Senate Business, Labor, & Technology [Apr 14, 2026]

Madam Chair.

Okay. Welcome, everyone. So we have our first two panels of appointees are, as I understand, all in person, correct? Okay. Okay. So if we could have the confirmations for the State Electrical Board come forward, please, at this time. Okay, welcome.

Okay, thank you so much, Mr. Delbin. Welcome. Would you like to add anything to your introductions?

Okay. Okay. Same, if you have any questions for us. Okay. Well, members, are there any questions for Senator Catlin?

Thank you, Senator. I would say that just my experience in the industry, you know, starting out as an electrician and then all the way through now being an engineer, it has given me an incredible passion for the industry. I just love it, really enjoy my work. And so I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to kind of give back to the industry by being on this board. And so all in all, I would say that it's just an industry that I would want to see the success of going forward And this is a great opportunity to do that Thank you Sir Thank you Senator As a general contractor I obviously come across electricians a lot

All right. Thank you both so very much. Oh, okay. Senator Liston. I'm sorry it went through so fast. Would you please just identify yourselves one more time just so I know who's who?

Michael Cachet.

Senator Catlin.

Judah. Aye. Liston. Aye. Henriksen. Aye.

Thank you. Thank you all.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So here on behalf of the Division of Professions and Occupations for confirmation to the Plumbing Board, we have Jared Serafin, Tiffany Hansen, and Matthew Gentrop. Jared Serafin is seeking a new appointment to serve as a person engaged in the construction of residential or commercial buildings, plumbing contractor, professional member on the board. Mr. Serafin has been a licensed master plumber in Colorado since 2016 and holds an active Colorado certificate on backflow prevention devices. He is the owner and master plumber of Wood Road Construction, LLC. Tiffany Hansen is seeking a new appointment to serve as the journey worker plumber professional member on the board. Ms. Hansen has been licensed as a journey worker plumber in Colorado since 2021. She's currently employed as the president of Read It To Me Resources in Littleton. That is a startup company that's developed a learning app in partnership with the International Code Council designed to assist auditory learners and provide hands-free code references for plumbing professionals on the job. Ms. Hansen holds an associate's degree in fine arts from Arapahoe Community College. Matthew Gentrip is seeking a new appointment to serve as an employee of a local government agency conducting plumbing inspections on the board. Mr. Gentrip has been licensed as a master plumber in Colorado since 2003 and holds various certifications in his field. He's employed as a building inspector for the city of Greeley. His role involves educating the public and contractors on plumbing inspections plumbing code and plumbing violations Thank you Plumbing Code and Plumbing Violations

No, I'm sorry, Madam Chair.

I believe they went over everything that I would say about it.

Yes. That's me. I'm good.

I think he covered it rather well.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just curious. Ms. Harkison?

Henson. Okay. Are you Sarah?

Okay, I'm sorry. Never mind.

Madam Chair, I move to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation. The nominations of Sarah Harkson, Matthew Gentrip, Tiffany Hansen, and Jared Serafine to the State Plumbing Board.

Senator Catlin.

Judah.

Liston.

Henriksen.

Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, if there are no objections, I would recommend consent calendar.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yes. Hello. I hope everyone is hearing me well enough.

Okay Do we have Mr Roffel I am here yes present Oh welcome Thank you so much for being here If you would like to begin to introduce our nominees that be wonderful Absolutely. So today I represent the CDLE Division of Workers' Compensation Premium Cost Containment Program. And our program is a partnership between the Division of Workers' Compensation and employers to prevent workplace safety injuries. We reward safety conscious employers with cost savings for participating in our program. Through this program, employers will find ways to control work-related injuries while also qualifying for a workers' compensation premium reduction by having a certified safety program in place at their workplace. Over 5,000 Colorado companies are currently certified in this program. Today, I have the honor of introducing three folks that have combined nearly 100 years of workers' compensation experience in Colorado between them. Susan Mishler, Network Insurance Agency, she is a first-time appointment to this board. I also have Bob Switzer, who is a reappointment, as well as Tom Jensen, who is also a reappointment. I will allow those folks, I would not be able to do it justice, I will allow those folks to answer any questions you may have and speak more about their experience here in Colorado when it comes to workers' compensation.

Okay.

Yes, can you hear me?

you okay Mr. Jensen did you have anything to add yes so my name is Tom Jensen I'm a risk management advisor with Glenwood Insurance Agency I've lived in Eagle County for about 20 years I've workplace safety roles in environmental remediation, energy, transportation, and the insurance industries, and I hold a certified safety professional designation. In my role at Glenwood Insurance, and before that as a safety consultant at Pinnacle Assurance, I've been an advocate for the cost containment program, helping clients to understand and fulfill the elements of the program. I'm a strong proponent of the program. I believe that it's a great introduction to workplace safety for a lot of the small to medium-sized entities in Colorado that often struggle to know where to start. Safety is such a large world that this is a great focused introduction. I really enjoyed my first term on the board. Every meeting brings me an opportunity to deepen my understanding of employee safety and how employees are injured in the workplace and what employers are doing to prevent those injuries in the future. The members of this board continue to challenge my knowledge and my assumptions and our dialogue and debate make me a better safety profession. I look forward to an opportunity to serve another term with this

or the staff? Senator Catlin. Thank you, Madam Chair. For Mr. Jensen, after having served on the are we seeing any trend of coming down as to the number of injuries that we have on the job statewide?

Good. Thank you.

Madam Chair, I move to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation. The nominations of Tom Jensen, Robert Switzer, and Susan Mishler to serve on the Workers' Compensation Cost Containment Board.

Senator Catlin.

Judah.

Liston.

Henriksen.

Madam Chair.

Senator Henriksen. Madam Chair, if there are no objections from the committee, I would recommend consent calendar.

you are more than welcome to recognize yourself. Sorry, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. Thanks to my colleague, Senator Catlin, for bringing this bill forward. This is really a continuation of work that I guess I started doing when I first got elected back in 2015. Elder abuse is prevalent and it can be financial or it can be physical and unfortunately the vast majority of it is financial abuse. People like to prey on older Coloradans and so this bill is really meant to be a solution for a really pretty high rate of this type of crime Because older Coloradans are trusting and generous they are targeted They are singled out and they are targeted for scams and fraudulent financial abuse. So what we are trying to do is support the older Coloradan who is being targeted for this kind of financial abuse and stop the transaction before it goes through. So what we are doing is giving banks and credit unions another tool in their toolbox to prevent funds from leaving the bank accounts of these at-risk adults. So because as you know, and I'm sure you all know, this is really prevalent. It happens far too frequently. Once the money is gone, it's really, really hard to get it back. And so if we can enable the banks and the credit unions to pause the transaction before it goes through, giving the institution a chance to stop this kind of abuse before it happens, then the older person is protected from having their money stolen out from under them. In many cases, the exploitation, like I said, could have been stopped. And I truly believe most of these folks that are working in these institutions want this to happen. Now, some instances not so much as you'll hear from today, but the point is even if they see a fraudulent transaction in front of them, the law is unclear and doesn't provide them the protection to halt the transaction without liability. And so this is exactly what we're doing. We're giving these banks and credit unions the ability to halt a transaction before it goes through so that if someone is being targeted as a scam, as a fraudulent transaction, they can keep their money instead of having it stolen out from under them and then trying to get it back after the fact. I think that's kind of what I wanted to say and I can turn it over to my co-prime but the reason that I'm bringing this forward is because older Coloradans they built our communities and like I said before it is precisely because of the qualities that make them great their generosity their trusting sense about them that they're targeted for this kind of scam. We have an opportunity to protect older Coloradans from financial abuse. This is one more way to do it, and I certainly hope that the Senate can move forward today in this positive step to protect more older people from financial scams and abuse.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. These are the kind of things I think we ought to be doing as far as government's concerned. our elders, we talk about them. We want to help them, but what ends up happening is they end up being the ones that are out there trying to fend for themselves when it comes to some of these scams and those type of things. They're lonesome. You get a phone call on their landline and somebody convinces them of something that you and I would know can't be. You know, in the state of Colorado, we're ranked eighth in the nation for elder fraud that occurs in our state and we're facing skyrocketing rates of financial abuse up to 46 percent since 2023 those numbers are are appalling they they worrisome to me financial abuse destroys their lives and empties bank accounts of our hardworking and most vulnerable population Coloradans are seeing tens of thousands of dollars disappear in an instant. We can do something, and that's what this bill is trying to do. It's trying to allow the people that know and care for those people, maybe on an every couple of day basis, when they realize that this is a fraudulent thing, that they can step in and do something to stop it from happening. I can speak to you in regards to something that happened with my mother-in-law. She called us one day in the morning early about 8 o'clock and said, I guess can't hold it back anymore. I'm going to win a new Cadillac, and I'm going to win $5 million, and I'm going to pay off all my kids' debts, and I'm going to take care of them. Well, luckily, she called before she did that. So I said, well, I'll be there in five hours. If you just hold on, I'll get there. So we rushed to Colorado Springs and, you know, went to her house and said, okay, let's look and see what's going on here. And all of a sudden, the phone rang again. And it was the same guys, the same people, the same scam, wondering why she hadn't done what she told them she would do. So we told her, just tell them we're on our way to the bank. And so we played coy with these guys. In the meantime, I had no idea what else to do, so I called the CBI. You know, this $5 name tag gave me an opportunity to call them. So I did. They chased, and they tried to find these people, but they told me at the time, We'll be able to chase them to the border of the United States, and after that we'll lose them because they're offshore. Luckily, she didn't have that problem. We did stop it, but if she hadn't have had us to call and we were in a situation, both of her sons live on the East Coast, there's nothing they could have done. We lived five hours away. So we were able to help, and, you know, the problem is the phone rings. and sometimes we forget. So this is one of those things that the bill is intended to prevent elder financial abuse by giving liability protections to the staff at financial institutions, specifically banks and credit unions, by allowing relevant personnel to place temporary holds on suspicious transactions during which the institution will report their concerns to relevant authorities if it meets the criteria in current law. The financial institutions will then proceed with the prompt internal review, aiming to stop criminals from getting money through exploitation before it can be withdrawn from the bank. I can't think of a better idea. I was so wound up about my mother-in-law. I was talking about that, now I guess it's been three years ago. And so when the opportunity came to be a sponsor and to be a co-prime on this bill, I was there. These are the kind of things that I thought that I was going to get an opportunity to do when I got elected. And today I have that opportunity and so do we. So anyway, I want you to know that I'm proud of this piece of legislation. I'm proud of the people we're trying to help. And I would really like to help some of these folks that have been taken to the cleaners, but it's too late. But maybe we can stop that from happening from somebody in the future. Thank you.

Dear Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Debbie Fox. I'm a Colorado resident, a victim of financial fraud, and now an advocate speaking on behalf of countless victim survivors who have been financially and emotionally gutted by this global threat. My story began in October of 2023 when I connected with a man on an online dating platform. The man I initiated contact with had a paid, verified account, just like I did. That verification gave me a false sense of security that he was who he claimed to be. We spoke nearly every day, often on video calls before deep fake technology was widely known, for up to an hour at a time. He built trust slowly and intentionally. Early on, he asked me to Google him, which I found encouraging. I did, and I found two websites, a personal and professional website tied to his name. I located a registered business in California and verified it myself. Everything I found seemed to support the identity he had created. What I now understand is that those details weren't proof. They were part of an advanced setup. He portrayed himself as a dual U.S. and Dutch citizen, a global businessman. Weeks into daily contact, he shared a traumatic business crisis he claimed to be facing. I supported him emotionally until he sheepishly asked if I could lend him money. I told him I could not, that my finances were complicated. A few days later, he came back and asked again, adding, are you telling me you have the means to help but you're choosing not to? That moment broke through my emotional vulnerability especially alongside the documentation he had already provided that appeared completely legitimate copies of a U passport bank statements on watermarked letterhead with account numbers and balances an official bank letter guaranteeing loans and a loan agreement signed by an alleged attorney. The term showed quick repayment, and it all looked real. It wasn't. With a signed loan agreement and a bank letter of loan guarantee in hand, I withdrew money from my retirement account, transferred it to my U.S. bank account, and wired it as directed to the bank account of a registered business in Florida, which I had also verified. A second wire followed. Both transactions were highly unusual for my banking activity. I was told the transfer would be delayed several hours while the receiving bank would be verified as legal. That also gave me some peace of mind. In the end, that money was not lost. It was stolen. Because the funds came from my retirement account, I was also responsible for paying taxes on that withdrawal, on money taken from me through crime. When I realized I had been defrauded, I reported the crime to FBI IC3, FTC, local law enforcement, Colorado Attorney General's office. Personally, I remained in silence for three months due to guilt and shame. What I encountered was a reporting system that was complex, fragmented, and overwhelming, especially in the middle of trauma. Justice and restitution remained below 100%. percent. Theft of $58,000, which was my case, against me was not high enough to engage federal investigators. Since then, I've come to understand that what happened to me is part of a much larger pattern. This is transnational organized crime targeting Americans across all ages, backgrounds, and demographics, stealing billions of dollars annually in rapid escalation. I'm here today because this is not just happening to individuals, it's happening to our society. And I support this bill and the proactive steps it provides financial institutions to act before crime steals from their customers. We need stronger systems in place, systems that prevent transnational crime organizations who do not step foot on U.S. soil from slipping through the cracks, that better protect our digital borders and that stop the ongoing siphoning of wealth and security from everyday Americans. Thank you for listening to my story on behalf of survivors desperate for protections that prevent financial crimes and exploitations. I welcome your questions.

Yes. Please go ahead and proceed, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Eric Chess. I'm here in strong support of this bill. I have a legal and medical background, and I'm currently a clinical professor at the University of Denver. In my days as a hospitalist working in the ER, I was once pulled aside by a detective who informed me that bad actors were stealing our discharge paperwork from the hospital entirely to commit financial fraud, and they were targeting older adults. It's one of the many connections between health and finances and fraud. Another connection that I saw firsthand and is backed by 20 years of research is that the first clinical sign of any future cognitive decline is often found in impaired financial decision making many many years before any classic signs and symptoms like memory loss appear Although I saw this many times in my outpatient practice, it's financial professionals who are on the front lines. They are the first ones to see these signs. The implications of this research are vast, from health aspects of early diagnosis and treatment, to legal aspects of consent and capacity, to financial fraud and exploitation. So for the last nine years, I've dedicated myself to this issue. At the university, I founded a multi-sector, multi-disciplinary program dedicated to older adults, financial decision-making, cognitive health, and preventing financial fraud and exploitation. My team has brought together a broad statewide coalition, the Colorado Older Adults Financial Justice Coalition, including government, social services, banks, credit unions, law enforcement, nonprofits, and elder law attorneys, formalized by a national grant. With this background, I strongly support this bill. It allows trained professionals of banks and credit unions to pause suspicious transactions and notify law enforcement, adult protective services, and a trusted third party when they reasonably suspect exploitation. This creates timely, coordinated responses that can stop harm before it escalates. Also, this bill provides good faith protections for financial institutions that take these preventative steps. It helps ensure that the financial institutions are fully aligned and incentivized with preventing vulnerable, protecting vulnerable adults in situations where a client's immediate judgment or financial decision making may be compromised due to undue influence, cognitive impairment, or sophisticated deception as we just heard about. These are not drastic measures. They're common sense protections paired with safeguards like time limits on transaction delays to ensure accountability. And most important and core to my program, this legislation is proactive. It helps stop financial abuse before devastating losses occur, rather than trying to fix the damage after the fact, often time-consuming, expensive, and futile. Providing financial institutions with better tools and incentives to prevent fraud and exploitation benefits everyone, except for the bad actors and the lawyers trying to make a buck. This panel represents a wide range of perspectives, and especially when, or additionally, when Rebecca Laurie shows up. We have personal stories, we have the financial institutions, we have my background in health, and from an academic standpoint, and the Office of Financial Empowerment. this panel, these perspectives and interests, which underscores the broad bipartisan nature of this bill. Bottom line, this bill will absolutely decrease financial fraud and exploitation, and we can measure it. I respectfully urge you to vote yes, and thank you for the opportunity to speak and your time and consideration.

Yes. Go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is LaShay Woodard. I'm the VP of Financial Crimes at Ent Credit Union, becoming Wings Credit Union. So there's a time in everyone's life where you look forward to retirement. After working for decades, you look forward to being able to do what you want.

Thank you. Committee members, questions for this panel? Senator Liston.

Lachey.

If they're pulling from a retirement fund, generally it goes to another retirement fund, and they fill out the paperwork on the sending side. So we would have that paperwork to see it goes into another retirement account. If we received that deposit and they wanted to withdraw the full amount, and we talk about, you know, there's penalties, you claim it as income. So there are questions that we ask if it looks, it's not often someone would move a retirement from one institution to another institution to just totally withdraw it. So that would be suspicious because you could withdraw it from the first place. They usually state their intent from one retirement to another.

If it's from one retirement account to another retirement account, it comes payable to us for the benefit of the member or the customer. So that's how we know it's going to go into another retirement account. And it prevents them from forgetting to move it to a retirement account. So it's basically retirement account to retirement account to prevent them from failing to reinvest in a certain amount of time facing a penalty.

It's payable to us for the benefit of that person.

It would be done when it's received.

Thank you. Seeing no further questions, we'll go ahead and retire this panel. Thank you for being here and offering your testimony today. On the second panel, I have Rebecca Laurie, Al Gordon, Steve Schwartz, and Jeanette Hensley. Thank you All right and I think just for simplicity we will start here and go this way just down the line. So ma'am, if you want to go ahead and kick us off, whenever you're ready.

Sir, if you want to go ahead whenever you're ready.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Schwartz.

Thank you, Mr. Schwartz. Sir, if you'd like to introduce yourself and begin, please feel free. There we go. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Morrow, thank you. Committee members, questions for this panel? All right. Seeing none, thank you for your testimony today. We really appreciate it. I have one other individual signed up to testify in favor. That is Dr. Carolyn Brent. Is there anybody else in the who also wishes to testify in favor of House Bill 1110. Seeing none, Dr. Brent, if you want to come forward and then after you, I'll open it up if there are those who want to testify, opposed to amend or otherwise on the bill. Okay, great.

All right. Thank you. Committee members, questions? All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and retire this panel and that will be entered into the record. Okay, thank you. We've already asked for further witnesses in favor of the bill. Is there anybody who wishes to testify opposed or amend position on House Bill 1110, in person or online? Seeing none and hearing none, we will go ahead and close the witness testimony phase, which Which will bring our sponsors back to the dais. For consideration of amendments.

Please tell us about L-22, Senator Aniston.

All right. Thank you for the explanation. Committee members, any questions on L22? Any objections to L22? Seeing none, L22 is adopted. Further amendments, sponsors. Further amendments, committee members. Seeing none, the committee phase is closed. Closing comments, Senator Cutlin.

Senator Danielson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And again, thanks to everybody who came to encourage the passage of the measure. That was one of my earlier bills. This is one of my last bills. This is my last year in the legislature. I'm really glad that we could come full circle and include the banks and the credit unions to provide them this protection to stop these fraudulent transactions before they happen. I just wanted to add a couple of things. It's very brave of the victims of these crimes to come forward, and oftentimes it won't help their cases at all. They're going to advocate for these changes to protect other people from experiencing the same kind of loss that they did. And the losses can be devastating. Tens of thousands of dollars in a five-minute transaction. People's life savings wiped out because, as was stated earlier, seniors are the ones who are likely to have accumulated savings over their lifetime Every year older Coloradans are disproportionately targeted by these scammers and by these fraudsters According to the FBI scams targeting individuals age 60 and older caused over $3.4 billion in losses in 2023 alone. Billions of dollars of losses from these people and their families. They worked so hard to build what they need to live through their retirement years in independent and in safety and in dignity. And then someone comes along in an instant and tears it away from them. So, you know, we've got a chance here to stop that from happening in the first place so that they aren't battling legal battles and trying to find the people who swiped the money and went offshore or invested in Bitcoin or whatever they did with their life savings. they don't have to go through all of that because it never happened. And they can keep the money that they worked so hard to save. So this is a measure designed to protect older Coloradans from theft and fraud, financial abuse, to give the banks and credit unions the ability to stop these fraudulent transactions before they happen. And I urge your support today, and I thank you all very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move House Bill 1110 to the Committee of the Whole and ask for an aye vote. That is a proper motion.

Senator Catlin.

Judah.

Liston.

Danielson.

Mr. Chair.

Senator Catlin.