[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Issue with data formatting in Hillard Heintze report

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Brockett, Aaron

Dear council members and hotline subscribers,


I wanted to call your attention to an issue with the formatting of the data in the Hillard Heintze report. In the tables on pages 35 and 36 of the report (or pages 38 and 39 of our packet), we are given the ratio of arrest rates of African-Americans versus non-African-Americans. The ratios are incorrectly formatted with colons instead of decimals. So, for Boulder's rate, we are given a value of "4:8" which would mean four arrests of African-Americans for every eight arrests of non-African-Americans. In fact, the rate is "4.8" -- there are 4.8 arrests of African-Americans for every one arrest of non-African-Americans. This matches the numbers used in the graphs on page 37 of the report.


As these ratios are central to the issues analyzed in the report, I thought it was important to clarify the math, but let me know if I'm missing anything. I would appreciate it if a corrected copy of the report could be made for future reference.


I look forward to our study session on the report Tuesday night.


Thank you,


Aaron Brockett

Boulder City Council member

brocketta at bouldercolorado.gov

(720) 984-1863