Chris Hansen
Hansen and his wife, Ulcca, a chief program officer at an education nonprofit, jointly reported a total income of between about $156,000 in 2017 and $154,000 in 2018. In 2019, their income jumped to about $222,000, before dipping to $193,000 the following tax year. It bounced back in 2021 to $223,000. They reported most of their income as wages, with some of it reported as income. The filing did not distinguish between their incomes.
Hansen was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 2016 and has served in the Senate since 2020. The former engineer, who previously worked in the energy industry, helped found the Colorado Energy & Water Institute, which gathers North American leaders to discuss policies and solutions on those issues.
Most of the couple’s income comes from his wife’s work in education, he said. He said he made between $15,000 and $30,000 a year from his part-time work with the institute, plus about $30,000 as a state legislator (he was grandfathered into a lower legislative pay rate). Some of the fluctuations in their income also came from the sale of their home, which Hansen said was put immediately
Johnston provided five years of the federal tax forms he filed jointly with his wife, Courtney, a lawyer who’s a chief deputy in the Denver District Attorney’s Office; attachments and schedules weren’t included. Between 2017 and 2021, their total reported income ranged from $434,973 to a high of $761,931, including substantial real estate income from a boutique hotel in Vail, long owned by Mike’s family (more on that below).
The period began with Johnston’s departure from the Colorado Senate and then two political campaigns — for governor in 2018 (he lost the Democratic primary) and for U.S. Senate in 2019 (he withdrew once nowsen. John Hickenlooper entered the race). The couple’s combined reported wages of $341,903 and $248,928 for 2017 and 2018, respectively, included Johnston’s income from education consulting for a training center for teachers and principals in Texas, his campaign said. In 2019, their reported wages of $165,583 largely came from Courtney’s salary.
Their combined wages then increased steeply — to $504,779 in 2020 and $602,557 in 2021 — after Mike became president and CEO of Gary Community Ventures.
During the five-year period, they reported other income totaling nearly $950,000 — largely real estate income from the Johnston family’s Christiania Lodge in Vail, according to Craig Hughes, a strategist for his campaign. Hughes said that Johnston paid taxes on that income, but “almost all” of it was reinvested back into the hotel for upkeep, repairs, maintenance and improvements.
Rougeot, who is largely selffunding his campaign, saw his income soar at the turn of the decade. He reported a total income of $968,000 in 2021 — more than 10 times the total income he reported in 2020 and more than three times his next highest earning year, 2019. Combined with the salary of his wife, Rosalie, the household topped $1 million in reported earnings, though deductions dropped their combined taxable income to about $945,000. His wife works as a marketing manager for the Vail Corporation but reported her income separately.
His returns show a meteoric rise as his primary business, Rogue Mountain LLC, launched, operating as commercial maintenance business RG Maintenance. He reported a negative income in 2017 on the back of negative earnings. The next year made up for it, with more than $150,000 in reported income in 2018. However, the pandemic appeared to take a toll on the business in 2020. He reported less than $100,000 in net income after business losses of $55,000.
As the business owner, his income would fluctuate in profitability, according to his campaign. He no longer owns the business as of July.
He also owns a small portion, less than 2%, of three other businesses. Those are injection molding business Bancroft Holdings;