{"id":25856,"date":"2024-09-02T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/voters-will-decide-whether-to-set-aside-350-million-for-colorado-law-enforcement\/"},"modified":"2024-09-02T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-02T14:00:00","slug":"voters-will-decide-whether-to-set-aside-350-million-for-colorado-law-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/voters-will-decide-whether-to-set-aside-350-million-for-colorado-law-enforcement\/","title":{"rendered":"Voters will decide whether to set aside $350 million for Colorado law enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Everbridge
Everbridge will be replacing Nixle as the Montezuma-County emergency alert platform.<\/span>inhauscreative<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A proposal that would require Colorado lawmakers to allocate $350 million to support law enforcement agencies qualified for the November ballot last Thursday.<\/p>\n

If approved, Proposed Initiative 157 would create a \u201cPeace Officer Training and Support Fund\u201d to help hire, train and retain new officers. State lawmakers would decide how to divide the grant money between various local police departments and sheriff\u2019s offices. They would also decide on a timetable for when those payouts would occur.<\/p>\n

Money from the fund would go toward things like expanded training, pay increases and recruitment of out-of-state officers.<\/p>\n

The ballot measure would additionally require the state to start paying a one-time $1 million death benefit to families of first responders killed in the line of duty. The benefit would cover police officers, sheriff’s deputies and firefighters. Families would still be entitled to any other death and disability benefits they would normally receive.<\/p>\n

\u201cProviding additional compensation for families of fallen officers upholds a social obligation to honor their sacrifice,\u201d wrote the measure\u2019s backers in arguments they submitted for the state\u2019s nonpartisan voter guide. \u201cLocal law enforcement agency death benefits differ, with some providing fewer benefits than others. This measure guarantees that no matter where a fallen officer worked, their family will receive compensation for their loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nonpartisan Colorado Legislative Council estimates the death benefit would cost the state an average of $4 million per year. That money would come from the Peace Officer Training Fund until it runs out of cash, at which point lawmakers would need to pass a new appropriation to continue the payments.<\/p>\n

Because the measure specifies that the state can\u2019t raise taxes to pay for the new funding, the money would come from the state\u2019s general budget, leaving less for other departments.<\/p>\n

The measure, nicknamed by supporters the \u201cBack the Blue\u201d initiative, is backed by the conservative policy group, Advance Colorado, which was also at the heart of the recent legislative deal to pass new property tax reductions.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Jenna Griswold\u2019s office said supporters of Initiative 157 submitted 185,889 petition signatures to put the issue before voters.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everbridge will be replacing Nixle as the Montezuma-County emergency alert platform.inhauscreative A proposal that would require Colorado lawmakers to allocate $350 million to support law enforcement agencies qualified for the November ballot last Thursday. If approved, Proposed Initiative 157 would create a \u201cPeace Officer Training and Support Fund\u201d to help hire, train and retain new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,28,51],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-headlines","tag-police"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25856"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}