These are all of the Human Services bills proposed in the 2018 session. Each bill has its own bill number, please use your browser search feature to find the bill you are interested in. Return to the Colorado home page to pick a different bill category.
None of the text is the opinion of Engage. Each bill's description, pros, and cons are our best effort at describing what each bill does, arguments for, and arguments against the bill. If you believe we are missing something, please contact us with your suggestion. Some of these bills have the notation that they have been sent to the chamber's "kill" committee. This means that the leadership has decided to send the bill to the State committee even though it does not belong there based on its subject matter. This committee, in both chambers, is stacked with members from "safe" districts and the idea is to kill the bill without forcing any less safe members to take a hard vote. It is possible for a bill to survive the kill committee, but it is very rare.
Each bill has been given a "magnitude" category: Major, Medium and Minor. This is a combination of the change the bill would create and the "controversy" level of the bill. Some minor bills that are extending current programs would be major changes if they were introducing something new, but the entire goal here is to allow you to better curate your time. Something uncontroversial likely to pass nearly unanimously that continues a past program may not be worth your time (and please remember, you can still read all of the minor bills!).
House
Click on the House bill title to jump to its section:
MAJOR
HB18-1065: DHS Department of Human Services Employee Discipline Harm to Vulnerable Persons SIGNED
HB18-1067: Right to Rest Act KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
HB18-1104: Family Preservation for Parents with Disability SIGNED
MEDIUM
HB18-1044: Colorado Children's Trust Fund Act KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
HB18-1064: Training Program Prevention Child Sexual Abuse SIGNED
HB18-1108: Commission Deaf Hard of Hearing Deafblind SIGNED
HB18-1115: Department of Public Safety Human Trafficking-Related Training KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
HB18-1192: Application Assistance Federal Disability Benefits KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
HB18-1196: Applications for Aid to the Needy Disabled Program SIGNED
HB18-1319: Services Successful Adulthood Former Foster Youth SIGNED
HB18-1348: Child Welfare Information and Services SIGNED
HB18-1407: Access to Disability Services and Stable Workforce SIGNED
HB18-1420: Early Childhood Development Special District KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
MINOR
HB18-1021 Task Force For Youth Experiencing Homelessness KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
HB18-1079: Recommend Use of State's Long-Term Works Reserve SIGNED
HB18-1208: Expand Child Care Expenses Income Tax Credit SIGNED
HB18-1219: Provider Access to Colorado Benefits Management System KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
HB18-1267: Income Tax Credit for Retrofitting Home for Health SIGNED
HB18-1285: Remuneration-Exempt Disability Parking Placard SIGNED
HB18-1292: Pilot Program Assistance Person Experiencing Homelessness KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
HB18-1346: Abuse of Youth Under 21 in Care of Institution SIGNED
HB18-1363: Recommendations of Child Support Commission SIGNED
HB18-1376: Regulate Residential Services and Supports Providers KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
HB18-1380: Grants for Property Tax Rent and Heat KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
HB18-1390: Safe Family Option for Families in Crisis KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
HB18-1395: Colorado Youth Advisory Council Review Committee KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
HB18-1416: Student Suicide Prevention Grant Program KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Senate
Click on the Senate bill title to jump to its section:
MAJOR
SB18-154: Juvenile Planning Committee Crossover Youth Plans SIGNED
MEDIUM
SB18-114: Suicide Prevention Enhance Student Life Skills KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
SB18-145: Implement Employment First Recommendations SIGNED
SB18-157: Colorado Women's Veterans Act KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
SB18-174: Service Providers for Persons with Developmental Disabilities SIGNED
SB18-201: Religious Organization Child Care Licensing Exemption KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
SB18-213: Transfer Academic Credits for Division Of Youth Services Youths SIGNED
SB18-265: Child Care Savings Account Income Tax Benefits KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
MINOR
SB 18-050: Free-standing Emergency Facility as Safe Haven SIGNED
SB18-074: Designate Prader-Willi Syndrome Developmental Disability SIGNED
SB18-099: Align Early Childhood Quality Improvement Programs SIGNED
SB18-112: Veterans Outdoor Terrain Restoration Grant Program KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
SB18-162: Substitute Placement Agency Licensure SIGNED
SB18-231: Transition to Community-Based Services Task Force SIGNED
SB18-272: Crisis and Suicide Prevention Training Grant Program SIGNED
HB18-1021 Task Force For Youth Experiencing Homelessness
Establishes a task force to study youth homelessness and make recommendations on how to mitigate it.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
More than 83,000 people between the ages of 14 and 24 are homeless in the United States. Unaccompanied children and youth who experience homelessness experience significant immediate and long-term trauma. This bill creates a task force to examine the issue and see if there isn’t more that the state can do.
Cons
Instead of wasting time on figuring out ways to make life on the streets better, the state should be figuring out how to get people more jobs and more affordable housing so they aren't on the streets in the first place.
HB18-1044: Colorado Children's Trust Fund Act
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Amends the current state Children’s Trust Fund Act (designed to lessen child abuse and neglect) by adding an emphasis on child maltreatment and increasing the size of the managing board as well as better defining its responsibilities. These responsibilities would include: making recommendations to the governor and state agencies to prevent maltreatment, developing strategies and monitoring efforts to combat maltreatment and other adverse childhood experiences, and monitor and implement and laws the legislature might pass in this area. Funding for the fund is widened to include grants for reducing maltreatment and other adverse childhood experiences.
Pros
34% of child maltreatment fatalities that occurred in Colorado between 2011 and 2015 had no history of a referral to county child welfare. 63% involved a child younger than six. This problem is real, and we need to do a better job of addressing it. The expansion of the board will include more members with expertise in this field.
Cons
While maltreatment is an obvious area we need to improve in, this change may shift the fund’s emphasis so far that it will neglect the extremely important child abuse and neglect in other forms that it is supposed to address.
HB18-1064: Training Program Prevention Child Sexual Abuse
Directs the state’s children’s trust fund (designed to lessen child abuse and neglect) to develop and administer a training program to prevent child sexual abuse for early childhood providers and other who interact with young children.
SIGNED
Pros
Young children are at their most vulnerable to sexual predators when they are placed in the care of a supposedly trusted overseer. On the flip side, these individuals are also best placed to identify sexual abuse that is occurring in the home. This bill helps those who employ people charged with watching young children better train to prevent any sexual abuse with a research-based model. There currently are not courses on preventing child abuse readily available for early childhood providers.
Cons
The current situation is sufficient, this will add too much burden to both the trust fund and early childhood providers.
HB18-1065: DHS Department of Human Services Employee Discipline Harm to Vulnerable Persons
Specifies that any facility the department of human services operates that provides direct care to vulnerable people (such as veterans, youth in rehabilitation facilities, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities) shall give predominant weight to the safety of vulnerable people over the interests of any other person when considering disciplinary action against employees. If the disciplinary action includes a written finding that the employee has mistreated or neglected a vulnerable person the employee is presumed to have reached the standard in current law required for real action against the employee, up to and including termination. This presumption can only be overturned by the employee in a hearing before the state’s personnel board with clear and convincing evidence.
SIGNED
Pros
The department of human services has been encountering difficulties in suspending, dismissing, or otherwise disciplining employees through the administrative process when the mistreatment of a vulnerable person was not a criminal offense. This bill fixes that problem and protects the most vulnerable members of our community.
Cons
We believe in presumed innocence in this country. This well-meaning bill flips that concept on its head and presumes guilt for anyone who is written up by their employer. The burden of proof is shifted to the defendant. That should not be the case in America.
HB18-1067: Right to Rest Act
Creates the Colorado Right to Rest Act, which establishes basic rights for the homeless including right to use and move freely in public spaces, to rest in public spaces, to eat and accept food in public spaces where food is not prohibited, to occupy a legally parked vehicle, and to have a reasonable expectation of privacy for their property.
KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
Pros
Pushing the homeless into courts and jails is costly, inhumane and ineffective. This is about an individual’s basic right to exist, and as such the state must take primacy to ensure those rights are not being trampled. Cities throughout Colorado are enacting laws that essentially criminalize homelessness itself, such as sleeping in parked car or using a tent or sleeping bag to protect themselves from the elements. These laws don’t prevent homelessness (you think people want to be homeless?), they just push people into the prison system and decrease any chance they have to escape their situation. These laws are also frequently selectively enforced, which leads to bias based on appearance. The bill specifically states that those who rest or sleep must not obstruct the use of or access to private property.
Cons
Cities should have the right to decide for themselves what to do with those who have nowhere to live. If they decide that they don’t want beggars bothering people in the parks or taking up parking spaces then that is the right of the city. Businesses may be turned off by large visible homeless populations and hurt the economic well-being of the city’s inhabitants. If a city’s citizens feel differently, then they can change their representatives or laws.
HB18-1079: Recommend Use of State's Long-Term Works Reserve
Requires the works allocation committee (this is a temporary assistance fund for needy families) to submit recommendations to all budgeting authorities for the use of the money in the state’s long-term works reserve for the upcoming fiscal year.
SIGNED
Pros
This reserve fund has existed for several years without any process to guide how it’s spent. This bill creates a process.
Cons
Not everything needs a legislated process, the department of human services (where the fund is housed) can determine spending without the rigmarole.
HB18-1104: Family Preservation for Parents with Disability
Mandates that a parent’s disability cannot serve as a basis for denial or restriction of parenting time or responsibilities, that treatment plans must try to include reasonable accommodations for a parent’s disability, that it cannot serve as basis of denial of participation in adoption or foster care or guardianship, and if the disability is proven to have a detrimental impact on the ability of the parent to care for the child, that the parent be given the opportunity to demonstrative how supportive services can alleviate the concerns.
SIGNED
Pros
Children belong with their parents and disability on its face is not a valid reason to break that bond. Unfortunately it’s happening and thus the need for this bill, which puts the burden on proving detrimental impact on those seeking to break the parent/child bond and gives the parent the chance to address any concerns.
Cons
The state’s primary concern here is the safety of the child, which trumps all. The shifting of the burden could mean more children put into dangerous situations where we can’t go back for a redo once the error has caused serious harm.
HB18-1108: Commission Deaf Hard of Hearing Deafblind
Changes name of Colorado commission for the deaf and hard of hearing by adding the deafblind to the name and creates the deafblind citizens council to advise the commission on assisting the deafblind. Also expands the commission’s responsibilities to include community access programs for one-on-one system navigation.
SIGNED
Pros
The deafblind belong as part of this commission, which already deals with helping Coloradans who cannot hear, thus dovetailing with this community which also cannot hear. This is a common setup in many states, supported by deafblind community advocates, and while the deafblind do have different needs, they have a lot in common with the deaf community. The additional accommodations required by lack of eyesight are well within the commission’s ability to adapt, with the help of the citizen’s council, and having one group dealing with these issues makes it easier for all involved to get things done.
Cons
The needs of the deafblind are unique enough to warrant their own commission The deaf use a wide range of sighted elements to compensate for lack of hearing, just as the blind use a wide range of audio elements. The deafblind have an entire other world, where neither sense is available. This commission does not include the blind, for the very good reason that the blind and the deaf share having a sense-oriented disability but do not share lifestyles and mitigation techniques. The deafblind are their own community and deserve their own commission.
HB18-1115: Department of Public Safety Human Trafficking-Related Training
Requires criminal justice division to provide human trafficking training to law enforcement agencies, schools, and entities that provide services to victims. Priority must be given to areas of the state that have limited access to training resources.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
Much of the state has limited training resources and of course human trafficking occurs everywhere. In particular, we know that traffickers target schools and recruit children. This bill helps close the training gap.
Cons
With our need to squeeze every drop out of the budget, this is best left to the federal level as a crime that frequently occurs across state borders and involves federal agents.
HB18-1192: Application Assistance Federal Disability Benefits
Creates a program to help people with disabilities participating in state aid programs to navigate the application process for federal disability benefits.
KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
Pros
The disabled participating in state programs are getting less than $200 a month, not enough to really live on. The federal application process is onerous and complicated and calls out for a guide to help. 57% of the state’s chronically homeless population are people with disabilities, this bill will therefore not only help people who need it, but also save the state money in the long-run by keeping people off the streets and getting them more preventative medical care rather than costly emergency room care.
Cons
At some point people need to be able to do things for themselves. How is someone going to be able to save all of this money by getting off the streets if they cannot fill out an application? It'll be money down the drain.
HB18-1196: Applications for Aid to the Needy Disabled Program
Currently an individual must be examined by a physician, physician’s assistant, advanced practice nurse, or registered nurse in order to gain eligibility for the state’s needy disabled program. This bill expands the list of authorization to include licensed or certified psychologists, licensed social workers, licensed professional counselor, or any other qualified person the department of human services deems appropriate.
SIGNED
Pros
It’s too difficult for someone with mental health problems to get access to this program right now, adding these extra fields and giving the department the flexibility to administer the authorization program going forward will ensure the program reaches all of those it is intended to benefit.
Cons
This opens the barn door too wide. First, we might end up with people with very borderline mental health issues getting state funds they do not need or deserve. Second, giving the department a blank check with no legislative oversight is a formula for trouble in the future.
HB18-1208: Expand Child Care Expenses Income Tax Credit
Currently there is a sliding scale for child care expense state tax credits based on gross income, starting at less than $60,000 and 10% of the federal tax credit received, down to $25,000 or less and 50%. This bill sets just one bracket: $150,000 or less and 80% of the federal credit.
SIGNED
Pros
Promoting early child care is the best investment the state can make. Multiple studies have shown how important quality care is to childhood development and how it can save the state money in the long run by setting kids on the right path from the start. Unfortunately this care can often be expensive. This tax credit will encourage help more working families get the care they need for their children.
Cons
This represents a larger outflow of funds from the state at a time when we need every penny for education and roads. It also sets the upper end of the credit too high: someone making over $100k a year can surely afford quality child care by making some choices in their spending habits.
HB18-1219: Provider Access to Colorado Benefits Management System
Allows the all-inclusive care for the elderly plan (PACE) to access read-only information from the Colorado benefits management system, which determines eligibility for programs like PACE.
KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
Pros
It makes sense for a program with eligibility requirements like PACE to be able to access the information about eligibility. Will make it run more smoothly.
Cons
There is more information in the benefits management system than just what PACE needs, we don’t need to be giving them access to all of this information.
HB18-1267: Income Tax Credit for Retrofitting Home for Health
Provides an income tax credit for an individual who retrofits their home to ensure the health, safety, and welfare for someone with an illness, impairment, or disability. This individual must have a family income of at or below 400% of the poverty line, or be a dependent. The credit is capped at $5,000. Individuals must qualify through the department of housing to use the credit.
SIGNED
Pros
Sadly these home retrofits are necessary regardless of your income. A child with a disability, someone who suffers a life-altering accident or disease, or the simple process of aging. This bill helps those who are least able to make the changes needed to their residence to make it more liveable. This will help some people stay in their homes who otherwise may not have been able to, which lessens the burden on the rest of society. Well worth the price.
Cons
While it’s always sad when someone has to alter their current home, the state doesn’t need to be subsidizing people’s housing decisions. If an existing home is no longer sufficient, the occupants need to move to another home, not take money from the state to upgrade their current one.
HB18-1285: Remuneration-Exempt Disability Parking Placard
Currently anyone with a disability parking placard can park without paying in a space that normally would require payment. This bill creates a special remuneration-exempt disability placard that only allows parking without paying if the disability limits the individual’s fine motor control in both hands, ability to reach a height of 42 inches from the ground, or ability to reach or access a parking meter due to the use of a wheelchair or other ambulatory device.
SIGNED
Pros
Not all disabilities are the same, and the purpose of a regular disability placard is to give the disabled closer access from parking spaces. The added notion that some people with disabilities should be exempt for paying for parking due to their inability to interact with payment devices shouldn’t apply to anyone with a regular placard, which this bill fixes.
Cons
Our current system works fine, the disabled face all sorts of hurdles in our society, we don't need to picking and choosing from among them to decide who is deserving of free parking and who isn't.
HB18-1292: Pilot Program Assistance Person Experiencing Homelessness
Creates a grant program called START to make money available to public safety, social services, or nonprofit agencies that have contact with people experiencing homelessness. It also can develop and institute community-based programs with proactive solutions to provide assistance to those experiencing homelessness. The department of local affairs is responsible for developing rules for the program. The program is capped at $250,000 in expenditures, with a maximum of $25,000 per grant. Programs are banned from using the grant money as direct cash payments to the homeless.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
Homelessness is a problem that goes away through ignoring it. Frequently those that are homeless need help, and getting the homeless into more stable situations benefits everyone, including the state which will then have to expend fewer resources on them. The amount the state is expending here is miniscule (as befits a pilot program) and if the program proves successful, it can be expanded later.
Cons
People who can’t help themselves don’t need more money thrown at them. This builds a cycle of dependency, instead of forcing these people to get a job and turn their lives around. Any steps to fostering that dependency, no matter how small, are counterproductive.
FROM THE OTHER SIDE
This is just spitting into the ocean. The amount of money here is not enough to make any sort of real difference, which may lead to people examining this program in the future and deciding it didn’t make enough of an impact to warrant expanding or continuing it.
HB18-1319: Services Successful Adulthood Former Foster Youth
Allows the state to provide services to former foster-care children between ages of 18 and 21 to assist with employment, education, financial management, housing, mental health care, and substance abuse treatment. Creates a steering committee to develop recommendations for an implementation plan for the long-term success of the program.
SIGNED
Pros
More than 300 people exit the state’s foster system every year in this age bracket without a permanent home or stable support network. All of the services available to these youths in foster care disappear and they are on their own. Many of them are already more at-risk than the average youth and don’t have the support system to cope with the difficulties of becoming a contributing adult. Failure here adds much more of a burden to state resources than what it would take to intervene and help ensure a smoother transition.
Cons
At some point, people have to be able to stand on their own two feet. The longer this process is delayed into adulthood, the harder it may be to take away the supports. The last thing we need to do with youth at this critical age is to foster a sense of dependency on the state.
HB18-1346: Abuse of Youth Under 21 in Care of Institution
Adds abuse of youth in a child care facility to the definition of child abuse and acts of omission that threaten life, health, or welfare of a child to institutional abuse.
SIGNED
Pros
This fills in some gaps in the statutes, previously someone in a facility that was over 16 would not have qualified as a victim of abuse under the statute, and it was not specified that acts of omission also qualified as institutional abuse.
Cons
The child abuse statute is specifically written to address children 16 and younger. This bill would make the status of youth who are age 17 different depending on where they live. Live in an institution? Abuse is child abuse. Live at home? Not. This should not be, they should be treated equally.
HB18-1348: Child Welfare Information and Services
Allows foster parents access to information, including judicial and educational, on a foster child or a prospective foster child. Also allows community-based agencies and public health agencies implementing child abuse and neglect programs access to contact information of families that were the subject of a referral that did not result in a new case being opened.
SIGNED
Pros
This bill is about facing a harsh reality. Putting a child into a home that is not prepared, or even does not want, to deal with the difficulties the child will bring does not help the child. It just puts it into yet another bad home dynamic. Foster parents deserve the opportunity to know, before committing to raise a child, what they are getting into.
Cons
We already have an enormous problem placing foster children into homes. This bill will make that problem worse, as it encourages parents to cherry-pick even more.
HB18-1363: Recommendations of Child Support Commission
Implements multiple recommendations from the child support commission. Authorizes county child support enforcement units to produce, issue, and serve subpoenas to compel genetic testing to determine paternity, establishes parameters for negotiation conferences to establish child support obligations and penalties for missing a scheduled conference, sets more established definitions and procedures around notices of financial responsibility, court orders in cases of default, administrative proceedings, and requesting court hearings. Finally, the bill also requires insurance companies to participate in the Child Support Lien Network and gives the state the ability to recover fees from the various potential actions it make take around child support and spend that money to maintain the network.
SIGNED
Pros
The match rate right now, when insurance claims data is matched with outstanding child support obligations, is 0.9% with voluntary cooperation. Match rates in other states where this is mandatory, like in the bill, are around 2.2%, so this would greatly increase the ability of the state to get the court ordered money where it belongs: providing support to the child(ren). The bill also sets a bunch of parameters that make the process more formal and more likely to succeed and allows for compelled genetic testing in cases of disputed paternity.
Cons
It should remain voluntary for insurance companies to participate in the matching database, there may be times when a parent wants to get current with their child support payments but cannot without life-altering consequences and needs the insurance money to take care of those first.
HB18-1376: Regulate Residential Services and Supports Providers
Requires individuals who provide residential services and supports in their home to unrelated people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to be regulated by department of health care policy.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
This addresses the unregulated 3 or fewer situation, whereby if you have three or fewer people with an intellectual and development disability supported in your home, you do not have to be regulated. Anyone who has the long-term care of a disadvantaged individual in their hands and is not a family member needs have some eyes on them.
Cons
These sorts of regulations are intended for larger homes where we are dealing with a real business that needs monitoring since it relates to people who may not be able to speak for themselves. Three people or fewer is not such a business and putting these burdensome regulations on them may make it much harder for them to be a viable option as their costs rise.
HB18-1380: Grants for Property Tax Rent and Heat
Currently low-income seniors and individuals with disabilities are eligible for state assistance grants for property taxes or rent paid and heating expenses. The rent assistance only applies for landlords that pay property tax, this bill removes that requirement. It also raises the assistance amounts to adjust for inflation since 2014 (last time they were touched) and makes an inflation adjustment permanent.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
The idea here is to help people who are less likely to able to work to stay in a home and stay warm in the winter. The notion that we should care if the landlord is required to pay property tax doesn’t square with this mission and this bill rightly removes it.
Cons
Rent in this program is considered a property tax substitute, as obviously if you are renting you don’t own the property and don’t owe property tax. The idea is to help with the money that must be paid to the state for owning the property, so it makes sense that if there is no money owed to the state, then there is no need for assistance in paying something that doesn’t exist.
HB18-1390: Safe Family Option for Families in Crisis
Creates a voluntary option for parents with custody rights to enter into an agreement for another individual to temporarily care for their child(ren). The agreement does not alter parental rights at all and is not considered abandonment. Unless the parents are deployed activity duty military members, it cannot last for more than six months. Qualified nonprofits are allowed to create an implement the agreements and must do fingerprint-based background checks on every adult in the proposed temporary care household as well as child abuse and neglect report checks. The agreement allows the temporary custodian to enroll the child in school, obtain educational and behavioral information from school, consent to all school related matters, medical treatment, or any other thing requiring consent of a guardian except for marriage, adoption, or religious affiliation.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
This provides a safe, voluntary option for parents in crisis who do not present a danger to their children by creating a network of volunteer families who have been screened and trained. The nonprofit provides a necessary check on the system as all of these agreements must run through them. These agreements can also be revoked at any time by the parents.
Cons
At what point are we going to step in and say that the “crisis” is enough for parental rights to become an issue? The bill is silent about what to do with parents who string together six month vacations from their responsibility with brief gaps of actual parenting. Presumably it counts on the nonprofit agencies to not allow it but there’s a lot of gray area here. The bill also allows for cases wherein joint custody one parent does not agree but the temporary placement happens anyway (the bill requires every reasonable effort to gain permission of both parents).
HB18-1395: Colorado Youth Advisory Council Review Committee
Currently we have a Colorado Youth Advisory Council, made up of legislators and youth, that meets four times a year and reports once during the session to legislative committees a summary of its work and recommendations. This bill creates a smaller council review committee that can meet in between sessions like other interim committees and recommend up to three pieces of legislation.
KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
Pros
The Youth Advisory committee doesn’t have an outlet right now in the legislature, it has to report to other committees that then decide on their own what legislation it might or might not want to recommend. This gives the committee the ability to recommend bills outside of the maximum requirement for each legislator (like any other interim committee).
Cons
We don’t need more interim committees and more bills set outside the structural framework that helps keep the total bills in any one sessions to a semi-manageable number. If the Youth Advisory Committee has a good bill, a legislator can propose it now.
HB18-1407: Access to Disability Services and Stable Workforce
Requires the department of health care policy and financing to seek federal approval for a 6.5% increase in the reimbursement rate for home and community based services for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The service providers are to use 100% of the increase as compensation for direct support professionals.
SIGNED
Pros
This system serves more than 12,000 people and their families and reimbursement rates have not kept up with rising costs. As a result, the state is experiencing a crisis in direct support professionals with high turnover and a shallow employment pool. This bill will help make the job more attractive by allowing these agencies to pay more.
Cons
There may be other things these agencies would love to spend the money on, in addition to higher compensation that have nothing to do with executive’s salaries or anything else like that. The direct support professional is the tip of the spear and is useless if the shaft is broken.
HB18-1416: Student Suicide Prevention Grant Program
Creates a student suicide prevention grant program for schools which provides grants to develop and implement student suicide prevention policies and training programs.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
Suicide is the leading cause of death for young people in Colorado. A 2015 study showed that more than 29% of state high schoolers indicated feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks and nearly 18% reported considering suicide with nearly 8% making one or more actual attempts. The Colorado suicide prevention commission has recommended implementing comprehensive protocols including staff training to recognize the signs of individuals in crisis.
Cons
We should not be encouraging schools to become involved in student’s personal lives to this degree, it can get in-between students and their parents.
HB18-1420: Early Childhood Development Special District
Authorizes the creation of early childhood development services special districts, which allows them to seek voter approval to levy property and sales taxes to generate revenues to fund services. The district must be organized like any other special district except that all eligible voters, rather than just property owners, are eligible to vote, and people cannot request to remove their property from the district.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
Early childhood care is critical to success and is a rather large hole in our social safety net. With no state-provided preschool, ½ day Kindergarten, and school vacations, it can be extremely difficult for working parents to provide quality care to their young children. This bill will allow local areas to make their own decisions in this area, forming a special district if they want and deciding on their own levels of taxation to fund it.
Cons
Something as critical as early childhood care shouldn’t be left to optional participation by local areas in the nebulous area of special districts. The state as a whole needs to be involved.
SB 18-050: Free-standing Emergency Facility as Safe Haven
Expands Colorado’s Safe Haven laws to include staff members of free-standing emergency facilities as people allowed to take temporary physical custody of infants 72 hours old or younger when he or she is voluntarily surrendered by its parent or parents.
SIGNED
Pros
Safe Haven laws protect newborns from being abandoned by their parents. Instead there is a system which allows them to leave the newborn with a firefighter or hospital worker, no questions asked. This unfortunately necessary law would benefit from expanding to a free-standing emergency facility (one that is not part of a hospital) as its employees have the necessary training to deal with the situation and this is the type of facility a parent might seek out.
Cons
Stand-alone facilities are not the same as a fully functioning hospital and additional training may be required at these stand alone facilities to deal with abandoned newborns.
SB18-074: Designate Prader-Willi Syndrome Developmental Disability
Adds Prader-Willi syndrome to the list of people who have mandatory eligibility for services and supports available to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
SIGNED
Pros
There are up to 375 individuals living with this condition in Colorado. This is a genetic condition that currently has no cure and fits the spirit of the intellectual and developmental disability list. The most common symptoms of Prader-Willi syndrome are behavior problems, intellectual disability, and short stature. Hormonal symptoms include delayed puberty and constant hunger leading to obesity and even death from overeating.
Cons
375 people is too few to warrant this kind of state-wide mandate.
SB18-099: Align Early Childhood Quality Improvement Programs
From the Early Childhood and School Readiness Commission. Amends the application and eligibility requirements for the school-readiness quality improvement program and the infant and toddler quality grant to align with the Colorado Shines Program, a statewide rating and review system run by the state.
SIGNED
Pros
It makes sense to utilize the same rating and review system the state already uses for schools for early childhood education grants.
Cons
Early childhood education is different enough from K-12 that the same rating and review system should not be used for both.
SB18-112: Veterans Outdoor Terrain Restoration Grant Program
Creates a veterans outdoor terrain restoration and recreation mental health grant program to provide money to non-profit and for-profit organizations that provide services for veterans to engage in outdoor restoration or recreation activities. The fund is allowed to accept gifts and donations and may also be funded by the general assembly.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
We owe much to our veterans and one of the ways we know helps with returning and reacclimating to civilian society is doing outdoor activities, either restoration (win-win helps everyone) or recreation.
Cons
The state should not be subsidizing for profit companies in this way, no matter what the end goal is.
SB18-114: Suicide Prevention Enhance Student Life Skills
Encourages schools to develop and adopt a suicide prevention policy. Each school is allowed to develop its own plan but are encouraged to incorporate tiered training for school personnel, life skills training for students, training for students to spot risk signs in other peers as well as encourage seeking out trusted adults, parent education, and the use of state developed curricula. The bill also creates a grant program allowed to give out up to 25 grants a year between $5,000 and $10,000.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
Suicide is the leading cause of death for young people in Colorado. A 2015 study showed that more than 29% of state high schoolers indicated feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks and nearly 18% reported considering suicide with nearly 8% making one or more actual attempts. Research has also demonstrated that in addition to helping prevent suicide, social emotional learning programs in school are associated with greater academic performance.
Cons
This is unacceptable state overreach into the lives of kids and gets between kids and parents, who should be determining what life skills they want to teach, not state bureaucrats. It also takes time away from teaching the basics kids will need in life: math, science, reading, etc.
SB18-145: Implement Employment First Recommendations
Implements the Employment First Advisory Partnership’s recommendations (created in 2016 to develop a strategic plan to expand employment opportunities to people with disabilities). Requires all providers of supported employment services for people with disabilities to complete training or earn a national certification relating to the job. Requires the state’s fees for rehabilitation services include the discovery process as an alternate assessment if appropriate for someone with a disability. Permits the state to enter into contracts with vendors to provide training to all (from person with disability through employer), contingent on receiving at least 75% of the contract amount from gifts, grants, or donations. Requires counties to collect and report employment data for people with disabilities served by the state.
SIGNED
Pros
85% of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities are either unemployed or underemployed. The state set out to try to fix that two years ago and this begins to implement the recommendations of the special panel. Getting national certification or training is important in this field as it has specialized knowledge requirements. Training is an important area to address since there are jobs out there that can be done by people with disabilities but the employer and/or individual is not aware.
Cons
This is too much of a burden on counties and employers to collect all of this information.
SB18-154: Juvenile Planning Committee Crossover Youth Plans
Requires the juvenile justice system and the child welfare system to work together when a child is involved in both of them. The two must devise a plan to keep information shared between both systems, to identify the best and least restrictive placement, and develop a single case management plan.
SIGNED
Pros
We all know that a proper plan that addresses all of a child’s needs is the best way to ensure that they do not end up back in the juvenile justice system or the criminal justice system. This bill helps ensure that the two agencies tasked with working with these at-risk children work together to make the best plan possible. We also know that the less restrictions you can safely put on a juvenile, the better the potential outcome.
Cons
This adds too much bureaucracy. While we do want these two systems to work together, we don’t want them to have to take drastically longer amounts of time to work out every single case into a single plan. What if the agencies disagree, as is bound to happen?
SB18-157: Colorado Women's Veterans Act
Creates the Women Veterans Office to ensure that all women veterans have equal access to federal and state veterans services and benefits. Also creates a steering committee in the governor’s office to study needs of female veterans in the state and leverage resources to help them.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
Military women lack consistent access to a full range of gender-sensitive benefits and services, and the federal government has not ensured that staff members of federal agencies are exemplifying and promoting a culture that embraces its women veterans. Nearly 40,000 female veterans reside in Colorado and we need to do better for them.
Cons
This is all activity that should be covered by the state’s VA. There is no need to single out women for special treatment, if there are problems with outreach or treatment or services then fix it within the existing structure designed for veterans.
SB18-162: Substitute Placement Agency Licensure
From the Early Childhood and School Readiness Legislative Commission. Creates a license for a substitute placement agency that arranges substitute child care providers in licensed child care facilities for less than 24 hour care.
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Pros
This helps fill a niche need for getting quality licensed substitutes for child care providers. These sort of agencies, which already exist, need their own licensure just like a licensed child care facilities.
Cons
These agencies are only as good as the substitutes they are providing to the licensed care facilities. We need to trust the facilities to know which agencies are good and which are not, we do not need to add more government regulation.
SB18-174: Service Providers for Persons with Developmental Disabilities
Expands the groups legally protected from liability for serving people with developmental disabilities unless the person claiming the injury has filed for dispute resolution by adding case management agencies. It also adds the department of health care and financing and case management agencies to the list for dispute resolution. Also, except in emergencies, the bill requires person-centered planning to occur prior to removing a person with a developmental disability from a residential setting when the person is at risk of harm. In an emergency, planning must occur soon after removal.
SIGNED
Pros
Case management agencies work closely with people with developmental disabilities in much the same manner as other providers and should be similarly protected from liability without dispute resolution.
Cons
Case management agencies are more like middle men than end providers, and this law was created to protect the end providers, since this is such a difficult service to provide. Therefore these agencies don’t deserve the same liability protection.
SB18-201: Religious Organization Child Care Licensing Exemption
Currently churches have a child care licensing exemption for care that is less than three hours while people are attending service. This bill removes the time limit for churches.
KILLED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
Pros
The time limit doesn’t make sense in the connotation of church services and puts added difficulties on those who need more than three hours of care.
Cons
The time limit is here for a very good reason, if you get rid of it you are doing basic daycare. In addition, we’ve learned enough in 2018 to know that just because someone works at a church that does not mean they are automatically trustworthy around children.
SB18-213: Transfer Academic Credits for Division Of Youth Services Youths
Requires schools to accept academic credit transfers for student transferring from the division of youth services.
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Pros
This is part of stopping the cycle of crime in youth. If we are going to encourage those in youth services to take classes, those students should get credit once they transition out and back into society and a regular school.
Cons
Counting the course work done in a youth services facility the same as coursework done in a regular school is not right, perhaps some credit should be given for it but not the same as transferring from one regular school to another.
SB18-231: Transition to Community-Based Services Task Force
Establishes a task force to make recommendations on improvements for the transition of individuals with disabilities who are receiving services and supports in an educational setting to receiving those supports through home- and community-based services.
SIGNED
Pros
Those under 21 receive these supports from educational providers while those over 21 are served by the department of health care policy through community- and home-based programs. The transition between the two can be difficult for young adults and their families and the department of health care policy currently has no way of determining the number of young adults who will be transferring into their system each year. It is therefore necessary to create a task force of all interested parties to find ways to make this process work better.
Cons
Task forces are nice of course but they don't do anything but issue recommendations.
SB18-265: Child Care Savings Account Income Tax Benefits
Creates a child care savings account at financial institutions, which only is available for those with federal taxable income of less than $90,000 (or $180,000 in joint returns). Taxpayers may claim tax credits of up to 10% of the amount they deposit to the account with a maximum of $250 per year per account and $25,000 per year total. Money in the account may only be used for child care payments or bank fees.
KILLED IN SENATE COMMITTEE
Pros
Early childhood care is critical to success and is a rather large hole in our social safety net. With no state-provided preschool, ½ day Kindergarten, and school vacations, it can be extremely difficult for working parents to provide quality care to their young children. This gives these working families a bit of a break on their taxes.
Cons
There already is a tax break for child care payments. In addition, the structure of the bill that these accounts can have bank fees, and that the minimum per account is $250 but that you can have unlimited numbers of these accounts and get up to $25,000 total, is a recipe for the better off to benefit. And earning $90,000 a year (or $180,000) for a household is a very high threshold for a program of this type.
SB18-272: Crisis and Suicide Prevention Training Grant Program
Creates the crisis and suicide prevention grant program in the department of public health to provide financial assistance to schools in providing crisis and suicide prevention training to schools, with priority given to schools that have not previously received such training. Maximum amount per year is $400,000.
SIGNED
Pros
Suicide is the leading cause of death for young people in Colorado. A 2015 study showed that more than 29% of state high schoolers indicated feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks and nearly 18% reported considering suicide with nearly 8% making one or more actual attempts. It makes sense to put more money in school’s hands to provide better prevention training and even more sense to prioritize schools were no training has happened.
Cons
We should not be encouraging schools to become involved in student’s personal lives to this degree, it can get in-between students and their parents.