Colorado lawmakers grappling with a $1.2 billion funds shortfall have managed to search out sufficient cash to stave off deep cuts — at the least for now — to a program that gives therapeutic care to younger kids with developmental delays and disabilities.
The legislature’s Joint Funds Committee is sponsoring a invoice that, if accepted, will switch $2 million from the Colorado Division of Well being Care Coverage and Financing to assist fund the Early Intervention Colorado program for the rest of the 2024-25 fiscal 12 months.
This system, a part of the Colorado Division of Early Childhood, can also be set to obtain $16.5 million from the state’s normal fund to stop cuts underneath the proposed funds for the subsequent fiscal 12 months. The 2025-26 funds cleared the state Senate final week and is now working its manner by way of the Home.
“Present early intervention providers will proceed unchanged on account of the JBC’s motion to determine further funding for this system,” mentioned Carolyn Romero, spokeswoman for the Division of Early Childhood.
“There shall be no instant impacts on early intervention providers and CDEC stays centered on long-term sustainability whereas minimizing impacts on households and suppliers,” she mentioned in a press release.
The Early Intervention program introduced in February that it deliberate to make cuts due to a $4 million shortfall, together with imposing a four-hour-a-month cap on providers, reminiscent of bodily and occupational remedy to kids.
At the moment, there’s no restrict on the variety of hours of service a baby can obtain. The proposed discount in providers was amongst a number of “emergency price containment measures” the company introduced.
The Early Intervention program serves infants and kids as much as age 3 with developmental delays and disabilities. A mean of 11,178 kids obtain providers by way of this system every month.
Officers with the Division of Early Childhood have mentioned this system is going through a shortfall as a result of caseloads elevated, stimulus funding is working out and fewer prices are being lined by Medicaid.
About $1 million of the $4 million shortfall goes to kids on Medicaid who obtain care, reminiscent of from dietitians, that may’t be billed to the federal program.
The company’s determination to cut back providers supplied underneath the Early Intervention program precipitated uproar amongst households and suppliers and led the Joint Funds Committee to name an emergency listening to in February.
Members of the committee have repeatedly expressed frustration with the Division of Early Childhood relating to the funding debacle.
“The failures to speak on this from the start have been important,” mentioned Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, throughout a March 19 listening to.
Bridges, who chairs the committee, mentioned throughout that listening to that he discovered in regards to the potential Early Intervention cuts from his youngster’s bodily therapist — not the Division of Early Childhood.
On the March 19 listening to, a Joint Funds Committee staffer informed members that the Early Intervention program wants more cash for the 2025-26 fiscal 12 months than the $3.5 million improve initially anticipated from the state’s normal fund.
Rising caseloads coupled with each the $4 million shortfall and the lack of $6.4 million in federal cash means the Early Intervention program wants about $16.5 million to stop cuts in the course of the 2025-26 fiscal 12 months, the workers member informed the committee.
“The Division of Early Childhood actually missed the boat on this one,” Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican, mentioned in the course of the listening to. “The truth that they got here in and solely requested for $3.5 million extra of (the) normal fund is extraordinarily disappointing.”
She known as the company’s actions “completely irresponsible.”
“I’m simply actually ticked off that we left these households with these kids in this kind of state of affairs and put them by way of all the trauma and drama,” Kirkmeyer added.
Get extra Colorado information by signing up for our Mile Excessive Roundup electronic mail publication.