The Colorado legislature approved a bipartisan proposal Tuesday to fund $30.5 million in grant programs for state law enforcement, sending the measure to the governor for final consideration.

If signed into law, Senate Bill 145 would establish three grant programs to fund prevention and crisis intervention in high-crime areas; law enforcement recruitment, retention, tuition and training; and, improving law enforcement diversity.

The grant programs – sponsored by two Democrats and two Republicans – seek to address rising crime and increase public trust in law enforcement, the sponsors of the bill said.

“This comes as priority for us to deal with both the increases that we’re seeing in crime across the state, but also making investments in ensuring our police departments look more like the neighborhoods they serve,” said Rep. Alex Valdez, D-Denver. “It really is a great bill that’s going to make some great investments in our communities.”

Under the bill, the funds would be distributed over two years with $15 million for the crime prevention program and $7.5 million going to each of the workforce programs. Another $400,000 would pay for oversight from the Department of Public Safety and $100,000 would fund a statewide forum to solicit suggestions on crime prevention measures.

Of the $15 million for crime prevention, at least $5 million would be reserved for community-based organizations and another $5 million for law enforcement and local governments. At least 20% of the grant funds would be required to go to rural communities if they apply.

Lawmakers in the state House voted 52-13 in support of the bill on Tuesday, following the Senate’s unanimous approval last month. Outside of the Capitol, some activists have said the grant programs will not address issues like brutality and misconduct by police officers.

“This bill, and other similar ones around the nation, is window dressing for a deeper issue regarding the real training officers should receive,” said Dr. Robert Davis, co-lead of Denver’s task force to reimagine policing. “We need a stronger collective will to overhaul how we approach policing and policing training.”

Public perception of law enforcement has taken a hit in recent years. In 2020, only 48% of U.S. adults said they had confidence in the police, according to a Gallup poll. That is an all-time low, and down from the historical high of 64% in 2004. In 2021, confidence slightly increased to 51%, but for Black adults, it stood at 27%.

This change came in the wake of several high-profile incidents in which unarmed Black people were killed by police officers, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Colorado resident Elijah McClain. Protests and calls to defund the police ensued throughout the country.

Sponsors of the bill said most people don’t want to decrease police funding, pointing to a 2021 Pew Research survey, which found that 47% of Americans want police funding to increase and 37% want it to stay the same.

“This is a fund the police bill,” said bill sponsor Rep. Perry Will, R-New Castle. “It helps for training, retention and it really helps rural Colorado. … Everyone knows crime is on the rise in Colorado. This is a way to address it.”

Opposition also came from Rep. Kim Ransom, R-Littleton, who criticized the bill for creating three new grant programs that would be automatically funded each year. Ransom said this means the legislature will have no oversight over them.

Ransom, who voted against the bill, introduced an amendment to remove the bill’s continual spending authority. Valdez opposed the amendment, saying lawmakers could run a bill to take away the funding at any time if the programs aren’t going well. The amendment failed. 

“I just want these departments to come back every year, give us a status report of where they’re at, and let us know they’re on track to spending the money the way they told us they will,” Ransom said. “If it’s being spent wrong in ways that we wouldn’t approve of, if there’s money that’s being left over that maybe could be directed to another area or to another department.”

Violent crime has spiked in Colorado over the years. In 2021, there were 30,282 reports of murder, assault and robbery, compared to 21,743 reports five years prior, according to state data. This is part of a national trend – the nation’s murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020, the largest single-year increase in more than a century, according to the Pew Research Center.

Concern over crime has similarly increased, hitting a four-year high late last year, according to a national Washington Post-ABC News poll. Of respondents, 59% said crime is an “extremely” or “very serious” problem in the U.S., the highest level since 2017.