HCPF requests R7 funding to bolster county administration and CBMS operations amid backlog and staffing concerns

The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing pressed the Joint Budget Committee for an R7 funding package that would increase county administration resources, add targeted FTE and pool hours for Colorado Benefits Management System work, and provide technology and staffing to reduce backlogs and improve timeliness.

HCPF officials said R7 would raise the county administration pool by roughly $21 million (department materials) to better align county staffing and wages with workload and to fund technology improvements such as a “panda” (bot) tool and a unified data repository. The department described the county incentive program—an annual program that allows counties to earn back a portion of their local share by meeting performance benchmarks—and told the committee the incentive payout occurs once a year in August and the current incentive line item is $8.2 million.

Committee members repeatedly raised concerns that the R7 request may still be less than counties’ actual spending on county administration in the current fiscal year and asked whether the department had taken county input in designing the request. HCPF officials said the R7 proposal draws on recommendations from the year‑one Senate Bill 22‑235 report and that counties were engaged in developing the policy concepts; rule updates to modernize fiscal rules are actively in stakeholdering and will include county input through March.

CBMS performance and outages were a major thread of the discussion. HCPF executives said the system’s performance has improved compared with pre‑pandemic norms—ex parte renewals and approval rates are higher than earlier years—but that recent Oracle database issues contributed to November–December slowness. HCPF has requested additional “pool hours” to address an inventory of outstanding CBMS improvements; the department said it needs roughly 21,000 additional pool hours to make progress on user‑experience and backlog items. The department also noted it estimates total needed hours could be far higher (the department cited roughly 250,000 total hours to fully address all demands).

Officials described work to increase county transparency, expand an overflow processing center, and use an escalation process (about 600 escalation cases per month currently) that has helped members and identified systemic process improvements. The department also said that it is seeking to convert contract positions to FTE where appropriate to reduce long‑term costs and improve continuity.

Committee members asked about practical implementation steps and whether incentives should be paid earlier in the year. HCPF said the incentive is above base appropriations and that R7 seeks to increase the base appropriation so counties can hire and retain staff; incentives were designed as a performance mechanism on top of base funding. HCPF said it would continue to work with counties on incentive design and on the timing of payments.

HCPF asked for the committee’s consideration of R7 in the current budget cycle to address ongoing workload and to reduce risk of future federal corrective actions tied to timeliness.