EXCERPT FROM: The Longmont Times-Call
By John Fryar
BOULDER — Budget limits are forcing Boulder County to freeze enrollment in a program that helps low-income families pay for child care, the county’s Housing and Human Services Department announced Wednesday.
A waiting list is being created for families who want to enroll in the Child Care Assistance Program.
Through November, Boulder County had authorized 1,212 children to participate in the government-subsidized program this year, county officials said. That was up from the 1,083 children the program served in 2008.
Meanwhile, new eligibility requirements will make the program available only to Boulder County families with incomes that are 185 percent or less of the federally set poverty level.
That will make a family of four ineligible, for example, if that family’s gross income is higher than $3,400 a month.
Previously, Boulder County families with incomes of up to 225 percent of the federal poverty level could apply for the program.
State funding cuts and increasing human-services caseloads in Boulder County have made it necessary to make changes to the program, county officials said.
“Meeting the needs and safeguarding the lives of Boulder County children and families is essential. Unfortunately, budget constraints require us to stay within our limited resources,” said Frank Alexander, the county’s Housing and Human Services director.
Boulder County’s basic budget allocation for the Child Care Assistance Program for the current state fiscal year is $3.2 million, a combination of federal, state and county funds.
Alexander said the county is spending an additional $1.2 million to supplement the Child Care Assistance Program with money from a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families budget account.
County Commissioner Cindy Domenico said Wednesday that “we have a very deep need in the community” for child-care assistance and all the other human services and health programs the county provides or administers.
With the cuts coming down to the county level as state government attempts to balance its own budgets, Domenico said Boulder County is doing the best it can to try to meet as many of those social safety-net needs as possible.
Domenico said the changes being made in the Child Care Assistance Program followed “a very thoughtful and very difficult analysis and review.”
Among the steps being taken, according to a Wednesday news release and a letter the county sent to program participants earlier this week:
The new-participants enrollment suspension takes effect on Friday. But Temporary Assistance for Needy Families clients will be exempt from that enrollment freeze, if they also need child-care assistance while moving their way out of the Colorado Works program.