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Tag: Colorado Department of Human Services

Colorado SNAP Error Rate Could Leave Taxpayers Paying Millions More
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado SNAP Error Rate Could Leave Taxpayers Paying Millions More

By: Logan McCahill | Complete Colorado For the first time since the Great Recession, 1 in 10 Coloradans are enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps. The federally subsidized program provides families below a government-established income level with food benefits to help with grocery bills. Starting in October of 2027, Colorado will begin paying a share of these benefits due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The amount taxpayers will owe depends on how many people participate in SNAP and how accurately the state processes them, both of which are growing issues for Colorado.   Rising enrollment Between 2020 and 2025, SNAP enrollment grew more than six times faster than Col...
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Colorado cut some kinship payments July 1 and told families to get certified. Some can’t.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado cut some kinship payments July 1 and told families to get certified. Some can’t.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Jody Fountain testified before the Colorado Senate Appropriations Committee on April 14 with a story about a two-year-old boy. The boy had been placed with his mother's boyfriend. It was a kinship placement, the arrangement the state prefers when a child cannot stay with a parent. The boyfriend could not get certified as a foster parent. Something in his distant past disqualified him. Years later, after Fountain adopted the boy, she read the disclosure file. Two weeks before the child was removed and put into foster care, the grandmother had called. The family had no money for food. "I can't help but think about all the children that are going to be placed in this situation as the support disappears for non-certifie...
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Food Shaming Concerns Delay Colorado Plan to Ban Soda Purchases With Food Stamps
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Food Shaming Concerns Delay Colorado Plan to Ban Soda Purchases With Food Stamps

By: Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun The SNAP rule change was delayed by a state board after a 7-hour hearing including fierce opposition from the governor’s fellow Democrats, Hunger Free Colorado and Save the Children. A plan to prohibit Coloradans from using food-assistance benefits to buy soda and sugary fruit juices was stalled Friday by a state board after opponents argued it was an overreach that could harm the dignity and autonomy of low-income families. The rule would ban the use of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called SNAP, to buy soda as well as juices with added sugars or artificial sweeteners. Gov. Jared Polis won approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the “healthy choice” rule in August, but needed...
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Colorado Supreme Court to decide if state wrongly denied child abuse hotline data to media orgs
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Supreme Court to decide if state wrongly denied child abuse hotline data to media orgs

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun The news agencies wanted to know the number of times child residential treatment centers had called the child abuse hotline but were denied by state human services officials A legal battle over child abuse hotline data requested four years ago by The Colorado Sun and 9News has reached the Colorado Supreme Court.  The case centers on the news organizations’ joint request under the Colorado Open Records Act for the number of calls made to the state child abuse hotline from three child residential treatment centers in the Denver area from 2018 to 2021. Journalists sought the information while investigating the safety of children in residential centers, including the death of a 12-year-old boy who ran away from Tennyson Center and...
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Appeals Court Finds Denver Judge Improperly Terminated Father’s Custody Rights
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State, Approved, The Denver Gazette

Appeals Court Finds Denver Judge Improperly Terminated Father’s Custody Rights

By Michael Karlik | The Denver Gazette Colorado’s second-highest court on Thursday determined the evidence did not support a Denver judge’s ruling terminating the legal relationship between a father and his child. A three-judge Court of Appeals panel identified numerous instances where the facts contradicted the trial judge’s findings that the father lacked stable housing and was unable to be “a full-time parent.” “The uncontested evidence showed that father could provide appropriate care for the child during all of the parenting time allotted to him. The juvenile court, though, appeared to expect father to prove his ability to care for the child full-time, rather than requiring the (government) to prove that, notwithstanding his success at family time, father was unable or unwill...
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