Legislative staffers in Colorado are employees of the state tasked with supporting the function of the Colorado General Assembly and the members who comprise that body. With very few exceptions, these personnel are non-partisan public servants. Colorado employs a total of 345 legislative staff across various functions.
Types of staff members
NCSL classifies Colorado's legislative staff members into five broad categories:
Member staff, who work for individual members of the General Assembly, Administrative staff, who support numerous functions of the legislature, Committee staff, who serve House and Senate committees as well as the Joint Budget Committee, Communications and leadership staff, who work for the majority and minority parties, Legal service staff, who provide legal advice and draft and revise statutory language.
Member staff
Member staff, also called personal staff, are individuals who work directly for a specific legislator. These staffers serve at the pleasure of their respective state representative or senator and their employment with the state ends once their legislator leaves office or is defeated in an election. While technically the employment of these individuals is approved or denied by the Secretary of the Senate or the Chief Clerk of the House, selections are generally made independently by each elected official.
Common staff titles include: Legislative Aide, Legislative Assistant, Administrative Assistant, Executive Assistant, and Chief of Staff. Most official state documents use the blanket term Legislative Aide to refer to all member staff in Colorado.
Salary and benefits
The salary and benefits of member staff are set by the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council. Each legislative office is allotted a total of $4,200 per year for staff expenses. Each member of the legislature may employ, at most, two staffers as state employees. Other staff must serve as volunteers, interns, be paid out of pocket, or be reimbursed by campaign committees.
Technically, total billable man-hours may not exceed 420 per employee per session; though legislative staffers frequently work 40–60 hours per week, they may only bill the state for their first 24 hours per week at a rate of $10 per hour. Staff salary is based on the 120 business-day cycle of the regular session. Consequently, member staff are classified as session-only employees, meaning they can be paid only for work performed while the General Assembly is meeting, usually from mid-January through early May.
As employees of the State of Colorado, legislative aides participate in the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association, to which the state makes supplementary contributions. Health, vision, and dental insurance are not provided, but may be purchased by employees. The state does not provide for sick pay or paid vacation days.
Responsibilities
Responsibilities for personal staff vary considerably from office to office. Senior staffers in offices with multiple employees, volunteers, and interns incur considerably more managerial responsibility than do their peers in more-sparsely staffed offices. Similarly, the scope of duties of staffers working for senior committee members or legislators from swing districts may not resemble the responsibilities of other members' staffs.
According to NCSL, the core responsibilities of personal legislative staff are to: "provide direct support to a member as they prepare for session, hearings or meetings and assist the member as they work with constituents." The Executive Committee describes their responsibilities to include:
Furthermore, a small secretarial pool is made available to legislators to handle printing, basic communication, and other administrative tasks. This service is shared among all members of the General Assembly, irrespective of party affiliation. These staffers may be asked to perform a limited variety of germane tasks.
Volunteers and interns
Competition for paid member staff positions is often intense. Because of the state's limited budget for paid staffers, most offices rely heavily on unpaid volunteers and interns. These employees report to an office's chief of staff, senior legislative aide, or directly to the member. As with aides, unpaid staff have varying levels of responsibility based on the legislative district and the staffer's level of education or experience.