Fiscal Watchdog Marks Half-century of Service

Tom McAvoy, The Denver Post

Good ideas last a long time. Take, for example, the decision 50 years ago by a small, but far-seeing group of lawyers and businesspeople to launch the Colorado Public Expenditure Council.

Since its inception, the council has been dedicated to “cooperate with public officials in working for the adoption of improved methods, systems and procedures of public administration.” Unglamorous work to be sure, but the idea was that the private sector should have some influence over the public sector, there being no doubt that the reverse was already rue even in 1946.

Thus for the past half-century the Colorado Public Expenditure Council has made its civic contribution by being a combination of fiscal watchdog and an idea factory for matters that deal with taxes, public education, welfare and transportation.

There isn’t space to list all its achievements, but they certainly include helping devise various constitutional and statutory changes that have aided the development of business and provided greater tax equity for the state’s citizens.

Most recently the council has done pioneering work designed to show developing inequities in the state’s local government units. The data it has compiled shows a widening gab between the poor and the rich counties of the state. In time, the legislature will have to address this problem either through some revenue-sharing scheme or through some modifications in the sales tax or property tax or both.

A half-century into its tasks, the council is still nonpartisan but in the political thick of things. Its celebratory luncheon today will feature a debate between U.S. senatorial nominees Tom Strickland and Wayne Allard.

The history of the past 50 years is proof that political parties are kept both honest and responsibly by the presence of independent research organizations like the council that put scholarship and principle above party ideology. Here’s hoping the next half-century is even better.