The Colorado Landscape
Colorado state government is widely seen as a leader in evidence-based policy (EBP) by NCSL, NASBO, Results for America, and others. Governor Polis is strongly dedicated to evidence-based decision-making. The Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting (OSPB) has had an EBP committee for some time and have been among the first state budget offices to deeply integrate EBP analysis into the budget decision items that agencies submit, and our analysis of them. OSPB is also a partner with the University of Denver’s Colorado Evaluation & Action Lab, and previously partnered with a group called the Colorado Evidence-Based Policy Collaborative. All this work helped lead to SB21-284, which combined OSBP and Joint Budget Committee (JBC) staff's understanding of evidence-based policy, and required JBC to consider evidence-based information when determining program funding levels. Finally, Linked Information Network of Colorado (LINC) is a tool that sometimes helps public agencies in Colorado better leverage their data for evidence-based studies and decision making (though Department of Revenue and other state agency data confidentiality guidelines mean their services often go unused).
Still, we see many major budget and policy decisions succumb to hasty decision making or ignored evidence. Sometimes the research cited isn't wholly applicable, e.g. a non-randomized control trial of a slightly different program in a different state two decades prior. And even when there is the opportunity to make a fully evidence-based decision, the long list of items on a Governor's Office analyst’s plate means the search for applicable policy research is often substandard or entirely jettisoned. Sometimes this high-pressure/low-time environment means groupthink takes hold and there's even less openness to different types of research.
There is also a gap in the nonprofit policy institute landscape in Colorado with most major research and analysis organizations established to advance liberal or conservative agendas. This leaves a ripe opportunity for an Institute without ideological bias, exclusively focused on providing the highest-quality data and research to inform decision-making.
