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Dear Valued Early Intervention Families, Providers, and Partners,
Over the past three months, hundreds of providers and early intervention partners have given their time and shared their thoughts and experiences with the Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC) to find ways to better support funding for Early Intervention Colorado. We want to thank you for your feedback and advocacy. We heard your concerns about keeping services for children and making sure providers are paid fairly.
This EI Cost Containment Request for Information (RFI) was shared with the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) on Monday, June 16, 2025. The JBC asked CDEC to find a way to save $1 million in the 2025–26 budget year. To help keep services for children and their families, CDEC suggests these ways to save money:
- Reducing administrative costs of the CDEC EI Program (spending less on office and state staff costs)
- Discontinuing no-show payments for subcontracted providers (not paying providers a fee when families miss appointments)
- Discontinuing mileage and travel reimbursement for subcontracted providers (not paying for gas and travel for providers who are not employed by an EI Program)
- Discontinuing $250 training stipends for subcontracted providers (no extra pay for providers to take training)
CDEC believes that these strategies will save up to $953,826 in FY 2025-26 (starting January 2026) and $1,607,652 in FY 2026-27. The JBC will take our recommendations and make any decisions on changes for the 2025-2026 year. These recommendations do not include any changes to the Early Intervention program before January 1, 2026, and there will be no changes to early intervention services provided to families.
CDEC recommended the following strategies for further consideration:
- Medicaid Accessed through EI Services Trust or EI Code
- Require all Providers to be In-Network with Private Insurance
- Analysis of the Bifurcation of the Referral and Intake System
The RFI also includes a list of strategies that the Department does not recommend based on the feedback received.
CDEC will host two informational sessions, one for families and one for providers and community partners:
Provider Request for Information (RFI) Summary for EI:
- Monday, June 30, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. MST
- Google Meet joining info:
Family Request for Information (RFI) Summary for EI:
- Thursday, July 10 · 4:00 – 5:00 pm MT
- Google Meet joining info:
ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation and Spanish captions will be provided, with help from a team member who speaks both English and Spanish. CDEC and EI Colorado will start holding input sessions every two weeks again, beginning on July 24, 2025. Each session will last 1.5 hours and will talk about ideas to help keep the program running in the future. In December 2025, after seven more sessions, CDEC will send in another report. This report will look at more ways to save money for the 2026–2027 budget year. We value your point of view, and as we work together to find more solutions for cost savings, CDEC is committed to making sure this process is collaborative and includes all perspectives.
The updated Input Session schedule can be found here: NEW Revised - Upcoming Early Intervention Program Input Session Topics & Dates. Here is the link to the Calendar of Events and a link to the public folder with all of the previous input session notes.
Thank you again for being a part of Early Intervention Colorado. We continue to be focused on helping the early intervention community give children a strong start in life and best support Colorado’s infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities.
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