It yet another insult paid to hard working Coloradans, Democrats in the state legislature are trying to dump millions more into the Governor’s film incentive office, just months after a scathing audit revealed massive mismanagement and no accountability of millions already allocated and spent. This month, the Joint Budget Committee, comprised of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, came to a tie vote on the Governor’s request for funding the embattled office, setting the stage for a legislative showdown over this wasteful program.
The 2017 audit reported abuses such as state incentives paid out despite necessary contracts with the production companies never being signed. The reason the contracts were not signed was because the production company objected to the terms. Yet, the Film Office cut checks to these Hollywood moguls anyways. It would be interesting to know if there were any unauthorized agreements made between the state’s Film Office personnel and the production companies, as we cannot figure out why the incentive payments were made without a signed contract, especially when the state’s counterparty refused to sign because they disagreed with the terms.
The audit also revealed that these fine stewards of our state’s resources lacked even the basic mechanisms to measure how effective these incentives were, and how they impacted Colorado’s economy. Maybe it was the same crew that did the due diligence on Redbarre, and tricked the governor as well as a slew of bureaucrats and elected officials to throw a big press conference at the Capitol to celebrate the billion-dollar film production campus that had zero chance of happening.
No standards. No internal controls. No accountability. No problem (for the Democrats). As always, why worry when it’s other people’s money?