From Steamboat Today (Steamboat Springs): It was more than two months after November’s school board election before the public understood the detailed spending of Front Range groups paying for campaign materials for two Steamboat Springs candidates.

A proposed bill working its way through the Colorado legislature would align school election campaign finance reporting with the Fair Campaign Practices Act.

Because school board elections are held in odd-numbered years, candidates and political committees aren’t required to report campaign finance information as frequently as candidates running for other offices or candidates running in even-numbered years, which can lead to sparse reporting at intervals that don’t make sense during the odd-year elections.

On Monday, Steamboat Springs Board of Education voted unanimously to pass a board resolution supporting House Bill 16-1282, which last week was referred from the House Committee on Appropriations to the Colorado House for consideration.

“(This) was something that I was really concerned with at the end of the last election cycle,” Michael Buccino, who ran for Steamboat Springs City Council in the fall, said to the school board Monday. “I just plead for your support on this.”

In January, campaign finance reports revealed that a Front Range political committee spent as much as $40,000 on campaign materials supporting school board candidates Margie Huron and Michelle Dover, who were both elected to the board in November.

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