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A powerful legislative committee on Thursday expressed an interest in reversing some planned cuts to a Colorado program that provides therapies to babies and toddlers with delays.
While the details are still up in the air, lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee essentially pledged to find funding to prevent thousands of young children who get services through the state’s Early Intervention program from losing certain therapies starting in March.
The committee’s decision is sure to prompt a sigh of relief from parents and therapy providers, many of whom said they were panicked and heartbroken when they learned of the impending cuts announced by the Colorado Department of Early Childhood earlier this week. The state’s $87 million Early Intervention program serves around 11,000 children from birth to 3 years old each month.
“We are going to get this done and help these kids,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Democrat who represents parts of the Denver metro area and is chairperson of the committee.
The committee voted unanimously to authorize a bill that would lay out possible fixes to the cuts that directly impact children. The meeting was tense at times, with several lawmakers expressing frustration that the Department of Early Childhood’s leaders hadn’t informed the committee about the budget problems that prompted them to plan the cuts.
The cuts would have limited children to four hours of therapy a month, which is a fraction of what some get now. In addition, children who are on Medicaid, a health insurance program for low-income people, would no longer have been allowed to get developmental intervention, which is therapy that can help young children with attention, cognitive development, and learning.
Planned cuts that only affect Early Intervention therapists — for example, not reimbursing them for no-shows — will go forward as planned.
Parents, therapists, and lawmakers all expressed surprise when they heard about the cuts. Leaders from the early childhood department said the cuts were needed to stave off a projected $4 million shortfall caused by a growing Early Intervention caseload, the expiration of federal COVID stimulus funds, and the fact that fewer children are eligible for Medicaid.
But some lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee were angry they had never been alerted of the impending shortfall or service cuts to babies and toddlers with disabilities.
Rep. Rick Taggart, a Republican from western Colorado, called it “insulting, to say the least.”
Jeanni Stefanik, chief financial officer for the early childhood department, said the funding shortfall “was not fully realized until just a few weeks ago” and called the factors contributing to it “a perfect storm.”
It’s not entirely clear why state officials, who said they routinely monitor the number of children in Early Intervention, weren’t aware of the possible funding shortfall earlier.
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.
