Roxanne Pignanelli, government and community coordinator for Pueblo County School District 70, was appointed to the Colorado Child Support Commission by Governor Jared Polis on May 18.
The commission has the task of reviewing the state child benefit guidelines and proposing changes to the law.
Pignanelli will serve on the Commission until July 2024.
“I was honored and excited to serve our community,” she said.
In order to be appointed to the commission, potential candidates must go through an application process and have letters of recommendation that must be taken into account.
Pignanelli, who has worked at D70 for 18 years, was encouraged to apply by former Pueblo County Commissioner Anthony Nunez and former State Sen. Abel Tapia.
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She said her work with children and her community involvement played a huge role in her appointment to the commission.
“Most of the people on the commission have a legal background and some of us come from the local community,” said Pignanelli.
She will be the only member of the commission from Pueblo as most of them are from Denver and the Western Slope.
The commission meets once a month to discuss various family law issues.
Pignanelli will serve on one of the sub-committees dealing with family rights, parental alienation, and navigating the judicial system related to child support.
“We look at parental alienation and how it affects children. We are looking at how families can afford to break through the court system when it comes to paying child support, ”she said.
“There are people assigned by the governor and the courts who always know in a timely manner what will affect people when they are going through a divorce or family court and how to best serve children.”
Pignanelli said people have been arrested for child support and that the child support system for families can be very tumultuous.
This committee will look for solutions to make it easier for people to pay child support and how to get to court with less difficulty.
External experts and speakers can attend the committee’s meetings, as well as members of the public who want to share their stories about what they are going through in terms of child support.
Another commission she tried to get was the state’s Civil Rights Commission. She referred to a 2012 committee case of a Lakewood bakery refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple as a sign of its importance.
Pignanelli said members of that committee needed to discuss whether the bakery was unlawfully discriminating against the couple.
In 2014, the commission found that refusing to serve a bakery for a gay couple was illegal and contrary to state law.
“Members need to have a sense of objectivity and not think that there is only one side to these types of problems,” she said. “You need people involved who look at all sides of the matter.”
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Chieftain Education Reporter Joe McQueen can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jmcqueennews
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