OUR TEAM'S WORK
Colorado AI Policy Working Group
Colorado spent two years trying to fix its AI consumer protection law. The legislature failed to reach agreement during the regular session. A special session called specifically to address the law produced one outcome: a delayed effective date. Three attempts, no resolution.
In fall 2025, Governor Polis convened a multi-stakeholder working group with a different mandate: build a new framework from the ground up, not as a revision of the existing law. Confluence designed and facilitated the nine-session process, bringing together approximately 14 members representing consumer advocates, civil rights organizations, technology developers, business associations, and healthcare, insurance, and financial services sectors. These parties had been in direct conflict for two years. The process moved the group from competing demands to shared understanding before any drafting or voting began, and negotiated the actual language of a framework once that foundation was established.
The working group voted unanimously to support the result. SB26-189 (Colorado AI Governance Framework) passed the Senate 34-1 and the House 57-6, and was signed into law thirteen days after introduction. The presidents of the Colorado Technology Association and Colorado Chamber of Commerce credited the facilitation process in a published op-ed. Other states and federal policymakers are examining the Colorado approach as a model.
RTD Accountability Committee
Transit governance reform in Colorado had been discussed for years without resolution. RTD’s fully elected board structure, one of only three in the country, had produced chronic accountability gaps and a pattern of decisions that prioritized board members’ political interests over system performance. Legislation alone had not moved it.
In 2025, SB25-161 created the RTD Accountability Committee, a 15-member body charged with examining RTD governance, paratransit, workforce, and local government collaboration. Confluence was selected to design and facilitate the process. Over five months, the committee worked through a structured sequence: grounding members in shared understanding before generating ideas, surfacing evidence before weighing proposals, and building toward consensus before voting. A governance recommendation that initially failed to reach the required supermajority was later adopted 11-2 after additional deliberation, demonstrating what the process was designed to produce.
The committee’s 31 recommendations, including a restructured nine-member hybrid board, were codified in SB26-150, which passed both chambers and was signed by the Governor. The legislative declaration cited the committee’s process and the role of a neutral facilitator as critical factors.
Task Force on the Rights of Coloradans with Disabilities
In 2023, the Colorado legislature created the Task Force on the Rights of Coloradans with Disabilities with a declaration that protection from discrimination and basic access to government services, housing, employment, and recreation are fundamental to the well-being of Coloradans with disabilities. The Task Force was charged with examining those issues across four subcommittees covering government accessibility, housing, the outdoors, and a rewrite of Colorado’s civil rights statutes for persons with disabilities.
Confluence was selected by the Department of Regulatory Agencies and its Civil Rights Division to facilitate and manage the work of the Task Force and all four subcommittees. The work required coordinating multiple bodies with distinct charges, integrating testimony from dozens of stakeholders with direct lived experience, and producing recommendations that could hold across a politically diverse set of interests. The Task Force published its final report in January 2025, containing 58 recommendations.
Colorado Educator Safety Task Force
Colorado educators had been reporting unsafe working conditions for years. The data available to state leaders did not reflect what was actually happening in classrooms. HB24-1320 created the Colorado Educator Safety Task Force (ESTF) and directed it to examine aggressive and violent behavior by students toward staff. The Office of School Safety contracted with Confluence to manage and facilitate the work.
The 17-member Task Force met monthly from September 2024 through June 2025, supported by four subcommittees that brought in dozens of additional participants with subject matter expertise, lived experience, and direct professional knowledge. To generate findings the existing data had missed, Confluence designed and administered a survey of more than 1,100 educators. More than 50 percent reported being physically injured by a student, a finding that contradicted all available prior data and reframed the conversation about what state action was actually required.
The Task Force published a Roadmap for Action along with role-specific roadmaps for educators, building leaders, district leaders, state agencies, and preparation programs. The findings and recommendations have been incorporated into ongoing work by the Colorado Department of Education and the Office of School Safety.
Puerto Rico Career Pathways
After Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated Puerto Rico’s school system, the Governor and Secretary of Education faced a question that went beyond rebuilding facilities: how to redesign the system of career pathways for students in a way that would produce real economic opportunity, not just credentials. At their invitation, Abramson designed and led a multi-phase initiative to modernize career pathways as part of the broader school system redesign.
The initiative established first-of-their-kind partnerships between schools and employers. In the first year, more than 1,400 students were matched with employers for work-based learning opportunities, with more than 800 guaranteed a job at a living wage upon completion. The work was recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative with an Ideas Into Action award.
Governor & Legislative ARPA Listening Tour
When federal American Rescue Plan Act funds became available in 2021, Colorado faced a challenge that was less about the money than about how to use it. With $3.8 billion to allocate, state leaders needed to understand what Coloradans across diverse communities, industries, and regions actually needed, before priorities were set and decisions were made.
At the request of Governor Polis, Treasurer Young, and legislative leadership from both parties, Abramson designed and led a statewide listening tour across seven geographic regions and ten additional audience-specific sessions. The input gathered directly shaped the state’s prioritization of the ARPA funds. Following the public engagement phase, Abramson facilitated legislative discussions of findings and member priorities, supported discussions between the legislature and the executive branch, and contributed to drafting the first report to the U.S. Treasury.
Working Group on Transforming Criminal & Juvenile Justice
The Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice had guided state criminal justice policy for nearly twenty years. In 2023, a bill to reauthorize it was postponed indefinitely, sunsetting the body without a replacement. Governor Polis issued an executive order creating the Working Group on Transforming Criminal and Juvenile Justice (TCJJ) and directed it to recommend the structure, purpose, and composition of a new permanent entity.
Confluence was selected to facilitate the 17-member group, which included prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, reform advocates, and stakeholders with diverse professional
and lived experience perspectives. The process brought more than 50 outside voices into the deliberations before the group turned to its own recommendations. After extensive deliberation, the TCJJ reached consensus on the mission, vision, structure, and membership for two new permanent commissions to address adult and juvenile justice. The final report was published in March 2024.
Clean Transit Enterprise — Strategic Planning
The Clean Transit Enterprise is an unusual institution: a dedicated-revenue enterprise within CDOT with statutory independence, a small staff, and a mandate to deliver measurable climate outcomes through a complex network of transit agency partners across Colorado. When CTE’s Executive Director sought to develop the enterprise’s first five-year strategic plan, Confluence was retained to design and facilitate the process and serve as ongoing thought partner to the Executive Director and Board.
The engagement began with a full-day Board retreat in March 2026, designed to surface strategic priorities, stress-test program assumptions, and establish the foundation for the plan. The retreat produced alignment on five candidate strategic goals and substantive Board input on the harder questions: the appropriate balance between CTE’s role as a funding partner and as an accountability-focused enterprise, how to handle RTD as a distinct case within the program framework, the strategic direction of the Transit ZEV Program given resource constraints and a shifting federal environment, and how CTE should measure and communicate program outcomes across a diverse set of audiences.
Confluence is leading the drafting of CTE’s FY2026 to FY2030 Strategic Plan, working iteratively with the Executive Director through structured check-ins. The plan is organized around six strategic goals, each with short, mid, and five-year objectives, and is designed as a living document with structured review cycles intended to provide continuity through changes in state administration and legislative leadership. The engagement builds on Confluence’s prior work with CTE on the SB25-230 formula grant design and stakeholder engagement, and on the firm’s broader experience in Colorado’s transit and climate policy landscape.
Confluence PSG partners with government and private sector leaders to support policy and system change.
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