Dilatory, slow-mo, recalcitrant and unresponsive are descriptors of the Polis administration’s, and the state legislature’s, Joint Budget Committee responses to numerous urgent – even existential – state problems.

In 2020, the legislature passed SB20-023 unanimously to study school safety issues. In 2022, the legislature passed HB22-1274, to continue the working group that had not yet been formed but was about to “sunset.” Now, finally, in 2023, this working group has been formed and its first meeting was held in March with some reported work in July. Whether with intention or not, no appointment to this working group represents large metro area districts in either Denver or Colorado Springs while two rural school districts are included. This year, the legislature created a state Office of School Safety that has opened expeditiously. About time, many would say.

The state’s 2022-2023 CMAS school achievement test results came out recently just as students returned to school for the 2023-2024 school year. Students in third grade in 2022-2023 are moving on to fourth grade, etc. Teachers will receive test scores for their previous year’s students. That won’t help them much unless they happen to have the same students in 2023-2024, which is unlikely in that teachers change grades they teach, or schools, or districts – especially if they teach in Woodland Park. Students move around also.

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While English and math achievement results in some schools have improved slightly in some grades, the practical application of the data that informs the test scores is greatly diminished by the state’s inability to produce actionable statewide test results timely. Is this a function of the test builder, Pearson out of the United Kingdom? Or the Colorado Department of Education, who oversees the administration of the tests? Or the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee that claims there’s only so much money that can be put into state school funding? Or Gov. Jared Polis, who has not put enough money into K-12 education and has shorted his much-ballyhooed early childhood education program as well?

Then there’s the massive climate change challenge that has received more talk than necessary and less action than mandatory. Our summer has been wetter and cooler than usual, but that cannot be said of the rest of the nation. Arizona, Texas and New Mexico have sweltered, Maui has burned up, and Southern California has gone from excess heat to drowning in flood waters. Our air quality is terrible, our drinking and agricultural water has been tainted, the Colorado River is drying up, our risk of wildfire is always high, and hailstone, wind and rain damage to structures and vehicles will surely increase costs across the state in this decade.

Polis’s administration could take aggressive steps to manage some of the climate challenge. His renamed Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC), formerly the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, could speed up its rule-making and change its conciliatory attitude to extraction industries. SB19-181 required the former COGCC to address the cumulative polluting effects of oil and gas drilling across extraction sites. That requirement embedded in SB-181 was successfully ignored until this legislative session.

HB23-1294 “Concerning Measures to Protect Communities from Pollution” requires the ECMC to define “cumulative impacts” of pollution and evaluate and address impacts by April, 2024, not to rush anything. To make sure the commission’s work isn’t too energetic, the legislature limited evaluation of “cumulative impacts” to “addressable impacts.” A citizen can assume “unaddressable impacts” are wildfire smoke and particles coming from out-of-state. Of course, these impacts could be somewhat “addressed” by limiting the additional pollution coming from in-state oil and gas drilling and doing more to reduce combustion-engine driving during high ozone months, just for a couple of common ideas. The definition of “addressable impacts,” ultimately, may be more important than “cumulative impacts,” so expect much procrastination on that issue.

That brings this discussion to the Suncor Refinery. The foot-dragging by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment on air and water permits exceeds any definition of time wasted. The permitting hasn’t been delayed for months or even several years. It’s been delayed across multiple governors’ administrations. During that time, Suncor has repeatedly and recklessly polluted metro area air and water with barely a wrist slap. Some labelled the $9 million pollution penalty on Suncor a couple of years ago “significant,” but not really. More than half of the money went to pay consultants to tell refinery management that it mismanaged the refinery. Residents of Commerce City could give out that advice to Suncor for free.

Then there’s the recent report the state is down almost a quarter of its needed employees to keep the state’s many moving balls moving. Current JBC chair Rachel Zenzinger says the state can’t fill these positions because it doesn’t have enough money. The state will continue not to have enough money because Polis, with Zenzinger’s support, put up the indecipherable Proposition HH to alleviate property tax increases. There’s no question property taxes need to be addressed. But voters will no doubt reject this option. Gov. Polis and Zenzinger are unwilling to make a more straightforward case for how to straighten out Colorado’s fiscal logjam.

Gov. Polis has two more years to show his legislative and administrative chops to position himself for federal office-seeking or a cabinet job in the next U.S. president’s administration. In two years, climate change will be worse, more kids will be on the butt end of diminished school funding and impossible school safety conditions, and every property owner will be fed up with property tax increases. Like kids taking standardized tests in English and math, will Polis meet or exceed expectations to resolve our challenges, or not?

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.