April 28, 2026 · State, Veterans, & Military Affairs · 4,362 words · 12 speakers · 79 segments
Anything you would like to say about that?
Madam Chair, yeah, and members of the committee, thank you for your time. The Colorado Board of Veterans Affairs is a Type II Board that studies issues faced by Colorado veterans and proposes changes to programs or statutes that determine to be beneficial to our veteran community. The Board also administers a Veteran Trust Fund Grant and the Colorado's Restoration of Honor Program and reviews and approves training protocols and curricula for the new county veteran service officers across the state. They liaise with the Board of Commissioners of the Veterans Community Living Centers and Veterans Management Preservation Trust Fund, as well as veteran services organizations throughout Colorado. Mr. Sheldon Smith is a Colorado native residing in Montrose, Colorado. He has served a total of 28 years in the United States Army and the Colorado Army National Guard with assignments and deployments in Germany, Central America, Iraq, and Afghanistan. After completing his active military service, Sheldon worked for 10 years as a county veteran service officer, supporting veterans and their families and assessing the benefits and resources they've earned. He continues to serve the veteran community through his work in state and local advocacy. His experience and commitment will make him a valuable member of the Colorado Board of Veterans Affairs.
Thank you so much, Director Cowan. And now we will hear from the appointee, who I see is online. So if you could state your name and you can go ahead and begin.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair. My name is Sheldon Smith.
Great. And is there anything you would like to tell us about your appointment before we vote?
I want to say thank you for the opportunity to continue to serve my state. I have enjoyed being part of the Colorado Division of Veterans Fairs for many years. I was a veteran service officer for 11 years, and this is an opportunity for me to be able to take care of my family and also continue to take care of the veterans in the community and the state.
Wonderful. Well, we thank you so much for all of your service. Members, are there questions for the appointee?
Seeing no questions, Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation, the appointment of Sheldon Smith to the Colorado Board of Veterans Affairs.
That is a proper motion. Mr. Sayed, please pull the committee.
Sanders, Linstead. Aye. Pelton B. Aye. Zamora Wilson. Aye. Sullivan. Aye.
Madam Chair. Aye. Further motion, Mr. Vice Chair?
Thank you. Madam Chair, I would like to see that this guy get put on the consent calendar.
Is there any objection? Seeing none, that confirmation will be placed on the consent calendar. Thank you again, Mr. Sheldon, or yeah, Mr. Smith, and Director Cowan.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you.
Great. Next, we will hear the confirmation for the Executive Director of the Department of Personnel and Administration with opening remarks from David Abenheim. If you all want to both come up, yeah. Perfect. Mr. Oppenheim, if you want to kick us off, sir.
Thanks. Chairwoman Wallace, Vice Chair Sullivan, and members of the Senate State Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. My name is David Oppenheim, and I serve as Chief of Staff to Governor Jared Polis. It is my honor to appear before you today to introduce Jana Locke as the Governor's nominee for Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration. DPA is the administrative backbone of Colorado State Government. It manages the state personnel system, oversees procurement and contracts, runs the state's payroll and benefits infrastructure, and provides shared administrative services that every department depends on to carry out its mission. When DPA runs well, every agency in the state runs better. This role requires someone who understands how the machinery of state government actually works, someone who has managed large and complex operations, budgets, and someone who treats public service as a calling. Jana Locke is just that person. Jana Locke started her career right here in this building, in fact, on this floor, working as press secretary for 28 members of the State House of Representatives. She went on to earn a master's degree from American University, was selected as Presidential Management Fellow, and served with the United States Department of Justice before returning to Colorado. In 2007, she joined the Office of State Planning and Budgeting under then-Governor Bill Ritter, where she was responsible for over $1 billion in annual state spending across the Departments of Public Safety and Corrections and the Judicial Branch during the Great Recession, an experience that grounded her in fiscal discipline, crisis management, and making hard choices with limited resources. Janet joined the Colorado Department of Public Safety in 2010 and has held progressively senior roles over the past 15 years, serving for the last seven as Deputy Executive Director. As Deputy ED, she is the second in command of a 2,400-employees statewide agency. with direct oversight of the full range of enterprise administrative functions that DPA serves statewide, human resources, labor relations, compliance, performance management, financial services, and government affairs. She has lived the customer side of DPA's work every day for over a decade, and she brings that perspective to leading an agency itself. She is also a builder. At CDPS, she helped create the department's first leadership development program, stood up the IDEA, or IDEA Center, and Operational Excellence Office, oversaw the launch of the Innovative Skill Bridge Program and initiated and fully implemented the Office of School Safety. Members of this body who have worked with Janet know her to be responsive, prepared, and credible. Her immediate priorities reflect both operational urgency and long-term vision, ensuring the successful launch of the new statewide payroll system, solidifying skills-based hiring practices across all state agencies, and building out the Pathways to Public Service program that this body helped create through legislation. In the longer term, she intends to develop a new strategic plan for DPA and lean into the agency's role as an ambassador for state government so that Colorado Maine is a competitive and sought-after employer. Chairwoman Wallace, I respectfully ask for your favorable consideration, and I am happy to yield so the committee may hear from Ms. Locke.
Wonderful. Thank you so much. Ms. Locke, if you could state your name, and you will have the floor to introduce yourself.
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Jana Locke, and I would be honored to serve as the next Executive Director of the Department of Personnel and Administration. I'm seeking the opportunity to lead this agency because I'm passionate about excellent public service and making government work really well. I want to ensure that DPA continues to be a resilient, innovative, and mission-aligned partner for state agencies, stakeholders, and state employees. My dedication to good government is backed by 20 years of service across the full spectrum of state operations, as you heard Mr. Oppenheim just cover. One of the formative experiences of my career was serving as a Presidential Management Fellow in the Department of Justice, and that informs one of the pillars of my vision for DPA, which is to expand pipelines and pathways into public service. And thank you, members of this committee, for your work on House Bill 1136 from this session, which is a good start in that direction. I look forward to diving in and working with other state agencies to fully realize that potential. I view DPA as both an enterprise leader and a strategic ambassador of state government. I want to continue to position the agency as a partner of choice and a force multiplier to other state agencies. My vision for DPA, like I said, is to further pathways into public service and to promote and champion the excellent work of public employees more widely. The greatest asset of our state government is the people who make up the state workforce. To remain competitive, Colorado must be a leader in attracting and retaining top-notch talent. To this end, I will focus on expanding talent pipelines, paving career pathways, and promoting excellence by highlighting the vital work our employees do every day. The phrase good enough for government work is like nails on a classroom chalkboard to me. I think that is such a low standard for what I know public servants are capable of accomplishing. I believe that a leader's job is to inspire and engage employees, create the conditions for operational excellence, and focus on delivering outstanding customer service so that at the end of the day, the customers walk away saying, wow, that was really great enough for government work. Madam Chair and Committee, I appreciate your time and consideration today, and I respectfully request your support for my confirmation. I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you so much, Ms. Delock. We appreciate all of your passion and experience that you bring to this position. Members, are there questions for this appointee?
No.
Seeing none, a motion, Mr. Vice Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation the appointment of Jana Locke as the Executive Director of the Department of Personnel and Administration.
Proper motion Mr Sayed please poll the committee Senators Linstead Aye Haldenby Aye Samara Wilson Aye Sullivan Aye
Madam Chair. Aye. Mr. Vice Chair, further motion?
Thank you, Madam Chair. I request that this be put on the consent calendar.
Is there any objection? Seeing none, your confirmation will be placed on the consent calendar. Thank you again for all of your service.
Thank you, committee.
Thank you, Mr. Oppenheim, for being here. Lovely. Next we will have House Bill 1252, and we will take a brief senatorial 5 for our sponsors.
Thank you. Thank you.
sponsors of House Bill 1252. Would one of you like to start us off with Senator Marchman?
Welcome to State Affairs. Thank you. It's good to be back. Madam Chair, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to present House Bill 1252. When disaster strikes Colorado, whether it's a wildfire, a flood, or a cyber attack, Coloradans need to trust that their state government is ready to respond quickly and coordinate seamlessly. Right now, Colorado's emergency management responsibilities are spread across multiple offices in ways that create confusion, overlap, and gaps. This bill cleans that up. House Bill 26-1252 creates a state recovery task force within the Office of Emergency Management. When a disaster hits, this task force will serve as the central hub, pulling together state agencies, compiling damage assessments, and giving the governor's office a clear picture and a coordinated recovery strategy. This means no more guessing who's in charge of what. This formalizes the Office of Emergency Management as the lead for disaster recovery planning and makes mandatory the survivor portal. This portal is a one-stop shop where disaster victims can apply for state and federal assistance programs. And to ensure the safety of our citizens' data, survivor information entered into that portal will be protected from public disclosure. When people are at their most vulnerable, they deserve to know that their personal data is safe. Lastly, I want to speak to the way this bill streamlines how our emergency offices are organized. Security and preparedness responsibilities that are currently split between offices will be consolidated. The Office of Preparedness will be renamed the Office of Grants Management to better reflect what it actually does. This also means that our auxiliary emergency communications volunteers, such as ham radio operators who provide vital backup communication during disasters are moved to the right office within the state. To quell any financial concerns, this bill does not cost taxpayers a single additional dollar. This is just good governance that ensures that when, not if, the next disaster comes, our state is organized, coordinated, and ready to serve every Coloradan who needs help. And I'm going to turn to my co-prime.
Wonderful. Thank you. Senator Carson.
Thank you, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, and members of the committee. Pleased to join with my colleague, Senator from Loveland here, in this important bill. You know, in an emergency, I think one of the most important things is to know who's in charge, who's calling the shots. And so earlier in the session when I was approached by the Department of Public Safety about this bill, and it was clear to me, you know, there were different entities involved, and it wasn't clear who was in charge. It made a lot of sense to me. So, you know, this bill clearly designates the Office of Emergency Management as the lead agency. We're going to hear from Mr. Klein here shortly, talk about the new setup here. But I think, you know, in addition to that, we've got some privacy protections in this bill. You know, if you're a recipient of disaster assistance, I think your information should be kept confidential to the extent that it can be. You know, with all the fraud and, you know, infringement on people's privacy that's going on, I think that's an important part of the bill. And I think just generally due to the complex nature of disasters and the federal government shifting responsibility clearly more to the state's localities, it's very important that our state government has their ducks in a row with emergency response and everything that can be happening in this state, from wildfires to floods to any you know even national security threats that we might face making it clear who in charge and what the plan is I think is critically important So I think this is a pretty straightforward bill It got a zero fiscal note and I think it just reflects the Governor administration desire to have some clear responsibility here.
Wonderful. Thank you both so much. Members, questions for our sponsors? Seeing none, we'll move on to our one Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry, Senator Pelton. Please, sir.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So my question is that you said that the federal government shifted responsibility. If I remember right, our emergency managers or our OEMs and our counties were paid for by a grant by the federal government. Is that what you're talking about there?
Senator Carson. Sorry, Madam Chair. I wasn't specifically referencing that. I think generally just the philosophy of this administration at the federal level is to shift a lot of things. And, of course, Congress can't seem to even reopen the Department of Homeland Security right now. So, you know, I think it's important for the states to, you know, be prepared. and these type of things I think are best handled on the state and local level anyway. Thank you.
Senator Zamora Wilson.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You mentioned that we're having a reorganization, and you also mentioned citizens' information, and how is that a zero dollar, right? So I'm imagining if we're consolidating and are we increasing security on information, that's got to have a dollar amount.
Senator Marchman Thank you Thank you Madam Chair and thank you for the question This kind of came out of what happened with the Marshall fire People were getting contacted pretty constantly because their name was published in a public way so what this does is it just creates a survivors database I believe that Kevin may be able to talk about why there's not a fiscal. It's fun how that works, but I think he may be able to talk about why they're able to absorb that cost, but yeah, that's basically it. It was because of the Marshall fire, and we just really want to keep these folks from being preyed upon.
Further questions? Okay, we will call up. We have Kevin Klein here. Is there anybody else in the room who would like to testify on this bill? Director Klein, if you could state your name and who you represent. You will have two minutes to testify, sir, and then it sounds like we might have some questions for you.
Madam Chair, members of the committee, thank you very much. I'm Kevin Klein. I'm the Director of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. I'm here to express my appreciation to Senators Marchman and Carson for bringing this bill to you. We're in support of it. This bill updates our framework for Homeland Security and Emergency Management. It helps us better align our operations with current needs and eliminate some of the old stuff that came out of 9-11, some of the grant programs that no longer exist. They're referenced in the statute. As was mentioned earlier, it clarifies disaster recovery, who's responsible, and then as far as the personally identifiable information, the system exists already. So the survivor portal was already put in statute a couple of years ago. All this does is change the CORA so the information that individuals present isn't subject to public records requests. So the reason there's no fiscal note on it is because the system's already in place and already running, but it just prevents individual disaster survivors' information from being CORA'd, and that's the privacy part of that. Make some technical adjustments to statute. It moves the Auxiliary Communications Unit to our Communications Office. And then, Madam Chair, if I may speak to proposed Amendment L-004. On that, what you'll see there is a consolidation of an office. So right now we have four offices with the decrease in federal funding and with some of the disasters that we're closing out, our office of preparedness is probably no longer needed. We're moving the responsibilities into other and consolidating that office into one, and then it makes conforming amendments along with that. So that's it.
Wonderful. Wonderful. Members, are there... I know we're just getting the amendment. So we might take one second with that.
Sure, absolutely.
We'll do just a brief senatorial five, and then we'll come back for questions, Director Klein.
Yes, ma'am.
Thank you. Thank you.
All right, we are back. Members, are there questions for the witness? Senator Pelton.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So my question is for you, sir. In 2003, we had the South Platte River flood. And all of our OEMs came together up and down the river, communicated, worked well together to make sure that each one of us, because, you know, a flood doesn't happen just right away. So they worked together to make sure to come down the flood, that we were all prepared for what was coming. How do you feel like this bill, with the consolidation of everything, is going to work, especially with the communications part, to work to make sure that we continue that down the road?
Dr. Klein.
Madam Chair, Senator Pelton, I think this will help. So specifically on the communications part, our public safety communications unit, which runs the state digital trunk radio system, we're taking the ham radio operators, our auxiliary communications group, and putting them into our communications group. So that was created before the digital trunk radio system was moved into our shop, and that just better aligns it so there'll be better coordination there. As far as then, we'll take the flood, for example. As far as what happens leading up to it we still have all the same field people in there Very few of those changes are impacted by this However, one of the things that we're doing here is taking the funding and putting it closer to the operators. So right now, our grant funds are really in a grant administration unit, and the people that are dealing with the people on the ground then have to go to our grants people, get the grants, and then go to the people who are affected by it. Now we'll have that just a direct connection. So our grant units, the people that are doing the actual work on the grant and with the people that are receiving the grant funding are now the same people that will be administering the grant instead of it being in a separate office. Senator Peltman.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So you're not going to have a problem with transparency because I know that's why we had that separate grant office to make sure that it was really transparent so you're not going to have any issues with transparency moving forward with getting rid of that office.
Director Klein.
Madam Chair, Senator Peltman, yes. And the way we do that is we have a separate recipient monitoring group that will still remain separate. They'll be in the director's office, not in the other office, but they will still do that separately. And then we'll have segregation of duties, so the people that are, you know, somebody else is reviewing what somebody did to give the grant funding away. So I'm very confident in that. In fact, FEMA just notified us Monday that we've been approved for verify as we go because our error rate is so small in their audits that we don't have to go through the more difficult closeout process. They're trusting us for another two years because we're at less than 1.1% error rate. Thank you.
Further questions, members? Oh, of course, Senator Zamora Wilson.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So you mentioned, I can't remember what you said about the department. Are there any new departments that are being created?
Director Klein.
Madam Chair, Senator Zamora Wilson knew we were actually shrinking by one office. With L-004.
Got it. Senator Zamora Wilson.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand the main goal. Yes, we are consolidating. But you had mentioned just in your last comment that it would go, I can't remember what you had exactly said, but it would go to another department who would, I'm trying to remember what you said. I'm just wondering if that department that you had referred, if that was a new one or already standing.
I believe perhaps you're talking about the grants department that was just referenced, Director Klein.
Madam Chair, Senator Zimmer-Wilson, yes. Right now we had that separate grant office, and now we're moving the grant managers into the programs. However, we have a separate monitoring unit, which is called the sub-recipient monitoring unit, which will ensure it's already in place, and that will ensure that the grant requirements are being met and it's independent of the grant team for whatever grant that is. We do a lot of money. We did $2.2 billion in grants last year. Most of that was recovery.
Further questions, members? Seeing none, thank you so much, Director Klein, for being here and for your insights and work, sir. Is there anyone else who would like to testify on House Bill 1252? Seeing none, the testimony phase is closed. Sponsors, it looks like we have one amendment before us. Should we go ahead and move that? Okay, Mr. Vice Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move Amendment L-004 to House Bill 1252.
Is there any objection to L-004? Seeing none, that amendment is adopted. Further amendment sponsors? None. Thank you. Members, any amendments? Seeing none, the amendment phase is closed. Wrap up comments. Senator Marchman.
Thank you, committee, for hearing us. I did want to highlight something on page 3 of the amendment L-004. If you look at the final little section, it says page 14, strike lines 11 through 15, and substitute with. and I just want to be clear, as the chair of JTC, I was very concerned about cybersecurity being handled by anyone who's not our cybersecurity person. We hire someone to do that. They're called the CISO. Her name's Jill Frazier. She is our cybersecurity genius. And so what this does is it takes away, originally they had the director of the Office of Public Safety Communications leading the cybersecurity, and that was not going to work. So now it's going to be the CISO or their delegate will be able to be a part of that. And I also just wanted to mention for Senators Amora Wilson, if you look on the bottom of page 12, there's a strikethrough of the language, the Office of Preparedness, and they're just renaming it. And so I just wanted you to see that on the paper to see if that helps any of your concerns in terms of a new, you know, they are certainly reorganizing, but I just wanted you to know we're just replacing the name. But thank you so much for hearing this. I really do think the data privacy part is incredibly important, and I hope that we can earn your support on this bill.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Senator, and I apologize for skipping right over the explanation of the amendment, and thank you for providing some further clarity. Senator Carson, would you have any wrap-up comments, sir?
I don't have anything further, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Wonderful. Thank you both so much. A motion, Mr. Vice Chair. Or, I'm sorry, excuse, yes, we'll do that, and then we'll do closing comments.
Thank you, sir.
I'm not rushing you. You can do it.
Oh, okay. I move House Bill 1252 as amended to the Committee of the Whole with a favorable recommendation.
Perfect. Members, any closing comments? Okay, seeing none, that is a proper motion. Mr. Sayed, please pull the committee.
Senators, Linstead. Aye. Felton B. Aye. Morrelson. Aye.
Sullivan. Aye.
Madam Chair. Aye. That passes 5-0. Consent calendar? Are you all interested or do you need more? Okay. Mr. Vice Chair?
I motion that we put this on the consent calendar.
Is there any objection? Seeing an objection, this will not be placed on the consent calendar, but we do look forward to seeing it in the Cal. And with that, thank you both for bringing this. We have no further business before us today, so the committee will be adjourned.
Thank you. Thank you.