BOCC: IT Outsourced,
Unfunded Mandates

BOCC Meeting Report
– August 27, 2025

by Michael Foster

The most recent, regularly scheduled Board of County Commissioners’ (BOCC) Meeting was held at All Aboard Westcliffe on Wednesday, August 27th at 9 a.m. Chaired by Commissioner Bill Canda, all three commissioners were present, as well as Sheriff Rich Smith, a handful of citizens, and other staff members from various county departments. The agenda presented held a variety of issues to be addressed, with several votes taking place during the meeting.
In opening comments, Commissioner Canda started the substantive portion of the meeting by highlighting the Sheriff’s Office execution of a search warrant at the Veteran’s Service Office as was reported in last week’s edition of The Sentinel. Commissioner Lucas Epp stressed the needs and challenges being faced by the Workforce Housing Committee and the Custer County Kid’s Council and how those two groups are working together to help create solutions to shared problems. Commissioner Paul Vogelsong provided comments, which were echoed by Commissioner Canda, on the poor condition of roads in the county especially given recent heavy rainfalls.
IT Director Vernon Roth kicked off the only topic in the Unfinished Business category, by providing an update on the issue of the county selecting a future IT Service provider. Vernon provided a detailed overview of the two companies previously selected as finalists in the process and what he viewed as pros and cons of the respective
proposals they submitted. After some commentary and questions from the commissioners and public comment, a vote was taken. The commissioners voted unanimously to award PDS IT Services a contract to provide IT services and support to the county starting in 2026. The base cost of the contract was around $134,000. This decision means that starting with the new year, the county will have only one full-time employee, John Mapes, working in the IT department.
John will continue to be the on-site IT tech for things like
hardware replacement, email setups and budget.  He will also be responsible for the duties of the Geographical  Information Systems (GIS).
According to Vernon, the contracted IT services will cover things like new computer setup, backups and restores, the complete Cyber-Security operations and monitoring suites, as well as data migration for projects. They will also do yearly PIN tests to evaluate the safety and vulnerabilities in our network. Vernon will still coordinate certain financial aspects of IT to include billing.
New Business items commenced with a review of accounts payable (current total was $108,041.98) by Commissioner Epp and a review of the County Treasurer’s Report for June. Those items were approved and accepted unanimously by the commissioners. The commissioners then received several briefings and updates from various groups on issues ranging from the leasing and outfitting of county vehicles, funding for the rotary van, to the operations of air medical evacuations in the county.
Sheriff Smith provided a presentation of a proposal for Custer County to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the town of Silver Cliff for the adoption and implementation of an automated parking citation system. Sheriff Smith said the adoption of this system would decrease the time and cost currently associated with enforcing parking violations and the initial focus would be on handicap designated parking spaces. He also stated that it was probable that Westcliffe would pursue a similar action with the county. The proposal was passed by the commissioners without dissent.
The last and arguably most important topic of the day was discussion surrounding Custer County’s position
on unfunded state mandates. Com-missioner Canda noted the uptick in mandates from the Colorado Legislature that come without sup-porting funding. He highlighted that Colorado Revised Statute 29-1-304.5 was unambiguous in its guidance that the state must provide funding for any mandate that establishes a new service or increases the level of a service beyond the existing level required by law.
Commissioner Epp emphasized that, “from what I have heard, this has never been tested in Colorado Supreme Court”, even though this statute has been in place since 1991. Commissioner Epp went on to state that it was his belief that a majority of counties in Colorado were in the same boat as Custer County and supported taking action against the State. County Attorney Dan Slater commented that the “issue has also been a point of discussion for quite a while on the county attorney’s email list”, but agreed that he also believes that violation of the mandate hasn’t been challenged in state court. Slater also went on to summarize one of the major points of the issue being the question of can a legislature in 1991 dictate what Colorado’s legislature in 2025 can and cannot do.
Talk amongst the commissioners centered around the county’s inability to fiscally keep up with the rising costs associated with unfunded state mandates, regardless of whether or not they thought the mandate was “good” or “bad” for the county. In a vote of 3-0, the commissioners agreed to the drafting of a letter to Governor Polis outlining the county’s position to Colorado’s violation of CRS 29-1-304.5 with the specifics of the letter to be decided in a future workshop.
This issue, and how it is resolved at the state and local level is one to keep an eye on. Another thing to keep an eye on in upcoming BOCC
meetings is all things around the county’s 2026 budget.