The Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) Used to Help Local Communities. Under Polis, It Helps His Agenda.
I am a local government guy – council, mayor, county commissioner – so I have come to know and appreciate DOLA.
At least I used to know them.
The Colorado Department of Local Affairs was the place you went for help with the boring-but-essential stuff: water and sewer lines, wastewater plants, main streets, public safety facilities. It was a quiet partner that helped local governments solve local problems.
Under Governor Jared Polis, that DOLA is disappearing.
The mission has drifted. The money has been repurposed. And the department that once backed your town’s water line is now one of the tools the governor uses to strong-arm cities and counties into his housing and climate agenda.
Let’s walk through what’s changed – with receipts.
What DOLA Was Supposed to Be
The Joint Budget Committee’s own staff summary still describes DOLA in plain, reasonable terms:
“Building community and local government capacity by providing training, technical, and financial assistance to localities.” (Colorado General Assembly)
The FY 2023–24 staff briefing shows:
- DOLA’s total budget at $382.8 million, with
- 234.0 FTE, and
- Its share of the statewide General Fund sitting at just 0.4%. (Colorado General Assembly)
The same document also makes clear that a big chunk of DOLA’s work is still supposed to be “state and federal financial resources… to support community infrastructure and services through various statutory formula distributions and grant programs.” (Colorado General Assembly)
That’s the DOLA many of us grew up working with: not flashy, not ideological – just a way to get help fixing a treatment plant or rebuilding a road.
But if you follow the money and the headcount over time, you can see the department being rewired.
Bigger, Busier, and Aimed Somewhere Else
According to that same JBC briefing, DOLA’s appropriated staff has grown 30.1% in just six years – from 179.2 FTE in FY 2017–18 to 234.0 FTE in FY 2023–24. (Colorado General Assembly)
The staff memo is blunt about why:
“The number of FTE appropriated to the Department has also grown significantly in recent years due to the amount of new legislation affecting DOLA.” (Colorado General Assembly)
On the funding side, the department sits at $382.8 million in FY 2023–24, with a request of $387.2 million for FY 2024–25. (Colorado General Assembly)
And look at what’s driving that money: JBC staff notes that “discretionary appropriations, as well as transfers into continuously appropriated cash funds, are the largest driver of DOLA’s budget.” (Colorado General Assembly)
In plain English:
Legislature passes more Polis-era programs → DOLA becomes the place you park them → staff and complexity go up.
That doesn’t automatically equal “fraud.” But it does mean the department is less a neutral partner and more a vehicle for whatever the governor wants to push this session.
Nowhere is that clearer than in what’s happened to the Energy and Mineral Impact Assistance Fund.
Energy-Impact Money Turned Into Climate & Housing Leverage
The Energy and Mineral Impact Assistance Fund (EIAF) exists for a specific reason. DOLA’s own 2023 guidelines spell it out:
- Created to assist “political subdivisions that are socially and/or economically impacted by the development, processing, or energy conversion of minerals and mineral fuels.” Weld County produces 90% of the state’s oil/gas; thus, we’re impacted.
- Funded by severance taxes and federal mineral lease revenue.
- Money is to be used for “planning, construction, and maintenance of public facilities and for the provision of public services,” especially for communities affected by energy development.
So far, so good. That’s a fair deal: energy development causes impacts; energy-impact dollars help local communities deal with those impacts.
Then came the Polis-era “initiatives.”
In March 2024, DOLA announced three new EIAF carve-outs:
- Climate Resilience Challenge
- Main Street LIVE
- More Housing Now and Land Use Initiative (cdola.colorado.gov)
In DOLA’s own words, these initiatives are meant to help communities:
“integrate climate resilience, renewable energy, livability and long-term sustainability through bold, transformative projects.” (cdola.colorado.gov)
The Climate Resilience Challenge alone sets aside $10 million for “cutting edge climate work,” explicitly encouraging projects that advance “climate adaptation, climate mitigation solutions, and social equity.” (cdola.colorado.gov)
By 2025, a DOLA press release was celebrating that:
- EIAF awarded $35.9 million to 70 projects in one cycle,
- Including $6.0 million from the More Housing Now initiative, and
- $4.8 million from the Climate Resilience Challenge for “bold projects that advance cutting edge climate work,” such as solar-powered resiliency hubs and climate-focused upgrades. (cdola.colorado.gov)
Again: resiliency hubs and climate work may be perfectly fine projects. But ask yourself:
Is this still a fund primarily about fixing the direct local impacts of energy and mineral development – or is it being turned into a piggy bank for climate branding and state-directed housing policy?
When energy-impact dollars are underwriting “bold, transformative” climate and land-use experiments, while energy communities are still struggling with roads, water, and basic services… that’s how “green energy grift” looks in real life.
Weld County regularly applies for EIAF grants to work on the roads impacted by energy production – and we used to regularly get the full amount requested because Weld is where the energy is produced. (Duh) Today, it’s not as sure a bet. We’re not signaling enough green virtue.
The Rental Assistance Debacle: When Competence Takes a Back Seat
The culture shift isn’t just about mission creep. It’s also about management.
The Colorado Sun uncovered a brutal example in early 2024: the Polis administration, via DOLA’s Division of Housing, sat on millions in rental assistance while evictions climbed.
One Sun investigation reported:
- Lawmakers approved $8 million in additional rental assistance in March 2023.
- State officials then told renters and landlords not to apply, posting a red banner warning that emergency rental funds were essentially gone.
- Internally, officials later acknowledged the money could have been spent quickly on rent if the portal was reopened, but they pushed instead to redirect it into a new program and accounting maneuvers. (The Colorado Sun)
The Sun estimated the unused funds could have prevented roughly 1,500 evictions in 2023. (The Colorado Sun)
When lawmakers discovered what was going on, they were furious. This wasn’t some right-wing hit job – it was Democratic legislators grilling the governor’s team over why DOLA was essentially slow-walking help to people on the brink of eviction.
That’s not just “procurement law being hard.” That’s bad choices and bad priorities.
From “Local Affairs” to “Local Obedience”
Now layer on the housing fight.
In May 2025, Governor Polis signed an executive order that ties more than $100 million in state grants to whether cities and counties are enacting his preferred housing policies. (Colorado Public Radio)
Coverage from CPR and The Colorado Sun makes it simple:
- Cities and counties must prove they’re implementing new state housing laws (occupancy limits, ADUs, parking reforms, transit-oriented upzoning, etc.)
- Or they risk losing access to state grants in areas like transportation and energy. (Colorado Public Radio)
Axios later reported that the total grant money being leveraged climbed to around $280 million across 34 funding streams – all tied to whether local governments are “pro-housing” in the governor’s eyes. (Axios)
And this isn’t just theoretical:
- Colorado Politics notes that the executive order instructs agencies – including DOLA – to connect eligibility for funding to compliance with a long list of 2024–25 housing laws. (Colorado Politics)
- Axios quoted the Colorado Municipal League’s executive director saying municipalities “will not be bullied by an administration and legislature that gives lip service to local control but does not understand or respect home rule authority.” (Axios)
So the same department that used to help you replace a sewer line is now one of the sticks used to whack your community into line:
Follow Denver’s playbook on housing policy – or find yourself at the back of the line for your own taxpayers’ money.
That is a fundamental change in what “Local Affairs” is supposed to mean.
And all of this – housing policies and rental assistance – violate one of my baseline principles: Is meddling in housing even the proper role of government?! Government should make sure that code is simple – both building and zoning – and stand ready to plow the road for an easier process so the free and fair market may meet housing demands. The government does not create housing – the market does!\
The Big Picture
From my chair in Weld County, here’s what it looks like:
- DOLA used to be a partner that helped local communities do what they decided was needed – water, sewer, streets, basic facilities, and yes, some housing.
- Under Polis, DOLA is evolving into a compliance arm for a top-down agenda on housing and climate.
- Energy-impact money is being pulled into climate branding and housing initiatives that may or may not line up with the local impacts that generated those dollars in the first place.
- Rental programs have been run in ways that left Coloradans hanging while the administration tried to reshuffle the money.
Polis has said in various ways that local rules and local governments “get in the way” of his notion of progress. The executive orders, grant threats, and program design all say the same thing:
State knows best. Locals should fall in line.
And DOLA is now one of the tools to make that happen.
If you’re a local government trying to keep the water running and the roads drivable, you shouldn’t have to pass an ideological litmus test in Denver to get help.
“Local Affairs” should mean what it says on the door – not “Local Affairs, as long as you agree with the Governor.”
