Over its 15-year history, Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission has reviewed more than 400 complaints against state lawmakers, a governor, county commissioners and municipal elected officials. Just over 10% have gone through the full complaint process. 

Never in its history has the commission looked at a complaint against an elected official associated with a special district or a school board. The commission asserted years ago that it had no authority over those affiliated with these subdivisions of state government. 

That could all change under a bill approved Tuesday by the House Transportation, Housing and Local Government Committee. House Bill 1065 would put special districts and school districts, including school boards, under the authority of the ethics commission.

Bill sponsor Rep. Jennifer Parenti, D-Erie, noted that in the past year, the ethics commission received dozens of emails and several complaints tied to school boards but had to decline them because the commission lacks authority over those bodies. 

Only once has an ethics complaint against a school board member been made public, a decision made by the person who filed the complaint against himself. 

In 2015, then-Jeffco School Board President Ken Witt said he would file a complaint against himself, tied to an upcoming recall of conservative members of the school board.

Witt said those backing the recall claimed the three members of the five-member board, which included Witt, violated the state’s open meetings law in making major decisions behind closed doors. That claim should be reviewed by the ethics commission, Witt said.

But the ethics commission has no authority over the state’s open meetings law, which is stated clearly on the commission’s website, and no authority over school boards, which is also pointed out on the commission’s website. Witt, who is now the interim superintendent of the Woodland Park school district, was recalled, along with the other two conservative board members.

The co-sponsor of HB 1065, Rep. Tammy Story, D-Evergreen, was one of the leaders of the recall effort. 

Amendment 41 has two main provisions under which a complaint can be considered: One is on gifts to an elected official, the other a prohibition on lobbying by an elected official until they have been out of office for at least two years. The Commission also has jurisdiction over the state code of ethics as contained in CRS 24-18-105, which among its provisions includes a requirement that a public official cannot take action on a matter in which the official has a personal, private or financial interest. 

Brian Matise of Burg Simpson said the commission can look at “other standards of conduct” and that the legislature can always provide additional jurisdiction.

The testimony offered in support of HB 1065 Tuesday — there were no witnesses opposed — focused entirely on the problems experienced by residents of metropolitan districts. 

Metro districts are the primary method of meeting Colorado’s burgeoning housing demand, with more than 2,000 of them across the state, according to a 2022 Denver Gazette report. In nearly every instance, developers vote themselves, family, friends and associates onto a metro district board of directors when the district is first created and long before a single home is built. Acting as the metro district board, the developer and associates then establish a debt ceiling for the project, sometimes for billions of dollars, all of it to be funded through municipal bonds that are leveraged by the property taxes of the homes that are eventually built.

Several witnesses pointed out problems with how directors of those districts are elected. One cited a situation where a landlord was offered financial benefits if he terminated the leases of tenants who were running for a metropolitan district board. Another cited districts where developers ensured they held the majority of seats on the board and took steps to maintain that majority. A third talked about bonds approved by a metropolitan district run by developers. That was the subject of a 2022 bill to prohibit metro district board members that approve issuance of debt from acquiring any interest in the debt while they’re on the board. That bill failed, although the sponsors are trying again this year.  

However, the ethics commission has no jurisdiction over  how bonds are set up for a metro district, which are governed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Rep. Don Wilson, R-Monument, questioned whether the bill addresses what he perceived as the real problem — structure of metropolitan districts — or whether the legislature is “punting” the problem to the IEC.

IEC Executive Director Dino Ioannides also raised concerns about the bill, stating that he believed some of the language was unconstitutional. 

The bill was amended to partly address Ioannides’ concerns, although not all of them, and to narrow the scope of just who would be under the commission’s jurisdiction. The amendment limited the commission’s authority to an elected official or their appointee, and not to employees of the special district or school district. That could lower the bill’s cost, estimated at nearly $250,000 and which could require the addition of two more employees to the commission which currently has just one employee, Ioannides. 

Ann Terry, executive director of the Special District Association of Colorado, told Colorado Politics that her understanding of the bill is that most of the issues raised by the witnesses in Tuesday’s hearing are not something the commission has jurisdiction over. “It sets people up to be disappointed if the bill passes and a complaint is filed and then thrown out” or the commission lacks enforceability, she said. 

HB 1065 passed on a party-line 9-4 vote and now heads to the House Appropriations Committee.

David Migoya of the Colorado Springs Gazette also contributed to this article.