5/1/25 ECEA Members Update
Legislative Oversight of Private Industry
Pretty clear cut opposition to the oil and gas industry. This list of Sponsors is regarding SB24-230. which imposed significant fees on the Oil & Gas Industry. We are speaking about this strictly from a legislation against business perspective.
This second list are the legislators who support a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of TABOR. What do these two lists above have in common? Towing the party line. It's worth noting: This year's budget increased by 8%---they just increased FEES as a workaround for TABOR. Maybe it's time to reign in services to align with the state budget instead!?!
Who floated bills to restrict child care this year?
HB25-1011 (Private Equity bill) --Lorena Garcia, Emily Sirota, Cathy Kipp, Iman Jodeh were the sponsors.
SB25-004 (Fees bill) - Faith Winter, Janice Marchman, Jenny Willford, Lorena Garcia were the sponsors.
Whatever your politics...if you care about BUSINESS you must evaluate what legislative approaches support and oppose your business.
Another industry:
Are you seeing how much the CO Legislature majority is working to undermine private industry after private industry?
Feel overwhelmed by all the things happening at the legislature? That's because there were 631 new attempts this year to pass NEW REGULATIONS on every Colorado citizen! Who can possibly keep up with all of the new state laws every year? Does this practice align with what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they set up our system of states? The session ends on May 7th , this was an overview of were bills stood early this week.
Another CRITICAL Example:
At neck breaking speed, the legislature are working to pass SB25-276 to vacate Misdemeanor, Petty and traffic offenses of immigrants because "they didn't know the potential deportation consequences when sentenced." IN THE SAME BILL ---legislators are taking the PRIVATE Child Care and Nursing Home industries and redefining the privately owned businesses as PUBLIC ENTITIES if they've taken any money from the state in the LAST 5 YEARS (UPK, CCCAP, ARPA/COVID funds). HOW DARE THEY??? And to make matters worse....they batted down amendments to remove child care from the bill. When this bill passes, and it will pass... ECEA will provide members with what they need to be in full compliance with the bill. That will be available in our May updates.
Legislature Suspended/Violated Rules
For the remaining 10 days of the legislature, our state leaders have decided to waive the session rules. What's that mean? All of those bills in the chart above that are not resolved can now move through the chambers and committees lightening fast. They can move from one chamber, to the floor of the next, to the committee and have stakeholder feedback denied and then go back to the floor the following morning.
We just realized TODAY that SB25-200 isn't just about Dyslexia screening....it's also enabling programs to opt out of standardized kindergarten readiness screening and instead offering individualized reading plans. THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO UNDERMINE OUTCOMES DATA FOR UPK. If it can't be apples to apples for a comparison then there can be no comparison. THIS IS SUBVERSIVE!!
ECEA wants to offer a special call out to Governor Polis: THANK YOU FOR NOT SIGNING SB25-077 that sought to slow down CO Open Records Responses from the state! We celebrate this decision and want to thank you for preserving our access to state data to support the industry with!
ECEA is going to make it easier for you to track what YOUR legislator is doing! We are publishing an Industry Voter Guide. You can find it www.coloradoecea.org as a tab under advocacy and it will remain there as a permanent part of our website. Explore the advocacy tabs and see other tremendous resources (ie., CDEC Budgets, Advocacy efforts in providers own words, etc.) This site was built to support our industry so let us know if there is something useful that we are missing!
New UPK Rate Comparisons
We've dropped them into our comparison spreadsheet so that you can see the percentage of increases/decreases for UPK rates statewide. You can find it at
https://www.coloradoecea.org/advocacy/universal-preschool-upk
CDEC Budgets
We've also posted this and next years fiscal budgets for you on our administrative advocacy page.
We are working on an analysis
ECEA Advocacy Rundown
We know you are busy! We will do a video once or twice a month to summarize what is going on in the state and will tell you about our legislative and administrative advocacy work! You can always find these on the left menu in the portal at the bottom. We hope that this helps you to stay in the know a bit easier!! Here's our first Rundown:
(DO NOT SHARE....this is a member ONLY benefit) If you have friends that want to hear it, tell them to join!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y71YJgIljhZutzVYl4xQFw3fNgnDGOAy/view?usp=sharing
https://www.voronoiapp.com/maps/Mapped-Daycare-Costs-by-State-4771
Child Care Costs By State
As a reminder: State policies in our state are driving up the cost of child care in Colorado. We've outlined outcomes and impacts of various programs as derived from a statistically significant subset of the child care industry. If you haven't seen it yet...read The Breaking of an Industry now at https://www.coloradoecea.org/advocacy/administrative-advocacy. In coming weeks we will share out the states response to the report and what we have to say about their response! ECEA is meeting with the CDEC leadership team next week to discuss our recommendations.
Chalkbeat: CO Preschool program ranks high for enrollment, low for quality guardrails, report finds.
Colorado General Assembly sends final $44 billion budget to governor's desk for approval
Denver's ground-floor retail gamble isn't paying off
Colorado legislature declines to override Jared Polis’ veto of social media bill
Colorado lawmakers brace for special session over potential Medicaid cuts
Stop demonizing TABOR, CO budget increased a whopping 8% over 2025
https://www.erikson.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/PKFCC-EducatorSurvey-BRIEF-English-R3.pdf
