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RAC Member, ECEA Board Member, EPIC Board Member
Memo of Dissent
TO: CDEC Leadership / Dr. Roy — Executive Director, CDEC
FROM: Colin Stewart, Rules Advisory Committee Member
DATE: 5/26/26
RE: Formal Concerns Regarding the Integrity of the CDEC
Rulemaking Process
I am submitting this memorandum in my capacity as a member of the Rules Advisory Committee. I opposed the direction this rulemaking has taken at the RAC table regarding a ratio decrease, and I am putting my concerns in writing because what I have witnessed in this process is not a policy disagreement — it is a process failure, and it requires a direct and formal response.
The Process Is Structured to Outlast Providers, Not to Hear Them
CDEC's rulemaking process presents itself as transparent and participatory. My experience serving on the RAC tells a different story. The approach relies not on confrontation but on attrition. Policy positions are advanced persistently, across multiple cycles, against a community of providers — small business owners — who are running classrooms and serving families every day with limited time and staff.
When providers engage in comment periods and public meetings, their participation is acknowledged. When they cannot sustain that level of engagement across every subsequent round — because they are operating child care programs, not advocacy organizations — their silence is treated as the absence of objection. This is not a transparent process. This is a process that is designed to outlast the people it is supposed to serve.
The providers who show up to testify are doing so at real cost to themselves and their programs. A rulemaking process with integrity treats that participation as meaningful input, not as an obstacle to be waited out.
Provider Testimony Is Being Excluded from the Official Record
I am aware that providers have appeared at rulemaking hearings to share the direct fiscal impact of these proposed changes on their programs. I am also aware that CDEC's own rulemaking documentation has indicated that there is no cost to programs as a result of these rules. These two facts cannot coexist honestly.
If providers are testifying to specific revenue losses and operational impacts, and the official rulemaking record reflects no cost, then the record is not accurate. That inaccuracy has consequences — it shapes what future decision-makers see, and it shapes what legal and legislative review of this rulemaking will reflect. I am formally requesting an explanation of how provider fiscal impact testimony is captured and reflected in the official rulemaking documentation.
A Unanimous RAC Recommendation Was Overridden Without Explanation
The RAC engaged seriously and in good faith on this issue. We reached a unanimous recommendation — a two-year delay — that reflected genuine consensus across committee members representing a range of perspectives. That recommendation was a direct response to the concerns providers had raised, and it represented a reasonable path forward that gave the department time to pursue its quality goals without causing immediate financial harm to operating programs.
CDEC's response was to indicate that they had received 'additional feedback' and to proceed in a different direction. I want to be precise about what that means procedurally: CDEC used unspecified external input to override the unanimous recommendation of the advisory body it convened for exactly this purpose, without disclosing what that feedback was, who provided it, or why it was weighted more heavily than the RAC's conclusion.
If 'additional feedback' can be used to set aside a unanimous RAC recommendation without transparency into its source or weight, then the RAC's function in this process is advisory in name only. That is a problem for the legitimacy of the process — not just for this rule, but for every rule that follows.
The 'Compromise' Is Not a Compromise
At the RAC meeting, the current proposal was characterized as a 'reasonable compromise.' I cannot allow that characterization to stand without challenge. A compromise requires mutual concession. CDEC sought to reduce the child-to-staff ratio to 1:10. The current proposal lands at 1:11. The department moved toward its own goal and called the distance traveled a concession to providers.
The practical effect of moving from 1:12 to 1:11 is that programs must add the cost of an additional staff position to maintain compliance. This is not relief — it is a mandate with a softened label. Providers in this industry operate on margins that make a single required staff addition the difference between viability and closure for some programs. Calling this a compromise does not make it one.
I also want to formally note the redline draft posted under last month's meeting materials. That document reflected the previous month's RAC language — not the new modifications being proposed. RAC members and providers reviewing that document had no way to identify what had actually changed. This is not a formatting error. Posting prior language when new changes are being proposed obscures what is actually being decided. I am requesting confirmation of how this occurred and what steps will be taken to ensure it does not happen again.
The Pattern: Incremental Advancement Framed as Responsiveness
I want to name a pattern I have observed in this process, because I believe it is important for the record. When the RAC or providers produce an outcome or position that CDEC does not want, the department does not reject it outright. Instead, it returns with modifications. The modifications are framed in the language of collaboration and responsiveness. The underlying policy direction advances anyway — by degrees, across cycles, in ways that are difficult to challenge in the moment because each individual step sounds measured.
The cumulative effect of this approach is a persistent chipping away at provider operating conditions that no single rule change fully captures. Meetings are canceled at points where the next move might become visible. Emails from RAC members seeking clarification go unanswered. Communications arrive with short timelines telling busy providers that CDEC 'needs their input to make a decision' — framing participation as optional when the decision has effectively already been made.
This is not the appearance of transparency being deployed strategically. It is the absence of transparency being managed carefully. I am a RAC member. I was in the room. I am telling you what I observed.
What This Means for Mixed Delivery and the Providers Who Make It Real
Colorado has made mixed delivery a foundational commitment of its early childhood system. Mixed delivery is not possible without a financially viable private child care sector. Community-based programs will face direct revenue loss as a result of this policy change. Many of them are already managing enrollment challenges that leave little margin. The research CDEC cites to justify this change explicitly states within the research itself that it cannot be used to support a ratio decrease. That fact has been raised. It has not changed the policy direction.
I have heard directly from providers in recent days. They are asking what is happening. They are asking whether the state understands the financial constraints it is placing on their programs. They are asking why the state wonders why businesses are leaving Colorado while simultaneously advancing policies that reduce their revenue. These are not rhetorical questions. They deserve answers.
Formal Requests
I am requesting written responses to the following, within a reasonable and defined timeframe:
- How is provider fiscal impact testimony captured in the official rulemaking record, and what explains the discrepancy between provider testimony and the department's 'no cost' designation and approach?
- What was the 'additional feedback' that led CDEC to set aside the RAC's unanimous recommendation, who provided it specifically, and what process was used to weigh it against the RAC's conclusion?
- What occurred with the redline draft posted under last month's meeting materials, and what steps will be taken to prevent this from happening in future rulemaking cycles?
- What process exists for RAC members to receive timely responses to communications sent between meetings, and why were recent emails from RAC members seeking clarification not answered?
CDEC's rulemaking authority is unique to this department. The ethics of how that authority is exercised are what make the process legitimate. Colorado's child care providers — and the families they serve — deserve a rulemaking process that treats their participation as genuinely meaningful, not as a procedural requirement to be managed. I am committed to serving on this committee in good faith. I am asking CDEC to meet that commitment with the same standard.
Colorado can do this better. I expect that it will.
Respectfully submitted,
Colin Stewart
Member, Rules Advisory Committee — CDEC
How to Ensure Your Voice is Heard
Email TODAY: [email protected](opens in new window)
Register to testify at the rulemaking hearing that is tomorrow at 1 p.m.: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfM-upa-4XWAhUnptEXGahpAwtWsySQUSbusFCgr10MSAaEQw/viewform
To Read the CURRENT Set of Public Feedback Emails: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IjpxjqOl-vGptaGLhLmNQXQj0hPeQ4zi
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." Raymond Burke
Let's be clear...we aren't saying the people are bad...only their policies. NO ONE CAN PROVE that this will offer better outcomes for CO's Early Childhood system. If the lasting outcomes are anything to cheer about then Colorado's CURRENT direction must be accomplishing something....so WHY are we changing it? Shouldn't CO be SETTING the National Standard instead of bowing down to national advocates who claim to know what is best for our state? Don't fix what is not broken CO!
Want to see what our UPK Survey results were for Community Based UPK Providers rated 1-3? See it here: https://www.coloradoecea.org/ratio-decreases-may-2026-feedback
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