Program for victims defended

DENVER - Secretary of State Mike Coffman slashed his supplemental funding request for the Address Confidentiality Program on Tuesday, but not enough to hold off a lengthy tongue-lashing by one member of the Joint Budget Committee.

The program has come under fire because the Secretary of State’s Office spent freely to set it up even though indications are that the revenue is coming in at less than half the expected rate. After State Department officials requested $65,000 to keep it afloat until the program’s July launch, JBC members demanded Coffman explain himself.

Coffman said Tuesday that preparation for the program, in which his office can remove the addresses of victims of stalking and domestic violence from public records and redirect their mail to their real home, has come in under the budget they were expecting. But he cut the funding request by two-thirds, down to $20,881, by clearing up a miscommunication over the rent for the program office and by reducing spending in other areas.

The budget committee could decide as early as today whether to grant the extra money.

Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, said he was pleased by the startup efforts, though frustrated that the new numbers were so different from the original ones.

Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, vowed to vote against the funding request, however, because he thinks that program overseers spent too liberally. The hiring of a full-time employee 11 months before anyone could sign up for the program, a 2,900-square-foot office for that worker and travel to Washington and Oklahoma to learn about similar programs bothered him, he said.

“I have trusted you in the past, and I’m willing to do my part to continue to trust you . . . but I am extremely disappointed in the management of this program,” Morse told him. “We’re talking here about keeping addresses confidential and forwarding mail. We’re not talking about developing a treatment to a new virus.”

Coffman, a Republican, called Morse’s statement “goofy,” and reiterated that he thinks the problem is not how he’s spent the loan he received from the state Treasurer’s Office but the unstable source of revenue the Legislature assigned to the program — court fees on domestic-violence offenders.

Coffman added that if the JBC does not grant the supplemental request, he will have to suspend the program, which he has projected could serve 300 people in its first full year.

“We’re quibbling about incredibly small amounts of money,” Coffman said after the hearing. “This is pretty incredible for them to spend this amount of time on the program. For what this program does, I think it’s very important.”