The supervisory board of the Pikes Peak Workforce Center agreed on July 27 to settle a lawsuit with the Colorado Department of Labor & Employment stemming from a dispute over a $1.9 million grant made to a now-defunct Colorado Springs nonprofit.
The El Paso/Teller Counties Consortium Executive Board approved a resolution to settle the suit filed last year against the labor agency and the Colorado Department of Personnel & Administration seeking judicial review of an order to repay a state grant. The board also agreed in a resolution to repay nearly $285,000 in duplicate expense reimbursements from the state labor agency over the next two years.
Approval of the two resolutions comes a week after the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners agreed to pay $1.24 million from its Risk and Self-Insurance Fund on behalf of the workforce center to settle the 1½-year dispute on July 21. County officials agreed to make the payments after the state labor agency began offsetting the disputed amounts with funds from state grants to unrelated county departments.
“I disagree with CDLE and the process used here. I am not happy with them. They have been very unethical in what they have done, but I understand we have to move on.”
Bob Campbell, Vice Chairperson, Teller County Board of County Commissioners
The three-page resolution said the settlement and payments made to the state labor agency “shall not be construed as an admission of liability, wrongdoing, fraud, misuse of funds, noncompliance with any applicable law or regulation or the correctness of CDLE’s audit findings or process, and shall not waive or release any claims, defenses, rights, remedies or insurance coverage positions.”
Background
In early 2022, the Colorado Department of Labor & Employment made $2.52 million in ARPA grants to the Pikes Peak Workforce Center. The center awarded $1.9 million of those funds in 2023 to the Opus Collective to pay and provide training to unemployed and underemployed childcare, restaurant and other workers affected by the pandemic.
A 2024 state audit questioned and disallowed $828,371.78 in costs, mostly for lack of documentation of time and effort by Opus managers and a consultant. The state agency also disallowed another $412,722.01 in expenses because Opus’ federal contracting identity number had expired.
Philadelphia Insurance, the workforce center’s former insurer, agreed to pay $100,000 toward the settlement but then notified the center it would not renew its coverage on July 1. County officials did not learn of the possible insurance gap until mid-June and scrambled to find other coverage, eventually becoming part of the county’s Risk and Self-Insurance Fund.