Archuleta County Department of Human Services (DHS) Director Heidi Martinez gave a 2024 fourth-quarter report at a recent meeting held by the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC), providing an update on potential upcoming challenges for child care support in Archuleta County.
“Child care assistance is currently under a troublesome forthcoming,” Martinez said, explaining the state recently performed an audit which determined that child care providers are not being adequately compensated for their services.
“Which is understandable,” Martinez added, further explaining that the state is increasing what it pays to providers, but decreasing the overall child care support budget.
“The measures that they took to compensate for this means that, in Archuleta County, we will be able to probably serve 33 percent of what we were previously able to serve because they increased what we’re paying providers, but they didn’t increase the budget. They actually decreased the budget,” she said.
Martinez noted that the child care support budget is based on a three-year structure, “and at the end of those three years the amount of children in Archuleta County who will be able to receive health care assistance will be extremely, extremely low.”
Martinez added that larger counties around the state have already initiated a wait-list freeze.
Human services departments initiate a wait-list freeze once 90 percent of their child care support budget has been spent, Martinez explained, noting, “at the current rate, we will not hit that,” but as the situation progresses, “we will at some point have to not take names on the wait-list anymore.”
Martinez clarified that once a wait-list freeze is initiated, it will take someone coming off of the wait-list to be able to add a new name.
She indicated in a later interview that a wait-list freeze is not expected to happen this year, but will likely occur in 2026 for Archuleta County.
In response to a question from Commissioner Veronica Medina at the meeting, Martinez indicated that she expects DHS to “cap out” once these changes come to fruition.
According to Martinez’s report attached to the meeting agenda, Archuleta County currently has seven open fiscal agreements with child care providers serving families in Archuleta County, with one provider in Lone Tree serving a family involved with child welfare.
The report also notes that the number of applications to the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program for Families (CCCAP) received by Archuleta County increased from November 2024 to December 2024, indicating that 10 applications were received, with five being approved and five pending.
The state lets each county set requirements for eligible families, but “must help families that have an income of 185 [percent] or less of the federal poverty guideline,” according to the Colorado Department of Early Childcare’s website.
Martinez’s report also states, “The amount paid out per child to attend full-time care per year increases, while the number of families in each county receiving CCCAP at a time is decreased.”
clayton@pagosasun.com
