Is child care an important part of patient care?

In Grand Junction, one hospital is investing $5 million in child care to support its workforce.

We take you behind the scenes of the powerful documentary, Helping Hands with exclusive filmmaker interviews and revealing insights from a special panel of insiders.

Stay with us.

Those stories and more.

Coming up next on Colorado Stories from studio 12.

From the Five Points Media Center in the heart of Denver, Colorado.

This is studio 12.

Good evening.

I'm bazi kanani Ryan.

Hair is out tonight.

And this is Colorado.

Stories from studio 12.

For many families, finding affordable, reliable childcare is a daily struggle.

But for hospital workers, that struggle can have consequences far beyond the home, affecting staffing, recruitment and ultimately, patient care.

In Grand Junction, one hospital is taking a different approach.

Helping hands is a new documentary in partnership with PBS 12.

It explores how a community hospital invested $5 million in a child care center for its employees, and what it could mean for the future of the health care workforce.

Here is helping Hands.

Large swaths of Colorado are licensed child care deserts.

When I moved to the Western Slope, there was no care, no availability for my daughter.

No matter how much I was willing to pay.

We couldn't even find a spot.

Were facing these closures, these disruptions all over the state and all over the country, which are throwing families into chaos.

It just felt like there was no right answer.

You can't get into a daycare.

The nanny will just turns.

There were times when I had gaps and childcare and would just have to leave by surgery.

On that day.

When you become a mother, your priority is your children.

But you also still have a priority of a career that you are very passionate about.

There are conflicting options.

You can get off your plate over there.

You have to put your kids on a wait list the day you find out you're pregnant, or if somebody decides to stay home, they can have that.

I am a family nurse practitioner in general surgery and obesity medicine.

I am the only one who does obesity medicine, so if patients aren't able to see me, then they do have to be rescheduled.

You pick up your shoes.

Yeah.

Oh, what happened is she was looking for her other shoe.

Oh, and for some patients, they've arranged childcare.

Their traveling from two, three hours away.

The number of times I thought through, like, do I need to back down my hours?

Do I need to take a pause on my career?

And what do you face?

There were several times where we had like half days with this person.

And then half days with another person.

And some of those actually, like last minute would quit on us too.

It was so much work.

I mean, you're texting between patients and you're stressed while you're talking to them, not knowing about tomorrow.

My first day back from maternity leave, my baby was having a hard time taking the bottle.

Even though we had practiced it.

And so she hadn't eaten all day long.

And that was very stressful for me.

My mental capacity did feel a little bit torn.

I got a call from the surgeon I worked with on the weekend while I was hanging out with my family, saying that something had happened related to eye surgery on that day.

I remember thinking, I have to look at every single order that I put in and what I did during that time when I knew that I was stressed about my child.

And everything was exactly how it should be.

I had put in, every order correctly, but that moment, that thought of whether I have the capacity to juggle all these things, that was very stressful.

And health care.

He already faced a lot of burnout.

And then when you have high emotional output in your career, and then also as a mother, it can feel like a lot.

Okay.

I'm the director of rehab services for community hospital.

You know, I am tasked with trying to make sure that we can get patients in as quickly as possible.

And that all revolves around how many schedules are open.

There's a lot of focus on care giver burnout.

That's a big challenge in health care right now.

I think there's less focus on the impact of child care involved in that burnout.

He's really.

You know, there's always a lot of movement.

We average about 5000 visits a month in the outpatient world, and with a significant amount of my staff having young kids.

So here's your bladder.

We can see how it's darker.

It was extremely challenging from a management standpoint to make that work really.

If they're having to think about how safe their child is, it's hard to do your job all day long when that is a huge focus at the end of the day.

You're kind of at the whim of what your town, what the valley provides.

Child care was the reason that we're losing really good candidates.

I was hearing the challenge of being a working parent.

Employees who were driving an hour each way for child care.

I saw employees mainly women, stepping away from careers that they had invested years and years and years in.

I care so much about it because it was a challenge for me as a mom and I feel like if you are in a position to make a change, you should try fit in.

How are you doing today?

It's just time.

Okay.

Child care very much feels like that readiness response of how are we taking care of employees and their families so they can, in turn, take care of the community?

How have you been feeling since the last time you saw us?

Fantastic looking and exhausting.

All possibilities.

The only option left was to build something onsite.

I was able to write a grant to the state of Colorado.

We received $800,000.

So that initial seed funding allowed us to then hire an architect.

We kept taking the next step forward.

We had plans, started out about a 10,000 square foot facility.

And, you know, then it became, well, how are we going to build it?

At that point is when we went to the board and we said, we have plans.

How are we going to get capital for this?

Our employees gave to this.

The strategy was to fully fund Adventure Academy.

We did.

From groundbreaking to opening.

It was about a 5,000,002 year process.

And.

Welcome to school.

I've seen children, you know, getting dropped off by their parents and their parents, able to turn around and walk across the street and go to work.

That was the hope.

That was what we had wanted to happen.

Baby, you're playing wow.

Our children at Community Hospital or are out in the backyard of community hospital and being taken care of and loved on and educated while our employees are here taking care of patients.

Adventure community was a major part of why we moved out here.

Having that predictable child care really affects not only the immediate family unit, but also then my ability to show up for patients who didn't sleep the night before because they're scared of the procedure they're having today.

And then if I cancel that, it's just it ripples out like a butterfly effect.

But.

I had a blockage in what they call the anterior descending artery, which is what we call a wheel maker.

They come in to the heart, they place stents.

Doctor Glover was the only one in the valley that can do that.

They did a calf procedure on me, had a managing a car issue, and managing getting kids to the childcare center to have him be able to come in and do that was remarkable, frankly.

After I got done with chemo, I had surgery, which was a double mastectomy with reconstruction.

I have friends that have gone to different hospital here, and because they don't have a surgeon at that hospital that can perform that surgery, this wasn't an option for them.

All right.

130 over 82 today, I think even better.

I'll go grab the doctor.

Thank you, Doctor Henderson.

It helps you feel whole again and makes you feel like a woman again.

From what cancer takes from you.

So I'm eternally grateful for her.

If I didn't have a reliable daycare, there's no way I could do the surgery that I needed to do that I could focus for that ten hours to get her the result that she now has.

I can't be worrying about my daughter when I'm doing complicated surgeries.

I have to be focused on my patient.

What this first year for child care can fill a lot of gaps.

I feel calm and relieve a lot of parents concerns with where their children are, who their children are with.

Are they learning?

And when we remove those concerns, then that parent can then go focus on their job and their work.

Understanding all of the ways in which child care actually is making something like a hospital run is really important.

You need there to be a strong child care system, and then we just have not made that visible.

It's absolutely fragile.

I'm a child care policy expert.

I'm the author of two books on the subject.

I'm also a father myself that is doing work around educational equity.

And I started to realize that while schools and teachers are vitally important, there's all of these other factors that leads to opportunity, many of which start at birth.

Lack of childcare is actually a cause of poverty in Colorado and around the country.

It can literally be the thing that trips families into poverty and into homelessness.

A parent who is is too many shifts because they're in an unstable childcare arrangement.

They get fired or unable to make rent, and then they're out in the streets.

And this is this happens happens in Colorado.

It happens across the country.

While the situation is dire, the solution isn't rocket science.

It's the same reasons schools work, the same reason fire departments work, the same reason libraries work.

The only way those places work.

The only way that any other country in this entire world has been able to make childcare work is through investments of public funding.

I do have trepidation about relying too much on employers to provide childcare services.

And if you think lose your job, lose your health care is a bad enough equation, try lose your job, lose your childcare.

Your community hospital should be commended and applauded for trying to step up.

And they're doing something real for the employees, and that is having real impacts.

And I think we need to properly place interventions like that as short term selves.

While we're fighting for a publicly funded system and we desperately need employers to be advocating for that system.

Providing onsite childcare is a piece of the puzzle.

How else can we keep our our talented employees and not just at community hospital, but across the community, right.

We had been part of local coalitions and conversations about what are we doing in our community to address this childcare shortage.

Different employers, different groups in town.

We're really trying to look at those solutions.

And for us, I then chose to just kind of say, what can we do?

Specifically at community Hospital Adventure Academy?

It's about a 5050 split of children who are our employees and children who are out in the community.

Like, we take care of each other, we take care of our patients, we take care of our community, and that's who we are.

You have to do it all by yourself.

Okay.

Like that?

Yeah.

Can you do it?

We literally just got into Adventure Academy 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Even in that time, I have felt such relief.

Our children know who their caregivers are.

It's light and refreshing environment.

White lightning streaks across the skies.

I ducked my head and close my eyes, just knowing they're right there and I can go visit them.

I can change the schedule and it won't be me piecing together a million texts and schedules and half days here and there is such a relief.

When you reassure employees that Adventure Academy is an option, you can kind of see the anxiety escape them.

Now.

They know that their children are safe and they can do their job, and they can focus on the things that really matter, which is patient care.

Having stable childcare is what affords the society to run efficiently.

I mean, everybody that runs in a society needs to have that stability, otherwise it just doesn't function appropriately.

Wanting to pursue a career or needing to pursue a career is not a failure on your part.

We have a failure of systems.

Do I want to be an amazing employee or do I want to be an amazing mom?

Okay, anyways, we should be able to say we can figure that out.

When we can't provide the education and the growth and development that our children need.

That's our future.

To learn more about Colorado's childcare challenges and potential solutions, visit Child Care Works.

Echo.com.

We hope tonight's documentary has shed new light on the challenges facing child care here in Colorado.

And now we're taking the conversation a step further with interviews with the filmmakers behind Helping Hands to explore what inspired them to tell this story.

The idea for Helping Hands started with my own experience with my daughter.

My daughter has been battling bone cancer for five years and she's a teenager.

I spent a lot of time in hospitals, and I have a lot of conversations with nurses and Kias, and some of them say, oh, you know, they talk about their lives.

And they said, I just had a baby.

And I'll ask them, where is your baby when you're working as a nurse?

And it's night shift.

And their answers across the board have been, well, on Tuesdays they're with my husband or with my mom, and then we can afford only one day of childcare.

And I only work, you know, 3 or 4 shifts.

So it's working out.

But it's such a patchwork.

So when we set out to tell the story of Helping Hands, that's what came to me.

It's like it's this whole layer cake of care.

And child care is the very first layer I consider as soon as we started meeting with people and talking with them, everyone had a story.

It was almost overwhelming how much how much there was.

There.

These problems are out there, but nobody really knows what to do with them.

There's not a magic bullet.

It seems to solve the problem of child care to find affordable, accessible, quality child care.

That way, if the person that I was interviewing didn't have kids, they work with somebody who did, who could be impacted by them not being on their A-game, them not showing up for work.

And they're just a team in that way.

And, I mean, even from a schedule management point of view, it's so tricky when, you know, a manager makes a schedule and then that gets interrupted and disrupted because someone has to, call in, they can't come because they, their nanny isn't available or they've lost child care access and so they have to stay home.

And I don't know how businesses can run well enough with that kind of problem persisting.

And so what community hospital has done is that at least give them a solution adjacent to the hospital that makes that go away.

What do I want people to take away from this?

That solutions are possible, that we can listen to each other?

I think when I think about Tommy specifically, she heard a problem and decided she could be a person to do something about that problem.

And tonight, we're in a room full of people that might be able to do something to.

Everyone relies on child care in some way.

Just seems like this community collectively is ready for a better solution.

At a recent screening of the Helping Hands documentary here in Denver.

There was also a panel discussion with state lawmakers and nonprofit and community leaders.

The discussion brought together different perspectives for a deeper understanding of the state of child care in Colorado.

We also spoke with Gary Community Ventures about child care and their role in this project.

Here are those conversations.

This isn't a debate, okay?

I just want to make sure that there be really clear on that.

Because this is about a conversation.

We're trying to find things out.

It's always surprising, a pleasant surprise to see, you know, when people across different areas of our community, across different political spectrums, do actually agree on quite a bit.

When it comes to childcare and the importance of childcare to the workforce, I was really excited to see the entire panel, be very singularly focused in the same direction.

That kids need opportunities to thrive and be healthy, be safe.

And that there are solutions out there to make this happen.

But tonight really showed that we have quite a bit in common when it comes to the business community when it comes to, you know, political elected officials and different parties and even those who are serving families in the community wanting to come together to address us.

It's just refreshing to have these conversations and to get into the the details of some of these issues.

Just seeing how many people, regardless of your background and kind of work your political leanings are or where you're coming at, this from, everybody still seem to be invested and on the same page in terms of like, this is something we really need to be thinking about and something we need to do something about.

It feels good to know that people, regardless, are caring about this.

I could not do this job without access to child care.

When I think about how difficult it is for my family to make it work financially, in knowing what the average salary is and what families are facing now and rising costs is absolutely I. It's just untenable.

There is nine key audiences that the data really showed us as we looked through over the years that, not only did they not understand the issues facing our child care system, but they didn't understand the ways in which our child care issues were impacting them.

Personally, when parents are paying, 20 grand a year to, try to afford child care, and when our child care providers are making an average of $20 an hour.

This solution of this is only being a kids and families problem, and a child care provider problem doesn't seem to you anymore.

Like a lot of it has to do with, public education about what early childhood is, what child care is.

I think there's still this feeling that, maybe, maybe these early years that's a little different than K-12 education.

And sure, there are differences, but it's just as important.

And so much brain development happens in those first five years of life.

Those first eight years of life, those first six months of life that, I think we really need to educate people more around just just how important it is and how how much more there is to it than just just caring, just just being there for the kids.

You know, I see so many families, arrive with their child, just turning four and not realize that Colorado has a free preschool system.

It it's it's a general awareness piece.

And so what can Colorado do more to educate, make folks aware of what opportunities are out there in my community.

Greeley.

Evans.

Windsor.

I would call it a childcare surplus.

I have openings in every single age room infant, toddler, three year olds, four year olds, school age programs.

I have openings today.

You can start your child tomorrow in every single one of those classrooms.

And I would love to have parents know that those opportunities are there and that they're they're not just in my space, but in other spaces, too, and that the choices are out there.

They just need to research them, understand what fits best for their family, for their kids, and then go for it.

We just need to invest better.

We need to prioritize better.

And I feel like that is all within reach.

I'd love to see childcare embedded in all of those different plans and aspects of our communities across the board, getting out into the world and having conversation with folks, getting into the types of rooms that we're going to have tonight.

And to have conversations gives us a lot more nuanced pathways to truth than than reading stuff on a on a digital device and taking it as fact.

We know we have lots of competing priorities and lots of things to talk about in our state when it comes to how we spend the money and how we address the needs of our population.

But at the end of the day, understanding how child care does become an economic multiplier for our state, and investing in better affordability and access to child care for families also frees up spending in other areas and allows people to return to work or, you know, be more productive in their jobs or even just be a healthier and happier family.

We can talk about how important childcare is, but if we don't want to change the tax system and we don't actually want to prioritize this, if we don't want to invest at the federal level, I then it's not you're not going to be able to change our broken system.

We're all ultimately a part of the same community, and we all really need to be willing to take care of each other as a community.

So, you know, I started out as a community organizer 18 years ago.

You can make a lot of change at the local level, by getting involved, by working with your school board, by working with your city councilors.

You know, when when we talk about dedicating funding at the local level, you at the city council level can work to ensure that your city council is going to support funding for child care, that they'll support upfront funding, for new facilities to help with costs.

You know, these are things that we can come together on and, you know, sending ballot measures to to citizens of asking them if they would, you know, if they're willing to pay a little bit more to make sure that our kids are set up for success.

Hi there.

Have you voted yet?

Colorado.

Don't let the days get away from you.

Because it's just one week from tonight when we will know who will lead Colorado going forward and what measures on our long ballot will actually come to be.

Here's one of the conversations from our most recent Colorado Inside Out to take in.

If you are still toying over what is at stake, two other proposed amendments on Colorado's ballot would change how elections work in the state, but in very different ways.

Amendment 84 would require voters to include the last four digits of their Social Security number or their Colorado driver's license number, or their ID number on the outside of their mail ballot envelope.

Amendment 85 calls for state and local ballot questions to be written in plain language, at no more than an eighth grade reading level.

Both would amend the Colorado Constitution.

So penfill.

That means each needs 55% of the vote to pass to make it happen.

Right.

And the problem with each of them is, first, neither of them needs to be in the state constitution.

That's the number one.

The problem with 84 is, in my opinion, it is a continuation of the Trump election security fraud mess that's going on.

We don't do it now.

We don't need it in the future.

You don't need to put some digits of your Social Security number, your driver's license on a ballot.

And most people don't want to have their ballot tracked that way to begin with.

So that's just unnecessary.

It is intended to suppress the vote, to discourage people from voting, when there's no proven problem with widespread voting fraud.

With regard to the other amendment.

I agree.

If you can require ballot measures, be written as clearly and simply as possible.

I'm off for that.

Doesn't need to be in the Constitution.

What I think is more important is to come up with the system, to make sure that the advertisements and the marketing of some of these proposals be in plain English and be verified and truthful.

I see different TV stations do fact checking.

It has become appalling how some of these ads, whether you're pro or con, they just flat out lie about stuff.

And that's disturbing and distressing because in the participatory democracy that we have accuracy, truth and facts are sort of what they depend on for the people to make good, rational decisions.

We don't have that anymore.

I think Penfield made a fair point about some of the disingenuousness to falsities that you can get from ads on either side.

However, I don't think government is particularly the rubric of deciding how and what individuals and organizations should be putting in their ads.

That gets to me to being too much of a free speech regulation.

Then we should have in our elections.

However, when it comes to amendment 85, I'll start there.

I think it is good initiative in particularly because we have so many ballot initiatives that do get confusing in and of themselves if you're at your kitchen table.

Thankfully, by the way, we have a mail ballot system where you can be at your kitchen table and you can do some research and take the time, as opposed to being in a ballot box and having to make a spur of the moment decision on 14 statewide initiatives and everything else.

But I think the this, the simpler and clearer that we can make these initiatives, including anything coming from the legislature, the better.

And that's why it needs to be an amendment, because that provides an added check as well for any legislative where the legislature puts an initiative onto the ballot.

As for amendment 84, we have one of the best, most robust security systems for our elections in the entire country, in Colorado.

That doesn't mean that they cannot or should not be improved, and that this is necessarily a bad idea.

I think adding additional layers of security to make sure that those who are voting are legitimate voters.

I don't think that's a bad idea.

I'm favorable to amendment 84, particularly to add a little more confidence in our elections and add an additional security feature.

At the same time, you can support that and recognize that we have a really good system.

I don't think it will pass though.

Okay.

All right.

Patty.

Let me agree with Jimmy a little tiny bit, which is we have a very good election system.

92% of the voters in Colorado vote by mail.

I don't think 92% of them want to write their driver's license, last four numbers or their Social Security numbers on their their envelope when they return it.

We don't need it.

We don't have a problem.

It actually could inject more problem because you would have to be checking them when they come in.

So I think 84 is a nonstarter.

Same thing for 85.

And every time I talk about this, I talk at a first grade level because I can't even figure out what an eighth grade level is.

And that's part of the problem.

Do we need to say what the eighth grade level should be in the Constitution?

I don't think we say what education level should be in the Constitution, what an eighth grader should know.

So we don't need that.

We do need clear ballot measures.

I don't think this one is particularly clear or useful.

I think both of these have a superficial appeal to them, and I would not be surprised if either or both of them passed, even with the 55% threshold.

And yet I'm going to argue against each one of them somewhat agreeing with Penfield and Patty with regard to 84.

It strikes me there's a there's a core cynicism here, which is the people of some of the people behind this amendment are affiliated with others who have spent all this time trying to erode the confidence in our the security of our system, even though the Colorado system is highly, highly secure.

And having eroded that confidence through all the election fraud stolen election garbage, they now come up with an amendment that says because confidence is eroded, we need this measure, we need this extra layer of protection.

I think that's fundamentally cynical with regard to 85.

Yes.

Everyone wants ballot measures to be as clear as possible.

Public policy can be complex.

And, yes, you want to boil it down to understandable terms, but I don't think you want to get rid of all the complexity out of complex issues.

As we close tonight's show, we bring you part two of our series on Colorado's competitive future.

Here are Franny Matthews and our partners at cobalt.

With more.

This presentation of the business in Colorado is made possible by the generous support of Collegiate Peaks Bank, Colorado Business Roundtable, Ibotta, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

This is PBS 12 Dawgs.

Donate to support this work.

Last week we looked at some of the competitive challenges facing Colorado.

Now we turn to the other side of the conversation.

Colorado has a lot going for it.

We have talent, research, strong industries and a culture that values innovation and collaboration.

But having those assets isn't enough.

How do we connect them?

How do we give innovation room to thrive?

How do we turn great ideas into businesses and jobs?

Our panel includes Debbie Brown, president of the Colorado Business Roundtable.

Lesley Oliver of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Rich Warner, president and CEO of Upstate Colorado Economic Development.

And Wendy Lee, an amazing ecosystem builder.

Christine Heights, CEO of Colorado Thrives, moderates the conversation.

Here's part two of our conversation on Colorado's competitiveness.

Really thinking about Colorado's unique assets and strengths.

There's clearly our natural resources, our natural resource, which is a beautiful, amazing state where people want to live, work and play with a great weather, great environment.

Right.

We get a lot of regional headquarters or regional offices that attract because of our lifestyle city.

We have amazing anchor industries that have sources of distinction that nobody can beat.

We have aerospace and defense, we have bioscience.

We have, manufacturing quantum, some of these advanced technology.

So, you know, part of it is what strikes me the conversation.

It's amplifying what is uniquely Colorado and really leaning in to make that a source of strength to put a competitive moat, if you will, around it.

So nobody can touch us.

What I'm also hearing there's some opportunities or maybe challenges that are cross-cutting to every state.

Geopolitical was one, I was another.

And I think part of that framing could be how do we as Colorado, take what might be a challenge and actually make it into an assertive opportunity and when to use that word assertive or proactive?

How do we organize to make it a source of strength or have a disproportionate impact here in the state?

Our group is talking a lot about AI and talent right now, and how do we acknowledge and really understand the real fears of what it might do to individuals?

But really, as a state embrace, how do we take agency, get ahead of this amazing technology, and really think about how it can democratize access to great business growth, technology, startups and opportunities for people.

So there's this interesting, juxtaposition, if you will, of our unique strengths.

And then how do we actually proactively organize around a few important topics.

And AI is a foundational layer for all of these technologies and for creativity.

Remember we had Sundance and how hard it was for us to win that particular opportunity.

That's billions of dollars of economic value, billions and new growth relative to post production and the kinds of businesses that are important to independent film.

But AI is a great example because it can be part of all industries.

It's an internal thing.

It's an external thing, and it spurs creativity.

And it has to be it has to be guardrails.

I understand that, like many other technologies, I'm not saying, oh, let's go wild with it.

I'm saying let's take advantage of it and be mindful of the policies around it and all the other requirements that we think the administration, federal administration is going to do.

But we should do, too.

But I think it's a wonderful opportunity for us, and it really sparks creativity.

It's not just about efficiency and we need more of that in our state.

You know, in the fall I always think about Broncos.

And so I'm reminded, you know, you're talking an offense strategy to some degree of our state when we're also in the mind, shift of okay, we're in a defensive posture sometimes in the business community of what's been happening.

Rich, to your point, the last ten years or so, just the trends.

We recently talked with our, counterpart in Ohio.

Ohio was named the number one state to do business, according to CNBC.

And I wanted to know more about that.

You know, some of it was around permitting speed to market, you know, their infrastructure, capabilities that they've invested in, to some degree.

So I kind of think about the defense posture.

How do we shore up again?

To some degree, this layering effect or regulation that is kind of a wet blanket over to some degree the business climate.

How do we think about how do we, sure that up we don't want to have to be in a defensive posture all the time.

We need the best ecosystem of all the free market system to actually have less barriers to entry, less barriers to success in, in our, business climate here.

And then we're freed up to think about all the often strategies we can have around, investing in things that, spurs innovation, entrepreneurship, you know, a whole new catalyst for the kind of ecosystem we want to see here.

But but in terms of kind of defense and offense, I think we've got to be mindful of both sides of that coin.

The saying get less with more or get more with less sorry is I mean, that's what we're really talking about is we don't have to have, a regulation for every pencil.

We don't have to have a regulation for, for, something that's already regulated and duplicating efforts that we've already got measures and guardrails in place on.

And so, again, is how do we as we're looking towards the future and looking for where we can go on offense, where we can spur innovation, creativity, opportunity.

Sometimes going on offense means doing less to get more.

Any response to that?

You know, we do a lot of work in the business advocacy side of things.

And it would be nice if we could just let our businesses go about the course of making products, have every day and generating the tax base that helps fund our schools and our towns and our infrastructure.

But we could look very, very specifically at what has been happening, particularly in the legislature over the past few years.

And the road is paved with good intentions.

And it is, it is a really important part of the ethos of Colorado to be aspirational.

But when we have a system that we all applaud at that they are going to now look once every five years that the regulations we've passed.

That's a fantastic thing to do.

But if we are introducing as legislators 750 bills every year, and then we're going to look at them every five years, that's a lot of regulations to go through.

And this is where it becomes hard.

And we need to really, really think about what is good not for our businesses, not in a Republican way, not in a Democratic way, but in supporting businesses that are right for our communities.

And there is no one size fits all approach.

But we know when we support industries, great things can happen.

We've mentioned quantum here and the state very, very deliberately invested and passed legislation to support that industry.

And that industry is thriving.

We see the opposite side where we have baseline industries like the energy industry, which is faced with regulation, overregulation, overregulation.

We don't need to get specific about that.

We just need to do a better job so that when a company shows up on our doorstep, or more importantly, when a company that's already here wants to expand and they're making a decision on where to expand, they stay here.

They choose here because of the certainty of the environment that helps them open their doors.

So so we've talked maybe to bring some of these pieces together, because we've had a pretty wide ranging set of, themes that that have been brought up around, you know what, what will make this work.

And we're at a interesting inflection point with the business community coming together right now at a, I think, a more pointed moment.

We have a new administration, new legislators coming in.

If Colorado gets this right, what are 2 to 3 things that you would see in the next, say, four years that would look like a win on the back end?

What can we accomplish together in the next several years?

Speed to market, as you talked about is, is getting getting businesses and organizations of all sizes.

85% of our members at the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce are small businesses, right.

Getting them enabled to do the thing that they want to do.

And this is I mean, this isn't just for profit businesses either.

This is our nonprofit.

This is organizations of all types have to go through a list of at least 10 to 15, if not 20 different things just to start and exist.

Businesses.

Organizations want to exist because there is a need in our community.

They want to hire people.

They want to put people to work.

They want to pay them well.

They want to contribute.

They want to solve a need that comes down to speed, to market.

So it is I mean, it's at the macro level.

It's permitting.

It's it's regulated regulation, satisfaction, things like that.

But at the micro level too, of, of just what it takes to file the paperwork to start and get going to, to serve our neighbors across the street.

I mean, that's and that's what we get.

Right?

And I think you're right about that.

All Coloradans have to benefit from a bold vision.

And if government, our state government could design itself around that vision and ensure that communities are being served even as a business was a primary concern.

And it doesn't seem that hard, it just seems like we need to realize where we are, which we do.

We're now collecting all the voices that we have the good fortune to collect with this council.

I'm sure there will be other councils as we go along and put down a blueprint that is aligned with something that gets people excited.

I think it's very doable.

I do think there's some elements, though, that need to be stated and expressed and amplified and repeated so we can get aligned and get our energy going in the same direction instead of diffused and sad.

And it doesn't work and it's not good.

Well, we're going to fix that.

But you can't fix it unless you decide the vision and then how the downstream is going to come from that vision.

And that's what I see happening.

That's why I'm excited because I see that happening there is a quote there that reminds me of that.

I recently heard that just stuck in my brain, which is choose wisely and execute relentlessly.

So I'm creating the school scorecard, speed to market, which includes regulatory burden, intentional, clear strategy that gets people excited.

What would you to add?

I'll just throw out, maybe taking a big picture.

Look, we say a lot at Colorado Business Roundtable.

That business is a force for good.

Sometimes my people get tired of me saying it, but business is a force for good.

If I could wave a magic wand and in four years, have that sentiment be more than just Leslie and I and a handful of other business leaders and have it be more broad based?

Again, it's not a Democrat or Republican issue, but if we see that, again, business isn't perfect.

But how is business a force for good in our community?

Do we want to see them thriving and growing?

If we could change to some degree the rhetoric, and then we're at a starting place where we can think about the tactics.

But if we just think business is bad or they're out for number one, all the time, if that's if that's where the starting point, I think we're never going to get there.

So to elevate that, then we can talk about all the tactics, Christine, that you're so good at.

But I'm up for all those tactics.

But I think we have to come together around that.

Let's start with that first, I love it.

Create a table where everybody feels like they're working together.

I think about we're working together around a round table, looking at each other, building versus a square table where your us versus them.

Right.

And and one way that business can be viewed as good is by being more community minded.

Right.

And to when when we say business, we don't mean just big business.

We don't mean just tech business.

We mean all business.

And it fuels other things.

And if we don't have the tax revenue from business, then we can't do some of the programs we must do to ensure prosperity for all.

So I do think there's a there there, just don't know how it fits in to the new administration or, and in our particular report that we're working on.

But I think it is very important.

But it's it's the big word, the business word, I think that sometimes causes other folks to pause because I think, well, what kind of business?

My business.

I just have a coffee shop.

I don't have a quantum company.

I don't have a space company.

I alter clothes or I fix cars.

Or like, in my world, all business is good business.

Absolutely.

Every, every single kind.

And our business starts are down.

Let's just look at that.

They're down.

And I remember right after Covid, I mean, they went up because people had to figure it out, like how to make a living and business starts where that is not the case.

Now that worries me to death because when small business goes down, our state goes down.

And we have to understand that we have 850,000 or so, a significant part of our GDP.

But I worry that.

So I wonder why that is.

I don't know, but I wonder why that is.

We have to sort that out as much as we have to keep our big businesses here, we have to sort out the foundation of our economy, which are small businesses.

So we have, approximately 35 communities in my region.

Every one of the different size we've got small communities, rural communities, large, large cities.

But the one thing that holds true in all of this is everybody needs a good job, everyone needs a place to live.

And we could spend an another hour talking about demographics and how we're adjusting those things.

But what's important is that as decisions are being made at the state level, they understand the economics of how a tax dollar flows, of what programs are being implemented or necessary to support every citizen.

And so a real easy discussion to start having or and it is occurring.

But the problem that needs to be solved, as we all feel every day, the pain in our pocketbooks, whether we are renting or paying a mortgage or going to the grocery store, is how much does it cost for me to live in this state?

And if you look back historically at the permitting and the lack of permitting in the construction industry and the regulations that are put on our builders before they even start, and I'm not talking about one segment of housing.

I'm talking about all segments.

And every community has different priorities as to the need of the type of housing.

But if that those numbers aren't working, start there and and make sure when you say, what does, successful Colorado look like ten years from now, it's that we are building housing that a kid who just graduated with a degree can afford to buy, because that doesn't exist right now.

And we've got to fix that problem.

We've got to fix the daycare issue so that we work.

Hallelujah.

We work right.

We work with manufacturers who have now, changed their shift schedules so that one parent can come and work 30 plus hours in a weekend.

They call it, they call it the kids shift.

The students shift.

Right.

So so there are these really unique things that our employers are adjusting to.

Those are employers who are nimble and want to bring in the workforce that is creating that tax base.

I'm going to pull some of these threads together.

And one of the things that I'm frankly really energized by as a group of people that talks with business leaders, works with businesses across Colorado, is there's optimism, there's ownership, there's dignity and work and starting and growing a business.

Right.

And we should acknowledge that, and there are some tangible ways that we can come together.

I'm feeling the sense of the culture of coming together, maybe as part of the close.

You know, I'm leaving optimistic.

Are there any words that are at the front of your brains that this conversation has left you?

When you think about competitiveness in Colorado, our business community, and frankly, the trajectory of our state?

I'm leaving determined, I think, and that that is a good Colorado.

Colorado word for us is and and what it takes for this state and what it's always taken for the state, to to grow and thrive and prosper and, you know, I think, I think everybody is determined to make this work and to collaborate and build together for each other, with each other.

We all want the same goals.

Pretty sure we all want the same goals, right?

We want a place where we can afford to live, keep our kids here, find good jobs that pay well, that allow us to be creative and innovative and lead the way.

And I think we've got the right, the right pieces in place.

We just need to we need to tie it all together.

And I think the work of this group and, and other business leaders and other community leaders across our state, I think we're determined to do that.

I love that when I wake up, I think we have to have clear, compelling expectations of our state, like we and we have to not be afraid of debate, you know, just to me, we got off track a little bit because we are all agreeing with everyone about everything, and it wasn't going well.

And so every now and then you just have to sit down and look at it closely with intention and say, okay, let's have a debate about this.

I think your comment about how the tax dollar flows is very important.

I set for five years on the governor's, it's a activity, a revenue activity, innovation.

You know, committee learned so much, learned so much about budgeting and our state.

I knew nothing about that.

Nothing.

First, you have to educate and communicate to your citizens the current state of play and words they understand in ways that hurt them or help them.

I think that's what we've kind of, you know, we just need to get back to that level of basic and then listen, continue to listen and learn and make changes and iterate.

I mean, because we're entrepreneurs, right?

That's what our state's around.

So not everything's going to be fixed like this.

So you got to set the right expectations.

But you have to give it a go.

But iteration is the key to innovation.

And we need intention now today before we get into all that iteration and innovation.

Right.

We need to know what we're trying to accomplish overall.

So I'm very I'm a stay on the sunny side of the street, to be honest.

But I am learning how to appreciate debate because I want to be the student, a good student of the game.

And the game we're in right now is complex.

It is global.

And so we've got to stay aware of all that, right?

Because if we don't, we're not going to make the right choices to help.

Well, hopefully we can all stay on the sunny side of the streets very quickly that the winter come and go with a song.

That's right.

Yeah.

Any other reflections or words that pop to mind as we're we're getting to the.

Yeah, synthesis of the conversation.

I'll just wrap it up.

I think I come to this work and especially the governor's Competitiveness Council, which we talked about a little bit.

It has been a very complex summer, Wendy, working on these things.

And we're hoping to launch some very tactical recommendations again on how to make our state better.

There's a gratefulness to that because I want to stay in Colorado.

I choose Colorado, but the urgency is real.

You know, when we represent a lot of larger employers here in the Denver metro region who have lots of places to go, you know, across the country, they're in all 50 states.

They're global.

They're looking at this environment and to some degree, just back to the football analogy, I think we're on the third down.

There's an urgency to the work in making sure that we stay as competitive as possible and that we're treating, employers here.

Well, we're inviting new employers in with, the welcome mat, so to speak.

And we and we don't take that lightly.

So I think we're at a pivotal time.

And I want to approach it with some gratefulness and some curiosity as well.

But, there's there's definitely urgency to the work to make sure that we're giving trusted, candid feedback to policymakers on what affects business climate here in Colorado.

I feel the grace of urgency for sure.

Every day, time and time again, we see that communities that invest in themselves flourish.

And so the state needs to look at that model as well.

And what we what we see is there is significant debate over a lot of these issues.

But if we are truly going to support our ecosystems here, we have to invest in that underlying infrastructure or all of this.

This talk is is it's all a moot point.

I have the opportunity to travel around the country.

I see states that are flourishing and I see states that are in decline.

And there are very distinct patterns to both.

Well thank you.

I don't know about you all, but being around this table with leaders who are leaning in, spending a lot of your personal and work time on these issues and really investing in the place we all call home, it leaves me really grateful and frankly, wanting to bet on Colorado and the trajectory, hearing things like grateful, determined.

I expectations optimistic with curiosity and urgency.

Right.

I think these are all themes and, frames that we can push forward and hopefully in partnership with the public sector, see some real change in Colorado.

So thank you for your time, and I look forward to following up as we get to work here.

Hare Krishna all right.

Thank you.

Thank you guys.

There's a lot to think about in this conversation.

Colorado like most places, has challenges, but we also have a strong foundation.

The question is what do we do with it?

Can we provide more predictability?

Can we reduce unnecessary complexity?

Can we as a state, come together and pursue bold ideas?

Because Colorado's competitiveness isn't just about business, it's about whether people can build careers, raise families, and see a future for themselves right here in our state.

Since recording this roundtable discussion, the Governor's Competitiveness Council delivered their official recommendations in their roadmap for Shared Prosperity.

The 45 page report consists of seven sections.

It was assembled by a who's who of business and community leaders, many of whom we've interviewed right here on PBS 12 Colorado.

This group developed 49 specific recommendations across six areas regulatory reform and execution, tax and fiscal policy, capital and scale, talent and workforce affordability, and housing and infrastructure, and site readiness all the same topics discussed during our roundtable.

The report is available as a PDF download, and you can access it for yourself by visiting.

Competitive colorado.com.

This presentation of the Business of Colorado was made possible by the generous support of Collegiate Peaks Bank, Colorado Business Roundtable, Ibotta, and by viewers like you.

Thank you is a PBS 12.org/donate to support this work.