Education

For eight years Tony Exum served on the House’s Education Committee, which oversees legislation concerning K-12 public schools, including public school accountability and school finance; and higher education, including administration and governance, tuition, and financial assistance. The committee also has legislative oversight responsibility for the Departments of Education and Higher Education.

Over his time in office, Sen. Exum had a hand in shaping and supporting that legislation which passed through the Education committee, and he’s even sponsored many bills himself to improve public education here in Colorado, including:

SB23-149, creating a program to provide higher education financial assistance to students who perform youth mentorship.
HB22-1243, creating a cash fund and appropriating millions of dollars to three programs related to school safety and behavioral mental health: the School Security Disbursement Program, the Temporary Youth Mental Health Services Program, and the Behavioral Health Care Professional Matching Grant Program.
HB21-1067, allowing institutions of higher education to forego a national assessment test score as an eligibility criterion of admission standards for first-time resident freshman students.
HB19-1276, providing financial support to schools and districts for comprehensive programs which assist ninth-grade students in completing high school.
HB19-1186, making it easier for school employees to get fingerprinting done for background checks.
HB18-1393, improving the READ Act, ensuring that reading assessments and instructional programming must be evidence- or scientifically-based, and must be aligned with each other and with the preschool through elementary and secondary education standards for reading.
HB17-1306, to finance the testing for lead in public schools’ drinking water.
HB13-1006, extending the breakfast-after-the-bell program in some public schools, so students can still be served breakfast even if they arrive at school after the first bell (when the breakfast program would otherwise have ended).

Environment

In 2019, Sen. Exum won the Colorado Sierra Club’s Clean Water Award for legislation regarding toxic PFAS chemicals in firefighting foams. And Sen. Exum has earned the endorsement and support of the Colorado Sierra Club and Conservation Colorado, among other environmental protection groups.

Some of the environmental protection legislation Sen. Exum has sponsored and supported includes:

HB24-1030, concerning railroad safety, by requiring certain railroads to operate trains in a way which minimizes the obstruction of emergency vehicles at highway-rail crossings, and, when necessary to allow an emergency vehicle to pass, separate a train; authorizing a crew member’s designated union representative to request investigations of certain reported incidents; authorizing the public utilities commission to impose fines for certain violations; requiring fine revenue to be paid to the transit and rail division in the department of transportation for the purposes of maintaining and improving the safety of a passenger rail system; creating the Office of Rail Safety; creating the community rail safety advisory committee; creating the rail industry safety advisory committee.
SB23-166, creating the Wildfire Resiliency Code Board, and requiring the board to adopt model codes setting minimum safety standards for homes and structures in the wildland-urban interface areas, and requiring governing bodies with jurisdiction in an area within the wildland-urban interface to adopt codes that meet or exceed the standards set forth in the model codes.
HB22-1132, requiring people to notify their local fire departments before conducting a controlled burn on private property, and prohibiting a person from conducting a controlled burn under certain conditions;
HB21-1266, creating the environmental justice ombudsperson and advisory board within the Department of Public Health and Environment, and directing the Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) to establish a fee on greenhouse gas emissions and to adopt and implement rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from certain sectors, and requiring the AQCC to update permitting requirements for sources that affect disproportionately impacted communities, and requiring electric utilities to file clean energy plans with the Public Utilities Commission;
HB20-1143, increasing the maximum per day civil fine for air and water quality violations, and increases criminal penalties for the pollution of state waters;
HB20-1119, strengthening the authority of the state government to regulate toxic PFAS chemicals;
HB19-1279, prohibiting the use during training of certain firefighting foams which contain toxic PFAS chemicals, to ensure our firefighters are kept safe from these harmful chemicals our water sources are protected too;
SB18-039, authorizing the continuation of the Wildfire Matters Review Committee; and
HB18-1051, specifying that anyone who knowingly or recklessly fails to attend to a campfire or fails to thoroughly extinguish a campfire before leaving the site commits the offense of leaving a campfire unattended, which is punishable by a minimum $50 fine and a maximum of six months in jail, or a $750 fine, or both.

Colorado Families

Helping Colorado families thrive and succeed is important to Sen. Exum, which is why he’s sponsored and passed multiple pieces of family-centered legislation, including:

SB24-113, improving the safety of youth sports by requiring youth sports coaches to complete abuse prevention training and abide by a code of conduct policy;
HB23-1024, increasing family resiliency through providing greater supports and protections for children placed with kin, including relatives;
HB23-1126, preventing medical debt from being included in consumer credit reports;
HB23-1157, preventing child abandonment by prohibiting permanent transfers of child custody without a legal proceeding, prohibiting soliciting a prohibited child custody transfer, and requiring child placement agencies to provide prospective parents with certain information about the adoptee;
SB20B-002, providing $60 million for emergency housing assistance to landlords and households who are in financial need due to COVID-19, including $1 million for the Eviction Legal Assistance Fund, which will help Coloradans stay in their homes by providing critical legal assistance for housing-related needs;
HB20-1410, allocating $350,000 to the eviction legal defense fund, to help pay for the legal assistance to individuals facing eviction related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and allocating $19,650,000 to the housing development grant fund, for the purpose of providing housing assistance, including rental assistance, mortgage assistance, and guidance on other housing assistance, to households facing financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic;
HB19-1262, funding full-day kindergarten;
HB19-1013, extending the state income tax credit for child care expenses through 2028 to help ease the childcare burden on nearly 32,000 hardworking families;
SB18-010, requiring a residential landlord to provide a tenant with a copy of any written rental agreement and give the tenant a receipt for any rent payment made in person with cash or a money order;
HB17-1002, extending the state income tax credit for child care expenses paid by someone making $25,000 or less per year;
SB14-003, creating a grant program to provide funding to counties participating in the Cliff Effect Pilot Program under the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP), which helps pay for costs of serving families; and
HB14-1072, creating the state child care expenses tax credit for someone making less than $25,000 or less per year.

Elderly / Disabled

Sen. Exum believes strongly in helping those people who need the most help, especially the elderly and disabled. Some of the major pieces of legislation he’s sponsored to help people include:

HB23-1237, expanding inclusive language access in local emergency situations;
HB24-1268, concerning fiscal policy for the financial support of certain low-income individuals based on need, by making organizational modifications to the grants for real property tax assistance and heat or fuel expenses assistance, ending such grants for individuals with a disability beginning January 1, 2025, and creating an income tax credit for qualified individuals with a disability to claim for tax years commencing on or after January 1, 2025;
HB19-1085, which enhances the benefits of Colorado’s property tax, heat and rent rebate program to help low-income seniors and Coloradans with disabilities mitigate the costs associated with Colorado’s affordable housing crisis;
HB18-1196, allowing licensed psychologists or other licensed or certified health care personnel to examine applicants and certify them for the Aid to the Needy Disabled program;
SB14-014, improving the Property Tax, Rent, and Heat Rebate (PTC) Program, by increasing the maximum property tax and rent rebate for income-eligible claimants to $700, and establishing a “flat rate” rebate for both the property tax and rent rebate and the heat rebate in an expanded range of income eligibility;
SB14-012, requiring the Department of Human Services (DHS) to increase the monthly benefit amount for Aid to the Needy and Disabled (AND) program by 8 percent, and creating the Federal Supplemental Security Income Application Assistance Pilot Program to provide assistance to SSI applicants in order to increase the approval rate and timeliness of federal SSI applications; and
SB14-1373, modifying the state’s Homestead Exemption to extend its benefits to the owner or a surviving spouse who is displaced by a natural disaster that destroys their qualifying residence; and the surviving spouse who takes possession of the qualifying residence of a deceased disabled veteran.

Military & Veterans

Colorado Springs has a large population of active military personnel and retired veterans. And Sen. Exum has sponsored multiple pieces of legislation to help take care of these heroes, including:

SB20-091, raising the minimum wage paid to Colorado National Guard members who get called up by the governor for emergency service;
HB18-1078, requiring courts identify defendants who are veterans or active duty military members and notify them that they may be entitled to certain services, and requiring the favorable consideration of record sealing requests from veterans;
SB17-028, concerning the promotion of healthy families through the sharing of information related to investigations of child abuse or neglect between departments of human services and military installations when a person affiliated with the military installation is involved with the investigation;
HB14-1277, making Colorado National Guard members and their families eligible for a grant from the Military Family Relief Fund (MFRF);
HB14-1205, creating the Veterans Assistance Grant Program within the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMVA), to provide financial assistance to nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies providing services to improve the health and well-being of veterans in the state;
HB14-1183, the Veterans Full Employment act, giving Colorado National Guard members or reservists currently on active duty more time to reinstate all expired licenses, certificates, or registrations; and
HB13-1119, requiring the department of revenue to place the word “veteran” on a driver’s license or identification card if the person presents the proper documentation, which serves as documentation that the person is a veteran for the purposes of state and local benefits and preferences.

Law Enforcement & First Responders

Tony Exum served for more than 35 years as a firefighter with the CSFD, rising up to the rank of Battalion Chief, before he retired in 2010. Putting that vast experience to work, he’s run multiple pieces of good legislation related to law enforcement and first responders, including:

SB24-169, expanding PERA’s job classifications for state employees whose duties relate to wildfire mitigation, letting firefighters pay more into PERA so they can retire sooner;
HB24-1104, adding firefighters to the class of people whose personal information is protected from publication on the internet by public entities upon a firefighter’s request;
HB24-1139, concerning the payment of death benefits after remarriage to a surviving spouse of a state employee who worked in a job with a high-risk classification;
SB20-217, the Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity act, which requires local law enforcement officers and the Colorado State Patrol to use body-worn cameras and release recordings to the public, and to conduct data reporting about certain incidents and contacts with the public; prohibits state and local law enforcement from certain enforcement actions in response to public demonstrations; removes immunity for local law enforcement peace officers and requires those agencies to indemnify officers acting in good faith; limits the acceptable use of force by all peace officers and creates a duty to report excessive use of force;
SB20-026, which allows those first responders who hear without seeing a psychologically traumatic event to also qualify for worker’s compensation benefits;
SB19-065, which creates a statewide, self-financed program of peer-to-peer and professional assistance to help EMS paramedics deal with the many stresses of their job;
HB19-1119, allowing the public to inspect records related to a closed internal investigation of a peace officer who was the subject of an incident of alleged misconduct involving a member of the public;
SB17-214, creating a cancer benefits program for volunteer firefighters;
HB17-1343, creating the Peace Officer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Task Force to research work-related peace officer post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and make recommendations for policies and practices to be considered by public employers in Colorado; and
SB14-046, creating a grant program for local fire departments to invest in equipment and training that increases firefighter safety.

Restorative Justice

Keeping young kids out of the criminal justice system – if there’s a better way of helping everyone achieve justice without putting more people in jail – has always been a high priority for Sen. Exum, which is why he’s run several pieces of good legislation supporting restorative justice programs, including:

SB23-075, preventing the public disclosure in court records of the identifying information of young children who are the victims or witnesses of violent crimes;
HB17-1326, making several changes to the procedures surrounding parole and creating the Justice Reinvestment Crime Prevention Initiative;
HB17-1207, removing the requirement for the department of human services to receive, detain, or provide care for any juvenile who is 10 years of age and older but less than 13 years of age, unless the juvenile has been arrested or adjudicated for a felony or a weapons charge that is a misdemeanor or felony; and
HB13-1245, creating a restorative justice pilot program, encouraging DA’s to put low-level offending youths into restorative justice programs, not jail.

Economy / Employment

Growing our state and local economies, creating new jobs, raising wages, and helping unemployed people find work are all critical parts of what the state government does. Which is why Sen. Exum has worked hard to sponsor so much good economic legislation, including:

SB23-261, creating the Direct Care Workforce Stabilization Board to develop recommendations regarding direct care workers;
SB22-233, creating a one-time-only new way to refund excess state revenue to people, giving $750 equally to each qualified resident;
HB22-1230, expanding the definition of service provider within the Employment Support and Job Retention Services Program, so more businesses and organizations can help people find work;
HB21-1270, putting $3 million in state funds to the SNAP Employment First job training programs, in order to draw down a matching $3 million in federal funds for the programs, to get a total of $6 million into the SNAP Employment First job training programs;
HB20-1153, creating the Colorado Partnership for Quality Jobs and Services Act, which creates a collective bargaining system between covered state employees and the state’s executive branch;
SB19-085, the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, which modifies existing sex-based wage discrimination law and creates new provisions regarding transparency in wages and promotions;
HB19-1210, letting local governments set their own minimum wage above the state’s minimum wage;
HB19-1107, creating an employment support services program in the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), with a mission of providing funding for employment preparation and pursuit, job training, and job retention; and
HB13-1292, the Keep Jobs in Colorado Act, makes changes to contracting requirements for state and local government agencies, to hire more Colorado workers for state projects.

Small Businesses

Sen. Exum has sponsored or supported multiple pieces of legislation to help small businesses grow, including:

SB24-134, preventing an HOA from prohibiting the operation of a home-based business in a common interest community. The home-based business must still comply with any applicable and reasonable HOA rules related to architectural control, parking, landscaping, noise, nuisance, and other matters that may impact the operation of a specific home-based business. The home-based business must still comply with municipal and county noise and nuisance ordinances or resolutions;
SB22-006, raising the amount of sales tax revenue that a small business may retain to cover the retailer’s expense in collecting and remitting the tax (the vendor fee);
HB21-1288, creating the Colorado Startup Loan Program, to provide loans and grants to businesses seeking capital to start, restart, or restructure a business;
SB21-241, creating the Small Business Accelerated Growth Program, to provide business development support to businesses with fewer than 19 employees;
SB21-110, adding $30 million into CDOT’s Revitalizing Main Streets and Safer Main Streets programs, helping small businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic-caused recession;
HB20-1413, creating the Colorado Loans for Increasing Main Street Business Economic Recovery Act program, a small business recovery loan program;
SB20-222, investing $20 million from federal CARES Act money into a small business COVID-19 grant program;
HB17-1214, establishing a revolving loan fund program to assist existing small businesses with a transition to becoming employee-owned businesses; and
HB14-1279, creating a business personal property income tax credit for small businesses.

Affordable Housing

As Chair of the Senate’s Local Government & Housing Committee, Sen. Exum has had a hand in crafting and supporting major pieces of legislation to help improve the amount of affordable housing units available in Colorado. Legislation such as:

SB24-094, concerning safe housing for residential tenants, by establishing and clarifying procedures regarding a tenant’s claim of breach of the warranty of habitability;
HB24-1007, prohibiting local governments from enacting or enforcing residential occupancy limits unless those limits are tied to a minimum square footage per person requirement that is necessary to regulate safety, health, and welfare;
HB24-1152, letting homeowners build accessory dwelling units on their property;
SB23-184, creating protections for residential tenants, by prohibiting a landlord from considering certain information relating to a prospective tenant’s income or rental history, establishing a maximum amount that a landlord can require as a security deposit, and allowing a tenant to assert as an affirmative defense in an eviction proceeding that a landlord violated anti-discriminatory housing laws;
HB23-1186, allowing tenants to participate remotely in eviction proceedings filed in county court;
HB22-1051, extending the life of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit and raising the amount of money which can be claimed through the credit, so more affordable housing units can be built;
HB22-1304, creating the Local Investments in Transformational Affordable Housing Grant Program and the Infrastructure and Strong Communities Grant Program to invest in infill infrastructure projects that support affordable housing, and investing nearly $200 million into those two programs;
SB22-159, creating the Transformational Affordable Housing Revolving Loan Program to provide flexible, low-interest, and below-market-rate loan funding to make investments in transformational affordable housing, and investing $150 million into the fund;
HB21-1117, clarifying the ability of local governments to promote the development of new affordable housing units pursuant to their existing authority to regulate land use within their territorial boundaries;
HB21-1329, investing $550 million of federal ARPA funds into the Affordable Housing and Home Ownership Cash Fund to provide assistance to households or populations disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 public health emergency and to support programs or services that address housing insecurity, lack of affordable housing, or homelessness;
HB19-1322, transferring up to $30 million from the Unclaimed Property Trust Fund to the Housing Development Grant Fund to fund affordable housing throughout the state;
HB19-1319, identifying non-developed land owned by the state that could be developed for affordable housing purposes, and making it available for development purposes; and
SB18-007, extending the life of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit, available to developers who build qualifying housing projects.

Legislative Achievements