HB18-1420 (Hamner/Rankin) Early Childhood Development Special District
Summary
This bill authorizes local communities to create special districts for the purpose of delivering early childhood development services for children from birth through eight years of age. Early childhood development services include early care and educational, health, mental health, and developmental services, including prevention and intervention. Title 32 in state statute currently enables the creation of special districts to fund and deliver a variety of services, including parks and recreation, forest improvement, and fire protection. There are more than 2,000 special districts in Colorado today.
Position
The Children’s Campaign strongly supports this bill as a way to create a mechanism for local investments in young children’s healthy development in addition to state investments. Local communities across the state are interested in working together, across municipal, county and school district boundaries, to offer high quality early childhood development services in a regional way, designed to meet local community needs. Early childhood services, including early care and education, health and mental health care and developmental support programs for children birth to age eight, can support working parents to stay employed and help young children get a good start in life.
Current Status
The bill died in the Senate State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee on a vote of 3-2
Previous Status
April 27, 2018
Passed the House Local Government Committee unanimously and now heads to the House floor for debate
