Thousands of Colorado’s poorest families in desperate need of childcare could get a boost of state funding to help them afford a spot for their kid through a pair of bills still working their way through the legislature.
The catch: They would likely have to wait at least two more years for aid.
On Thursday, state lawmakers in a Senate committee unanimously approved a two-year delay to a law passed in 2024 aimed at making the state’s childcare payment assistance program for low-income families, the Child Care Assistance Program, more affordable. Lawmakers in the House will now have to adopt the Senate’s version.
House Bill 1223 would have capped a CCAP-eligible family’s childcare payment at 7% of their household income starting Aug. 1. It also would have required counties, which administer the CCAP program, to pay childcare providers a weekly rate based on child enrollment, not attendance.
House Bill 1260 delays those affordability provisions until 2028, saving the state about $11 million.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers has proposed creating a designated state fund for childcare that would help relieve costs for low-income parents. The fund, a first-of-its-kind pot of money for childcare in Colorado, is one potential, long-awaited solution to lift widespread enrollment freezes in CCAP.
After rigorous debates over how best to fund childcare for poor families, the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday afternoon narrowly approved Senate Bill 180 with a 5-4 vote. Close to 14,000 eligible children can’t access childcare while CCAP enrollment remains paused in more than 25 Colorado counties, as of April 1, according to data from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood.
“This is simply unacceptable,” said state Sen. Scott Bright, a Greeley Republican and owner of childcare centers who is sponsoring the bill. “I see this from both sides. I see those families who walk in hoping there’s a CCAP-assisted slot. I see the staff who love these kids and cannot afford to stay in the field, and I see what happens when the system breaks. Parents leave jobs, cut hours, burn through sick time or put off the training and education that would move their family forward. That cost does not just hit the family. It hits the employer. It hits the local economy. It hits every taxpayer in the state.”
Colorado State Senator Scott Bright sits for a portrait, Jan. 20, 2026, at the Capitol Building in Denver. (Jeremy Sparig, Special to The Colorado Sun)The bill, introduced Monday, would establish an investment performance authority, what Bright describes as a government-run nonprofit with a board that would invest dollars and spend part of the earnings on childcare for low-income families.
The state fund would be fed by investments from a variety of state enterprises — businesses set up by the government that charge fees and use them to cover the cost of programs and services. Colorado’s state enterprises include higher education institutions, the 988 Crisis Hotline Enterprise, the Air Quality Enterprise, the Capitol Parking Authority, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the State Fair Authority, the State Lottery and the Veterans Community Living Centers.
Enterprises would voluntarily invest money they could afford to temporarily part with into the investment performance authority. The investment performance authority would then use that money to make slightly risky investments with the potential to produce a higher rate of return. The enterprise would get their original dollar amount back plus a share of the interest made on their investment. The rest of that interest would go into the state fund for childcare.
A board of nine members — up from seven, following an amendment — would govern the investment performance authority, including professionals with a background in investments and finances.
The fund likely would not be able to send money to counties to then pay providers on behalf of low-income families until the 2027-28 fiscal year, according to Bright. The first steps are soliciting investors, accumulating earnings and building up reserves that the investment performance authority can tap into to pay back investors should the market sour, he said.
Critics of the legislation say lawmakers are rushing the bill in the final weeks of the legislative session and worry that it won’t immediately generate funds for childcare. Some have concerns that the proposal could jeopardize the status of state enterprises and set up costly legal challenges.
Those in support of the bill counter that it’s an “outside of the box idea,” giving the state a mechanism to ramp up childcare funding that won’t be bound to the rules of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which limits how much the state government can spend each year on services.
What is TABOR?
The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, is a 1992 constitutional amendment that requires voter approval for all tax increases in Colorado. It also caps government growth and spending, mandating that tax revenue collected in excess of the cap be refunded to taxpayers. The cap is calculated using inflation and population rates.Read more
“We live within a balanced budget and we live within the TABOR cap for that balanced budget,” Bright told The Colorado Sun. “Enterprises exist outside of TABOR and outside of the general fund, and so what we’re doing here is we’re taking money outside of the general fund, outside of TABOR, investing it, getting a little more return, keeping it outside of TABOR and getting it to counties and low-income families.”
The proposed fund sends a signal that childcare is becoming a higher state priority, Mathangi Subramanian, director of early childhood policy for the nonprofit Colorado Children’s Campaign, told The Sun. The Colorado Children’s Campaign is a proponent of the bill.
State childcare funds are also becoming more critical after the federal government previously withheld federal CCAP funds, Subramanian said, getting Colorado “out from under the question of will our money be frozen suddenly?”
“It shows that our state believes childcare is infrastructure and that it’s a public good,” she said, “so politically and symbolically it’s a huge step forward to show that Colorado cares about families, cares about parents and cares about kids.”
“The recipe for a costly and most likely successful legal challenge”
All those who offered testimony during Thursday’s Senate Finance Committee meeting expressed strong support for the bill’s goal of directing more money to low-income families to help them secure childcare. But several people who testified also raised serious concerns about using a special purpose authority to generate childcare funds.
Colorado State Treasurer Dave Young questions the legality of the bill, telling the Senate Finance Committee it would “enact a blatant violation of the Colorado Constitution and create a serious risk to public funds.”
Warren Village educator Dominic Bailey, 26, of Denver, cleans up some misplaced yogurt as Jackson, age 1.5, eats a post-nap snack in his toddler classroom at Warren Village on April 2, 2026, in Denver. Jackson’s mother, Chelsea Breese, has paid for childcare and other support for him and his two siblings at Warren Village, where they also reside, through subsidies from the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program. (Andy Colwell, Special to The Colorado Sun)Young, who said this is the first bill he has opposed as treasurer, said his job is to manage taxpayer money “transparently” and weigh investment returns against risk. He believes the legislation would form an “untested, ill-defined” investment performance authority that would not be subject to “standard procurement practices” and that would invest public money into “volatile, high-risk instruments,” such as private equity and real estate investment trusts. That is prohibited by the state constitution, Young said.
“This is the recipe for a costly and most likely successful legal challenge,” he said.
Andrea Kuwik, director of policy and research at the Bell Policy Center, cited concerns about state enterprises potentially losing their status and violating the state constitution for diverting part of the interest from their investment to childcare.
“Those enterprises must be used for the purposes that then exist through statute and if they are then used for another purpose (than what) was initially intended for, then that creates the potential that you’re using it for another general purpose,” she said.
Mark Ferrandino, Gov. Jared Polis’ budget director, shrugged off that concern. Ferrandino said Polis supports the legislation.
“It’s important that the enterprises are as a separate entity making that decision, is this the right thing in their own interest to do?” he said. “If they decide that, they’re doing that as a governing body or an individual who has the responsibility of that business to make that decision and they are doing that and taking that return that they would get. Any excess return is not owed to them and thus does not jeopardize the enterprise status.”
Some members of the Senate Finance Committee and those testifying say they are also worried that the bill sponsors are being hasty in trying to pass legislation before the session ends while introducing too much risk with their approach.
“We all understand the need,” said state Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat, who voted against the legislation. “We understand the importance of the need, and I think we all here agree with that. It’s how do we go about funding that need? Can we do it legally without putting at risk other assets that are also funding other needs? And so a vote against this bill … is not a vote against your need. It’s a vote against how we’re doing it and what risk we’re taking to do it.”
State Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat and bill sponsor, acknowledged the risk, adding that she believes it’s worth taking.
“I do respect that people are concerned about the riskiness of this,” said Marchman, also a member of the Senate Finance Committee. “I also want to respect the fact that sometimes we have to take risks to be able to get what we need.”
Senate Bill 180 next heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Hence then, the article about thousands of colorado s poorest families have been waiting for a childcare slot relief could come in two years was published today ( ) and is available on Colorado Sun ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Thousands of Colorado’s poorest families have been waiting for a childcare slot. Relief could come in two years. )
Also on site :