(1) The general assembly hereby finds and declares that:
The state's policies in connection with the provision of child care assistance and theeffective delivery of such assistance are critical to the ultimate success of any welfare reform program;
Children in low-income families who receive services through a child care assistanceprogram need and deserve the same access to a broad range of child care providers as do children in families who do not need assistance;
It is critical to provide low- to moderate-income families with access to high-quality,affordable child care that fosters healthy child development and school readiness, while at the same time promotes family self-sufficiency and attachment to the workforce; and
Individual counties play a vital role in administering the child care assistance program and have local knowledge of their individual community needs.
(2) Therefore, the general assembly hereby finds and declares that it is in the best interests of the state to:
Adopt the Colorado child care assistance program set forth in this part 8;
Adopt a consistent, statewide plan for child care provider reimbursement rates with agoal of a floor of the seventy-fifth percentile of each county's market rate to facilitate and increase access to high-quality child care for low-income families;
Achieve parity across counties in the state with regard to the CCCAP program andfunding allocation.
Source: L. 97: Entire part added, p. 1217, § 1, effective June 3. L. 2008: Entire section amended, p. 2176, § 1, effective June 4. L. 2014: Entire section amended, (HB 14-1317), ch. 259, p. 1030, § 1, effective May 22. L. 2018: (1)(b), (1)(c), (1)(d), and (2)(b) amended and (2)(c) added, (HB 18-1335), ch. 386, p. 2313, § 2, effective July 1.