Highlights from the state’s early childhood policy advocacy community include:8
House Bill 24-1311, the Family Affordability Tax Credit, creates a refundable tax credit for Colorado families with children 16 and under for tax years 2024-2033. It specifically prioritizes low income families with young children. The amount of the credit depends on the age of the child or children and the family’s adjusted gross income (AGI). The credit is available to single filers with a federal AGI up to $75,000 or joint filers with AGI up to $85,000. Combined with highly effective Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, the Family Affordability Tax Credit would result in Colorado cutting the state’s child poverty rate in half and making our child poverty rate 40 percent lower than the second-best state–making Colorado an exemplary model for other states. 45 percent of Colorado families will benefit from this credit.
House Bill 24-1312 creates a refundable $1200 care worker tax credit, available annually for four years (for work completed in tax years 2025-2028) for eligible individuals working in Colorado’s care economy. Joint filers who are both eligible care workers can claim up to $2400. Licensed child care workers, Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) child care workers, and qualifying personal care aides and home care workers are all eligible for the credit. The vast majority of these workers are women, who are disproportionately from communities of color. This bill is an important first step toward building a Colorado that pays care workers what they’re worth. We know that every Coloradan either relies on care themselves, or relies on someone else who relies on care. This tax credit will have far-reaching positive impacts on the stability of the care workforce, and also on the well-being of Colorado’s families, communities, and economy.
House Bill 24-1223 makes several important changes to Colorado’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP), making the program work better for families and child care providers. The improvements include extending eligibility to families participating in substance abuse disorder treatment programs, adjusting income requirements for CCCAP to align with Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program, creating a pilot program for FFN providers to seek license-exempt status and offer CCCAP, studying the feasibility of de-linking CACFP from CCCAP, and requiring that counties provide information about parent fees in Spanish, English, and other languages. It also begins the process of phasing in the new federal requirements for changes to CCCAP, including simplifying Colorado’s child care subsidy application, paying CCCAP providers for enrollment rather than attendance, and capping family copayments at no more than 7 percent of the family’s monthly income by 2026.
House Bill 24-1009 provides sustained funding for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood’s Bilingual Licensing Unit. The unit had been previously established and funded using federal one-time pandemic stimulus dollars. The unit provides child care licensing resources in plain language in English and Spanish, with the opportunity to add additional languages in the future, as funding allows. The Department of Early Childhood is required to report to the General Assembly by March 2026 on language barriers that exist for providers in obtaining child care licenses. This bill also appropriated one-time funds to update Colorado’s mobile licensing application in Spanish and ongoing funds for translation services and supports.
House Bill 24-1262 changes the regulation of midwives from registration to licensure, requires the civil rights commission to establish certain parameters when receiving reports for maternity care, and adds a midwife to the environmental justice advisory board and the governor’s expert emergency epidemic response committee. The bill also adds midwifery as a preferred area of expertise for members of the health equity commission, requires a health facility that provides maternal health services to notify certain individuals before eliminating the services, and allows the department of public health to:
- Identify major outcome categories that the department of public health and environment should track over time and identify risks and opportunities
- Explore the effects of practice and facility closures on maternal and infant health outcomes and experiences and identify recommendations and best practice guidelines during closures and resultant transfers of care
- Create a health professional shortage area and perinatal health services assets and asset deficits map
Senate Bill 24-064 creates a monthly Residential Eviction Data & Report. National research shows that families with children are more likely to experience an eviction, yet court data about evictions within Colorado is inconsistent across jurisdictions and hard to access. This new law will improve the way Colorado collects and publishes data on eviction trends across the state, leading to better policy solutions to keep families housed.
Another win for renting families is House Bill 24-1099, which eliminates the fee for a defendant filing a response in an eviction proceeding. People defending themselves against eviction actions were required to pay court filing fees to appear in court. This bi-partisan bill recognizes this expense was a true barrier to court access and eliminated the fee entirely for everyone, not only indigent respondents.
House Bill 24-1331 establishes a grant program to fund out-of-school time programs for public school students, managed by the Department of Education. Eligible nonprofit organizations can receive grants to offer academic enrichment and related services during non-school hours. The State Board of Education will distribute grants based on available funding. The bill allocates $3.5 million annually for the program over three fiscal years. Grantees must use funds as outlined in the bill and submit annual reports to the Department, which will then report to relevant education committees in the legislature.
Senate Bill 24-001 extends the “I Matter” youth mental health services program indefinitely, ensuring its continuation beyond its scheduled repeal on June 30, 2024. This program serves Colorado youth under 18 and provides up to three free counseling sessions to youth. The bill mandates an annual report due on June 30 of each year from the state Department of Human Services to the General Assembly and stipulates the program vendor must annually provide information and data to the Behavioral Health Administration (BHA). The BHA, in turn, is tasked with conducting surveys of participating youth and providers, as well as collecting data from providers and the program vendor for the annual evaluation.