Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.More than 9,000 low-income Colorado families are in line for state subsidies to help pay for childcare so parents can work or attend school. Now, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a bill that could shrink the wait by sending additional money to counties where working parents need help.Senate Bill 180, introduced Monday, would create a new investment authority that could seek higher returns on certain pots of state money than what state investments typically produce. Some of the proceeds from the higher-yield investments would help low-income families pay for childcare. Coming late in the legislative session, the bill reflects the tightrope lawmakers are walking as they try to bolster safety net programs while grappling with a $1.2 billion budget shortfall. Instead of shifting scarce general fund dollars from one program to another, lawmakers opted to create a new source of childcare revenue. “This is a very kind of outside-the-box solution to a problem that’s been here for a long time,” said Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican and one of the bill’s sponsors. He said if the bill passes, counties could start receiving money to help low-income families with childcare in the spring of 2027. Currently 27 of the state’s 64 counties have waitlists or freezes in place for the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program, or CCCAP, according to the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. That means a family that’s newly eligible for the state’s subsidy program in those counties can’t get childcare aid, potentially forcing parents to drop out of the workforce or rely on inconsistent or unsafe care arrangements. Some Colorado counties have been on waitlists or freezes for more than two years. The expiration of COVID stimulus funds and a boost in reimbursement rates for childcare providers have contributed to the funding crunch. CCCAP is mostly funded by the federal government with smaller contributions from the state and counties. If Bright’s bill becomes law, it would represent “the first time we’ve really established a fund for childcare in Colorado,” said Mathangi Subramanian, director of early childhood policy at the Colorado Children’s Campaign, an advocacy group based in Denver. “This is important, not just in terms of serving families, but also symbolically, to show that our state believes that childcare is a public good, believes childcare is infrastructure and requires investment,” she said.Bright, who owns several Weld County childcare centers, said the goal of the proposed investment authority is not to earn outsized returns through risky stock market bets, but rather to get modestly higher returns by investing a bit more aggressively than the state treasurer does. Here’s how it would work: Certain state entities could opt to have the new authority make investments using some of their money. Enterprises, which are government-owned businesses that get most of their revenue from user fees, are one of the entities that could do so. The investment authority would return a portion of the investment earnings to the enterprise or other entity. The rest would go to counties where low-income families need help paying for childcare. The new funding would work in tandem with CCCAP funding, but would be a distinct pot of money.Working with the investment authority would be voluntary for Colorado’s enterprises, but the idea is that they would benefit financially from more aggressive investment options — even with a portion of the proceeds going to childcare. Colorado’s more than two dozen enterprises include the state lottery, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and the state’s Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance program. Bright said his bill would eventually generate millions of dollars for childcare assistance, but the amount will depend on how many enterprises opt in, the amount of money invested, and the duration of the investments. The bill is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday. Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.
