State records: Only 5 contractors have reported under Amendment 54

Face The State Staff Report

In the face of a new lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Amendment 54, state Rep. Kent Lambert, R-Colo. Springs, is moving forward with House Bill 1165, legislation that would enable the implementation of parts of the statewide transparency measure.

Amendment 54, which was narrowly approved by a majority of voters last November, restricts the recipients of sole-source, also known as no-bid, government contracts of $100,000 or more, from contributing to political candidates. It also requires the creation of a searchable database listing the recipients of such contracts. Lambert's enabling legislation seeks to provide specific funding for implementation.

“The section about the database is severable from the sections of Amendment 54 that are being challenged,” he said, adding that the database can still be built while the lawsuit is ongoing. “The whole point of this is transparency and the relationships with government sole-source contracts.”

According to the language of Amendment 54, holders of sole-source government contracts are responsible for reporting that information to the Department of Personnel and Administration, which is then responsible for publishing and maintaining that information in a publicly available database. Face The State obtained a copy of the database through an open records request, but to date, only 5 vendors have reported a combined 46 sole-source government contracts, including only 2 with state government.

Amendment 54 gives the DPA executive director authority to promulgate rules to enforce the reporting of sole-source government contracts. However, DPA has yet to create any such rules. According to DPA spokesman Doug Platt, the department is waiting on further instruction from the legislature through Lambert's legislation. “Depending on how the legislation comes out we would have to analyze what our responsibility would be,” said Platt.

The legislationn would take care of funding for the database by giving the DPA statutory authority to charge a fee, which will be paid by those submitting contracts to the database, for its maintenance. Platt says once the DPA knows how much money will be allocated toward the implementation of Amendment 54, the DPA will be able to move forward.

HB 1165 was heard by the House State Affairs Committee Thursday, but a final vote on the bill was delayed until next week because of a delay in obtaining a fiscal impact statement for the bill.