After being appointed by Governor Jared Polis on Monday, July 10, Mark Ferrandino will step up to work in the Office of State Planning and Budgeting, where he'll be able to hone his decades of experience in handling finances.
The political stalwart has been working in the Polis administration as executive director of Colorado's Department of Revenue since 2020, and he has a laundry list of other state titles and jobs on his résumé, including Deputy Superintendent of Operations, Chief Financial Officer of Denver Public Schools, member of the Joint Budget Committee, and a stint as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“Colorado’s economy is thriving, and Mark is well-positioned to help propel our shared efforts with the legislature to ensure we have a more affordable, safer, cleaner Colorado today and for future generations,” Polis wrote in a press release Monday.
Ferrandino, a Democrat, notably became the first openly gay man to work in the Colorado Legislature in 2007, when he was appointed by a committee to take over Legislative District 2, which covers parts of south central Denver, after two-term congressman Mike Cerbo resigned to head the AFL-CIO.
Ferrandino told Westword in 2011 that "when people call me a gay legislator, I tell them I'm a legislator who happens to be gay. It's one fact of who I am, but it doesn't define me."
He described his leadership style as follows: "I'm a work horse, not a show horse. I tend to knuckle down and try to figure out how we solve problems."
Over the years, Ferrandino has championed bills that protected the pocketbooks of the state's low- and middle-income residents. He was an early opponent to payday lenders in the state, spearheading a bill that kept their interest rates below 300 percent. He advocated for TABOR reform, which limits how much revenue the state can keep and spend — and pushed legislation that gave homeowners facing foreclosure ninety days to work out financial solutions.
Standing up for gay rights, he introduced a bill three years in a row to allow civil unions for same-sex couples until it finally passed in 2013. Before that, he sponsored a bill to let state employees designate their unmarried partners as insurance beneficiaries to protect the families of the state’s gay and lesbian employees.
Since then, Ferrandino has continued to take the helm of various prestigious offices.
Colorado House Democrats made him the state's first gay speaker of the House in 2012, a seat he held until 2015. Ferrandino worked for Denver Public Schools for four years and as the district's deputy superintendent for more than year before eventually becoming treasurer of the Colorado Democratic Party.
In 2020, a year after he took office as America's first gay governor, Polis appointed Ferrandino to lead the Department of Revenue. Now he hopes the financial heavyweight can help get things done in the state's planning and budget office.
“Setting budgets and funding priorities are among the most powerful tools governments have to make transformational change, and I am thrilled to begin serving in this position on behalf of Governor Polis, his administration and Coloradans," Ferrandino said in a statement Monday. "In partnership with the governor and state legislature, I look forward to bettering people’s lives through responsible budgeting."
“I am delighted to welcome Mark to this new role," Polis wrote on Monday, "and look forward to working with the Joint Budget Committee and state legislature to build off the work Lauren Larson started, to maintain strong budgetary reserves for a rainy day, to help save people money, and to craft a state budget that continues to build a Colorado for all."
