The act requires the department of education (department) to enter into an agreement with an organization (selected organization) to develop best practices for local education providers to effectively respond to reports of harassment or discrimination. The department shall convene an evaluation committee to select the organization. The evaluation committee consists of representatives from school districts, an organization that advocates for students who face harassment or discrimination, and the office of school safety; persons with lived experience of harassment or discrimination; and students. The selected organization shall submit a report to the department, the office of school safety, and the general assembly's education committees that includes an explanation of the best practices developed by the selected organization. Current law requires public schools to provide training to all employees about harassment and discrimination, beginning no later than July 1, 2024. The act repeals that deadline and instead requires harassment and discrimination training beginning with employee training for the 2025-26 school year, but beginning no later than December 31, 2025. The act requires that harassment and discrimination training that occurs after August 1, 2025, be consistent with the best practices developed by the selected organization. The act requires the selected organization to develop a harassment or discrimination training program for use by schools that is consistent with the best practices developed by the selected organization and that complies with the requirements for public schools' harassment and discrimination training. The department shall make the training program materials available to public schools at no cost. The act appropriates $111,111 from the state education fund to the department for training for local education providers on responding to harassment and discrimination reports. APPROVED by Governor June 6, 2024 EFFECTIVE June 6, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
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Current law prohibits the use of restraints on a pregnant individual in custody with certain exceptions. The act requires the staff of a jail, the department of corrections, or a private contract prison to comply with current law regarding the use of restraints on individuals who are in custody and experiencing labor, delivery, or postpartum recovery. The act also requires a correctional facility or private contract prison to develop administrative policies, including a system for human milk storage, to ensure a newborn can receive the milk that the newborn's postpartum parent has pumped for the newborn's nourishment. The act requires each health-care facility that provides labor and delivery services to establish a policy creating a process for the facility to receive individuals who are pregnant, undergoing physiologic birth, or in the physiologic postpartum process from locations other than licensed facilities. APPROVED by Governor June 5, 2024 EFFECTIVE June 5, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act establishes the Black Coloradan racial equity commission (commission) in the legislative department to conduct a study to determine, and make recommendations related to, any historical and ongoing effects of slavery and subsequent systemic racism on Black Coloradans that may be attributed to Colorado state practices, systems, and policies. The study includes historical research conducted by the state historical society (society), commonly known as history Colorado, and an economic analysis conducted by a third party. The society may enter into an agreement with a third-party entity to conduct all or parts of the historical research. The society shall conduct at least 2 community engagement sessions for members of the public to provide input to the society. The society shall provide the commission with quarterly updates about the status of its research. The society is required to submit a report to the commission with the results of its research and any recommendations. The commission shall enter into an agreement with a third party to conduct an economic analysis of the financial impact of systemic racism on historically impacted Black Coloradans utilizing the findings of the society's historical research. The third party shall deliver the results of its economic analysis to the commission. At the conclusion of the study, the commission shall submit a report to the general assembly and the governor about the study and make the report available on a publicly accessible webpage of the general assembly's website. The report must include a description of the study's goals, the results of the historical research and economic analysis, and the commission's recommendations. After the commission submits the report, the commission shall work with any parties necessary to implement the recommendations in the report. The study is contingent upon the commission receiving $785,000 of gifts, grants, or donations for the purpose of conducting the study. The act creates the Black Coloradan racial equity study cash fund to accept the gifts, grants, or donations received for the study. The money in the cash fund is continuously appropriated to legislative council for use by the commission and to the society for conducting the historical research. APPROVED by Governor June 4, 2024 EFFECTIVE August 7, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
In 2020, the general assembly enacted the "CROWN Act of 2020", which specified that, for purposes of anti-discrimination laws in the context of public education, employment and housing practices, public accommodations, and advertising, discrimination on the basis of one's race includes discrimination on the basis of traits commonly or historically associated with race, such as hair texture, hair type, and protective hairstyles. The act adds hair length that is commonly or historically associated with race to the list of traits associated with one's race. APPROVED by Governor June 3, 2024 EFFECTIVE June 3, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Current law subjects a peace officer who uses unlawful force or fails to intervene in the unlawful use of force to criminal and civil penalties as well as disciplinary measures through the peace officers standards and training board (P.O.S.T. board). The act defines prone restraint as a use of force. The act requires law enforcement agencies to adopt written policies and procedures concerning use of the prone position and prone restraint by officers certified by the P.O.S.T. board; sheriff's deputies, regardless of P.O.S.T. board certification; and Colorado state patrol officers. Law enforcement agencies must post the adopted policies and procedures on their publicly accessible websites or make them available upon request. The policies and procedures must address how and when to request or render medical aid for use of force involving prone restraint, when to get medical clearance for use of force involving a prone restraint when there are injuries or complaints of injuries, how and when to render appropriate medical aid within the scope of a peace officer's training for any use of force involving prone restraint, and how and when to transition a person placed in a prone position into a recovery position that allows the person to breathe normally. The act requires law enforcement agencies to review the adopted policies and procedures at least every five years and, beginning on or before July 1, 2026, to implement and train peace officers on their contents. The P.O.S.T. board must make its training on the use of the prone position available to all law enforcement agencies in the state. APPROVED by Governor June 3, 2024 EFFECTIVE June 3, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act requires any pet animal facility (facility) licensed under the "Pet Animal Care and Facilities Act" to make every reasonable attempt to provide notification of an infectious disease outbreak at the facility to all individuals who own a pet animal that is in the possession of the facility or who used the facility during the reported outbreak and incubation period. A facility is required to provide such notification to pet animal owners within 24 hours after the facility receives notification from a licensed veterinarian or a pet animal owner, if the pet animal owner provides documentation from a licensed veterinarian or other proof of treatment, of an outbreak of an infectious disease at the facility. The act also requires any facility to disclose information regarding any outbreak of an infectious disease that occurred at the facility within the past year to any pet animal owner who requests such information. The act defines "pet animal facility" as a facility licensed under the "Pet Animal Care and Facilities Act" that is used in whole or in part for the purpose of pet animal day care or boarding, grooming, or training pet animals. APPROVED by Governor June 3, 2024 EFFECTIVE June 3, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act amends the "Colorado Consumer Protection Act" to make the sale of electronic smoking devices to minors an unfair or deceptive trade practice, which gives the attorney general or a district attorney explicit authority to bring an action against a person who sells or offers for sale an electronic smoking device to an individual who does not meet the age restriction to purchase the electronic smoking device. APPROVED by Governor June 3, 2024 EFFECTIVE June 3, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act gives the Colorado state patrol authority to provide law enforcement services for the Ralph L. Carr Colorado judicial center and its grounds, subject to available appropriations, and to provide protection for Colorado judges and justices when they are present in the state capitol buildings group. The act gives additional administrators of judicial security temporary peace officer status pending application and review by the P.O.S.T. board. Following review by the P.O.S.T. board and upon a favorable recommendation for peace officer status from the P.O.S.T. board to the general assembly, temporary peace officer status for the additional administrators is permanent. If the P.O.S.T. board does not recommend peace officer status for the additional personnel, the temporary peace officer status expires on June 30, 2025, unless the general assembly provides otherwise. APPROVED by Governor May 31, 2024 EFFECTIVE May 31, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act modifies the college kickstarter account program (program). The act expands who may open an account and be an account sponsor on or after January 1, 2025, to include, in addition to a parent or parents of an eligible child, any other individual who provides the birth certificate number or order of adoption for an eligible child in accordance with the requirements of the program to open an account. Further, the act clarifies that on or after January 1, 2025, the amount of kickstarter funding that can be claimed is the base amount as adjusted for inflation in the year claimed plus, if the kickstarter funding is claimed in a year after the child's birth year, interest that has accrued on the base amount from the birth year to the claim year. The act also expands the membership of the program advisory board, requires the advisory board to meet at least on a quarterly basis each year, and modifies reporting requirements for the program. The act expands the period during which an account sponsor may claim kickstarter funding from 5 to 8 years from the date of the eligible child's birth or adoption and clarifies that an account is an "individual college savings account", which is any collegeinvest account. APPROVED by Governor May 31, 2024 PORTIONS EFFECTIVE May 31, 2024 PORTIONS EFFECTIVE January 1, 2025(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act provides additional flexibility to the Colorado educational and cultural facilities authority in supporting educational and cultural facilities by authorizing the authority: To use money it has available for its general purposes to establish funds for loans or grants for capital projects for facilities, operations, maintenance, programming, and other endeavors for cultural and educational institutions; and To directly, or indirectly through a contract or a subsidiary controlled entity created by the authority, operate an educational or cultural facility. In addition, the definition of "facility", in the case of a cultural institution, is expanded to include a building on the national register of historic places that is owned or operated by the authority or a governmental entity. The act modifies the community revitalization grant program (grant program) by: Including projects that are eligible for funding under the space to create program administered by the creative industries division (division) within the office of economic development (office) as projects intended to be supported by the grant program; Extending deadlines for the adoption of policies, procedures, and guidelines for the grant program and for grant program reporting; and Extending the scheduled repeal of the grant program from January 1, 2025, to the date on which all money transferred or otherwise credited to the community revitalization fund is expended. The act creates a new community revitalization income tax credit (credit), for income tax years commencing on or after January 1, 2026, but before January 1, 2033, in an amount equal to 25% of the amount of eligible expenditures made by a qualified applicant in completing an eligible project; except that the office may reduce the credit percentage for reservations for credits made in any income tax year, and the maximum amount of the credit for a single project is $3 million. In addition, the maximum amount of credits that may be reserved during any calendar year is $10 million. An eligible project is a capital improvement project within a creative district, a historic district, or a neighborhood commercial center or a main street that involves the construction, rehabilitation, conversion, remodeling, or other improvement of one or more buildings, structures, or facilities for uses that support creative industries and creative industry workers and that is approved as an eligible project by the office. The act details a process for claiming the credit that requires: The submission by a qualified applicant to the office of an eligible project plan that includes an estimate of eligible expenditures; Preliminary and final review and approval of the plan by the office; Reservation of a credit for the qualified applicant by the office; Commencement of the eligible project incurrence by the qualified applicant of a specified minimum portion of the eligible expenditures within a specified period; Completion of the eligible project; Issuance of a tax credit certificate by the office; Filing of the tax credit certificate by the qualified applicant with the department of revenue with the qualified applicant's tax return or informational return; and Recapture of the credit if the eligible project is not used for a use that makes it an eligible project during a specified compliance period. The office is required to annually report to the general assembly regarding the credit and may, after soliciting advice from the department of revenue, create and modify policies and procedures as necessary to implement the credit. The community revitalization tax credit program cash fund is created, funded with tax credit application and issuance fees charged by the office as well as any other money provided by the general assembly and any gifts, grants, and donations received, and continuously appropriated to the office for the administration of the credit. For the 2024-25 state fiscal year, the act appropriates $102,498 from the general fund to the office of the governor for economic development programs. APPROVED by Governor May 28, 2024 EFFECTIVE May 28, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)