Lawmakers at the Capitol are preparing to add another $2 billion to the state budget, bringing total state spending next year to $40.6 billion. That’s a tentative figure at this point because the budget is still a work in progress. It faces a final vote by the House before heading to the Senate for its input and, ultimately, to the governor.

Don’t expect the budget to change much, though, after completing its journey through the legislative process. It certainly won’t shrink with one party – the historically more generous Democrats – in firm control of both the legislative and executive branches.

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Defenders of the pending budget might insist its growth isn’t a big deal – notwithstanding the old quip, “a billion here, a billion there, and soon you’re talking real money.” They’ll point out even the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR – the state constitution’s check on the whole process – allows government to grow by the rates of inflation plus growth without a vote of the people.

Yet, the question remains: What are Colorado taxpayers getting for the extra spending?

The answer, in part, is more state employees and higher state salaries.

As Colorado Politics reported last week, the proposed budget adds 1,220 positions to the state payroll, bringing the state’s full-time workforce to 66,189. That’s a 2% increase over the current fiscal year.

Meanwhile, some state agencies claim they have trouble filling their current openings, so sympathetic lawmakers are pondering a pay hike to draw more applicants. Their premise, as noted in the Colorado Politics report, is that the most recent study on state worker compensation shows Colorado’s base salaries are 7.9% lower than the market median.

While that study’s comparison of public- and private-sector jobs may seem like apples to oranges to taxpayers, it evidently makes perfect sense to the state employees’ labor union and the lawmakers who do its bidding. And therein lies part of the problem.

Gov. Jared Polis approved legislation in 2020 granting collective-bargaining power to tens of thousands of state government employees. That fateful decision hamstrung state budget writers and, ultimately, the state’s taxpayers, ever afterward.

It meant hardball union reps would hammer out legally binding labor contracts with pliant state bureaucrats, awarding ever-higher pay and benefits across the board, regardless of individual merit. It also created a fertile climate for the perpetual expansion of the total number of state employees, needed or not, because of course union-negotiated job descriptions would restrict the duties of current employees. And taxpayers would be stuck with the tab for all of it.

In fairness, it’s not just unionization that has driven the expansion of the state government’s workforce. Our governor and legislature also have added and expanded government programs, and thus more FTEs to run them. While the numbers for the pending budget are still in flux, last year, more than 1,000 full-time state agency positions were added to implement and run new policies and programs.

Some 350 of those positions were requested by the state Department of Labor and Employment alone – in part, to administer the state’s collective-bargaining agreement with the Colorado WINS state employees union. A classic case of one hand washing the other.

Supporters of the proposed budget will contend, as ever, that government’s growth provides more services. For whom is of course a separate discussion.

What’s undeniable is there will be more state employees making more money – while the rest of Colorado’s taxpayers fend for themselves out in the real world, as ever.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board