JBC introduces TANF draft to pause COLA for two years, cleans up 'good cause' language

Tom Dermody, Joint Budget Committee staff, presented a bill draft reflecting the committee’s comeback on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, Colorado Works) program and summarized the measure’s four primary elements: a two‑year pause to the COLA for basic cash assistance; pegging future adjustments to the Social Security Administration COLA; removal of certain general‑fund backfill and minimum reserve floor requirements; and making county extensions beyond the federal 60‑month limit optional for good cause.

“Long story short, there are 4 primary elements in this draft,” Dermody told the committee. He said the pegging to the Social Security COLA was part of a Department of Human Services comeback and that staff and the department worked together to reflect the committee’s wishes.

Committee members pushed back on changes that go beyond a simple pause. One member said they expected only the two‑year pause and preferred to revisit long‑term indexing at that time; another urged keeping a 2% floor. Members and staff agreed to strike explicit examples from statute and leave an inclusive good‑cause standard to the State Board of Human Services, but to retain language specifying that a head of a single‑parent household with an infant may qualify, at the committee’s request.

Dermody also identified two requests for information tied to the draft: (1) a county‑level gathering of administrative and indirect cost information for TANF and (2) a departmental report with lessons learned from other states on use and structure of TANF reserves. Members asked that the state also produce the requested administrative‑cost data (for example, via CBMS) to reduce county burden.

A motion to introduce the draft passed 6–0; the bill will start in the Senate and list Kirkmeyer and Amabile as sponsors in that chamber and Taggart and Brown in the House, with Bridges and Sirota as cosponsors. The committee also voted 6–0 to add the two RFIs as modified, including a requirement that the department include state data where available.

The committee left substantive decisions on long‑term indexing and reserve structure for follow‑up during the legislative process and directed staff to proceed with introduction and the RFIs. The committee granted staff permission to make technical changes as needed.