the voters of the state of Colorado elected those legislators to make those decisions on their behalf just as the citizens

JOE WEBB Columnist

of Arvada elected their City Council. ey act on behalf of the people who may then vote those o ceholders out if they feel it is necessary.

According to the Form 104 booklet issued by the Colorado Department of Revenue, the two largest appropriations in the Colorado State Budget are grouped together as education at 35.4% of the state budget and 36.1% grouped

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RYLEE DUNN Community Editor rdunn@coloradocommunitymedia.com as social assistance. Within just those two groups of appropriations are unfunded mandates made by the federal government to our state government.

What is an unfunded mandate, you ask? It is the imposition by statute or regulation that a state must perform certain actions without the money to pay for them. In other words, the federal government is telling our state government to spend certain monies for one thing or another. Worse they are not providing appropriation dollars to accomplish these goals. It is a way to mask out-of-control federal

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LINDSAY NICOLETTI Operations/ Circulation Manager lnicoletti@coloradocommunitymedia.com spending by shifting the burden onto the states.

When conservatives gripe about out-of-control spending it is the unfunded mandates that are fueling the complaints in part. Regardless of the speci cs behind appropriations, I would think that most Coloradoans regardless of their political feelings would agree that the elected representatives of the people are the ones who should decide what monies are appropriated and how.

It is a little di cult to determine

SEE WEBB, P13

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