Severe cough. So it's probably better that we're not all in the same room and I will do my best to be on mute when those fits occur so you're not having to hear that. But I'd like to welcome everyone to today's November CCHE Commission meeting. Before we get started with the workforce, work session agenda, we have a few housekeeping measures. I'd like to ask Emily to review the protocols for the meeting before we get started. This is a virtual meeting, so here's a reminder of the protocols. If you are not a commissioner, adviser, or presenter, please stop your video. This makes it easier for the public and commissioners to see slash hear members of
the commission and its advisers. To maintain order and decorum, we will ask that members of the public who are participating virtually please request via the chat function if they would like to address the commission. Please wait until the chair calls on you to speak at the specified time during the business meeting. As is usual during the commission meeting, commissioners, advisers, and staff members will be freely engaging in dialogue during this meeting, but we ask that members of the public wait to be called upon before speaking. Thank you. So we will go ahead and get started. Today's topic for the work session is,
a review of the 2627 governor's budget request for higher education. We're pleased to have Rebecca Tayas with us from, the office of State Planning and Budgeting and obviously Zach from our CDHE team. I'm going to hand it over to you and let you walk through the presentation. Let me know if you want people to stop with questions as you're moving through or if you want to finish your presentation and then have the conversation. Let me know your preference. So it's up to you, Rebecca. Do you wanna, I I I think sometimes it's just easier to have questions as we go along, so it stays relevant,
but totally dealer's choice on on that one. Yeah. I'm I'm fine with that. Either way works for me. So doing them as we go along is works for me. And now the slide sharing? Yes. Okay. Perfect. Like commissioner Walmoo said, my name is Rebecca Tyus. I'm with the office of state planning and budgeting, and I specifically focus on the higher education budget. So a quick overview of the governor's budget request will go into the specifics on higher education. But if you were watching anything during the rollout of the budget a couple weeks
ago, you'll know that Medicaid was a big part of the governor's budget request this year. Colorado's Medicaid program has posed a significant challenge to to the state's long term fiscal health. It's the largest category of general fund spending, and over the past ten years, it has grown twice as fast as the TABOR cap. And the implications of sustaining that is just not, acceptable for the state budget. It will eventually crowd out all other general fund spending for all other parts of the state government, including public public safety,
human services, and criminal justice. And this is just further compounded by the Medicaid cuts levied in HR one, which imposes new administrative burdens and red tape while reducing federal funding. So you'll hear a lot about Medicaid as, the budget progresses through the process for the rest of the year. But moving on to specifically higher education, the s one, which is a supplemental request for the current fiscal year and r one request for the next fiscal year for, the CDHE includes the 9,500,000.0
reduction in the current fiscal year, which comes in operating support to the institutions of higher education, which comes from the governor's executive order in August that was to help balance the current year budget after the impacts of HR one. It then also requests that that reduction be made ongoing, which just changes the base for the institutions. And then the request also includes 10,600,000 in general fund and new funding in the next fiscal year and ongoing to cover
the classified staff under the Cohen's agreement at the institutions. And, in those assumptions is also a 2.6% increase for in state students and 3% for out of state students. And then, also, a 500,000.0 increase for the LDCs and ATCs, 2,200,000.0 for specialty education programs, and 700,000.0 for need based financial aid. And the governor's request does include a request for that 10,600,000.0 to go through step one as you all voted and to recommend during your last
session. And I'm gonna switch, actually, to talk through that step one allocation a little bit more. And so let me just make sure I bring up this other document and share this tab instead. So Rebecca, just, a question. So in in the previous slide, did that include you mentioned the increase as far as the the tuition piece. Is that included in this overall presentation? Yes. So the tuition assumption increase is that 81,900,000.0 cash funds at UCI West Green.
Yep. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So So so the general funds is all state funds? Correct. And then the $4.4.6. Okay. Thank you. Mhmm. Okay. So going through step the step one allocation request, As you all saw in your last meeting, when only a small amount of funding was run through step two of the formula in incremental funding, it resulted in a decrease to some institutions. And so this this,
is the full written request that is on the OSPB website if you're looking for this document. But this table four just shows that if that 10,600,000.0 for the governing boards was run through step two instead of step one. Adams, Western, and Fort Lewis would have actually seen another decrease instead of a increase in their incremental funding. So as you all recommended during your last meeting, this request asked for that 10,600,000.0 to instead go through step one.
And to use the and it the way that then we requested step one to be calculated is to incorporate the performance metrics in step two as you all also recommended. So it has the same performance metrics that you would see in step two, but as this table five shows, it calculates it differently. It still does the averaging of the years, but instead, it takes out the role admission or previous share of total funding step in the calculation that ends up tying a lot of the funding to what an institution received
a previous year. And so this allows it to speak a little bit more to the actual performance, in that metric. And because the funding is actually calculated, the funding need is calculated based off of classified staff cost at institutions under the Cohen's agreement, We requested to add another metric on the share of classified staff cost at each institution and weighted it at 5% and just decreased the graduation rate in 150% of time metric from 10% to 5% and but calculated that new classified staff metric in
the same way with taking averages over the past several years. And the data was taken from the, institution's budget data books that they provide to the department and the joint budget committee every year and then, doing those same calculations. And so the outcome then is you still run the base amount through step two, which is this first column, and then you run the allocation through the step one request to get the incremental. And then the total incremental funding for the institutions results in all the institutions receiving
a increase in incremental funding, Specifically, those ones that would have seen a decrease have now been see an actual increase in their funding, so Adams, Metro Western, and Fort Lewis. So, that is a overview of the r one request. I know there is a lot in this request, so happy to pause real quickly before moving on to the rest of the department's requests. And I, can't see everyone, so if you raise a hand, I apologize. So,
Rebecca, this is, Eric. I'm a I got it on a bigger screen, so I'm gonna stay off camera for a minute. Given that it was run through step one, right, and assuming that the JBC goes with that approach, or a similar approach, what would be the what would be like the next year's impact? Because step one is a base building impact. So what what happens next year Right. With that that change from not running anything through step two, but running it all through step one? Yeah. So, assuming no other changes in the funding formula and it's run,
under the current funding formula, that that step one amount does become part of the base. And so, basically, there would be that much more in the total base funding for the institutions that would run through step two in the next year. So and that's how it currently works. The full amount of base funding runs through step two every year. And right now, the way, the role emission adjustment or share of total share of previous year's funding, it ends up being that while the whole base is run through and it's not
directly tied to an institution, it will end up mostly following the institution through the formula. K. I that was a little probably overly complicated. No. I I mean, I'm just saying seeing where if we had run everything through step two this year, there were institutions that were gonna see a decrease. Running it all through step one, everyone saw an increase. Right. Yeah. And so what and so next year, with no changes in the formula, what would happen is that total amount of money would just be run through step two, and then any incremental new money next year would be run through whatever mechanism,
was finally decided on for that year. But what happens with running it through step one this year instead of step two is it's going to ensure like, if we ran it through step two, that the per total share of funding for each institution is likely gonna remain the same. This will running it through step one will ensure that there's probably a little bit of adjustments in the share of total funding for the institutions or that role emission that will help them kind of probably change, on the margins to be more reflective of that step one allocation.
Okay. Alright. And some of that has to do with the amount of money that was running through that was purported to run through step two. Right? So if you have more that you can run through step two, you don't necessarily you may get, you don't see the decrease the way that you did with the amount that we ran through at this time. Correct. Running Okay. Running, a smaller amount of money through step two results in, more shifts and seeing these, impacts to some institutions in order to really keep that share of total funding fairly stable between the institutions.
Got it. Thank you. Wanna do wanna highlight, I think, commissioner Hucker, I think the big thing I wanna make really, completely clear is that there were still metrics applied to step the step one allocation. The only thing that was removed was the role admission calculation and then the addition of a classified, staff number because that is what was driving the initial increase or what was being talked about, as an increase. And so that calculation was important. But we just removed that stabilizing factor,
and that ensured that ensured that allocations to institutions were based on both their classified staff calculation and their performance as currently run through step two, with that small adjustment in weight. So just want to make sure that our messaging is clear that this wasn't just a hold harmless or a way to ensure that no institutions were hurt. It was mainly just to recognize the performance, but because to your point such a small amount was moving through there, the stabilization factor of rural admission has outsized influence and exacerbated inequities that can assist
that already exist in the system. Commissioner Wilson, and then we'll go to Commissioner Harper. Thank you, madam chair. Rebecca, I made the mistake of, not only looking at, the information that you all sent out ahead of time, but I looked at information on the civil war brewing between the governor's office and JBC. So, looking at these figures, will any of these be affected if that civil war goes south and suddenly there are cuts to, not only higher education, but, k 12 and so forth. Will these be affected if that does go south?
So we are at the beginning stages of the governor has sent over the budget to the legislature, and now the joint budget committee will get briefings from their staff, recommendations from their staff, and they'll make final decisions as probably around March for this request. So a lot can change between now and then, but I from our perspective, this is the governor's budget request. This is what, we will be asking for. And, right now,
I'm not foreseeing any changes to it. I know the institutions will likely put forward their request, and there will be lots of discussion going forward. I I will say, like, the joint budget committee has found higher education very important, and so I I would not anticipate them looking for large cuts here. But any but the joint budget committee will have to be making some tough decisions in order to balance the budget in the coming months. Let's go to, commissioner Harper and let I appreciate Oh, so sorry. I appreciate that.
And the thing that really concerned me was as we look towards the future for higher ed funding, Craig Harper was saying there's this billion dollar hole coming up the next round as well. So whatever we do this year might very well we we may very well have to go back and readjust that if that hole has to be filled with education funds, which is a large part of the budget. Is that correct? I think the governor is very committed to looking across the state and looking at the highest and best use of funding across the state and really taking a critical
look. When we're putting together with the budget, we're looking at highest and best use of funding. We're we're making an impact and we're we're protecting health, life, safety kind of things. And so I think there's always when we're balanced in the budget, there's always tough decisions, but everyone's looking at it and trying to protect very important things that the state is funding. Well Thank you. Go to commissioner Commissioner Harper and then adviser Pratt. Hey, Rebecca. Thank you so much. Could you go back to the previous slide which showed the new allocation?
That'd be great. And so my impression is most of that allocation is coming from and correct me if I'm wrong because I didn't remember the slide prior to this, but offhand, and I was too lazy to look it up. So, CU system and, CCCS, looks like those probably took the biggest hit in the change. Is that is that fair or no? When you're are you asking, if we if you just run the 10.6 through step two versus the step one? Right. So I'd have let's see. So running it through this would be just running it through step two.
So the higher the institutions with the higher end of just running it through step two are do look to be the CU system and CCCS, and that's, really to that role emission, that stabilizing factor, previous share of total funding is basically ensuring that those institutions are receiving that same share of total funding in the that allocation. And it it results in Adams, Western, and Metro seeing that decrease actually another cut in funding. And so by going through step one,
it ties it more to performance by taking out that role emission step and then also, provides that an increase in funding to those certain institutions. And then, some other institutions, yes, CU, CCCS, are not as high. Okay. No. Thank you very much. And, no, that, you know, I think one of the really interesting things, and I'm sure all commissioners always consider, is, you know, a dollar going to one institution may have a bigger impact, than a dollar going to another, although, you know, we want to fund all of them as much you know,
see all of them funded as much as we can. So the kind of change you're showing, especially with Adams, that's a critical difference, an important, very positive difference, certainly with Metro and Western as well, and FLC. I mean, I think those will end up having greater impact. So the allocation really makes a lot of sense. So thank you. Advisor Pratt, did you have a question? Yeah. I'd like to just mostly a comment. And, I'm the for those who don't know me, I'm the CFO at University of Northern Colorado, but I'm speaking on behalf.
I'm representing all of the CFOs from all the institutions in Colorado. So, my comment really is related to other institutions where UNC's impact from the proposed distribution method of the, $10,600,000 increase is actually beneficial to UNC in in the overall context. But I wanna speak on behalf of the change in the distribution method, and I feel like what we're looking at on the screen at this moment and in the other comparison to, what would have happened for the step two distribution,
the lack of context in terms of that, what we're calling the role admission, and we all recognize through the funding formula working group is really more aptly described as the base level of funding from the prior year, or years. Basically, there is a and I and I think, Chair Walmer, you had used a description, basically, that no harm to the institutions. And I I wanna, take a little bit of an issue with that, from the perspective of what Commissioner Haber was just mentioning related to differences for some of the larger institutions,
which have a greater amount of base funding, such as CU and the CCCS system. Effectively, the request from the governor, to my understanding, and Rebecca, please correct me if I'm wrong, is based on a projection or a forecast of cost increases that is being covered by a couple of factors. One is a 1.1% overall or $10,600,000 increase, plus a recommendation for a cap on undergraduate resident tuition of 2.6%. Those two factors are believed to cover what are estimated as cost increases to the
institutions for next year in the governor's proposal, and that may be maybe there's more nuance to that, but I think that's the essence of it. The truth is that those cost increases probably are an underestimate, from the institutional perspective because that's been our experience in previous years. And, obviously, there's some question about what the forecast includes or doesn't include, but we we could, go into details with that, and we will subsequently. But the bigger issue is that each year, there are cost increases to every institution. And the cost increases are relevant no matter if your budget is the size of CUs,
the CU system, or it's relevant to, Adams or smaller institutions, because a cost increase is spread not equally but proportionately across all of the institutions. In other words, the kinds of cost increases we're talking about are, classified or state employee compensation increases that are required through our Cohen's partnership agreement, health, life and dental benefit premiums that are increased, and then inflationary impacts. So those are distributed effectively, equivalently across all institutions.
We all bear the burden of those cost increases that are not related to our own management decisions, their external factors. So to the extent that we change the funding, so in this case, it looks like everybody gets somewhere roughly a little over a million dollars, which seems pretty equal equal and equitable from that perspective without the context of base funding, cost increases, and what these dollar values represent in terms of percentage increases to each institution.
So in other words, let's say that the total cost increases are 5% to everybody for next year. We're doing a 2.6% increase in tuition, and now we're getting an or for Western, it's about a 3.1%. Or for Western, it's about a 3.1% increase. The implication of that is that the institutions that are harmed are getting a lower degree of increase from this funding, a percentage basis, and therefore,
they would have to absorb the cost increases in other ways by making budget reductions or reducing their operating expenses in other areas. So there is an impact to those institutions because this distribution ignores the base funding levels, and prior year funding levels or the size and scale of those funding amounts. And I think that's really an important distinction. Without that context, it looks very equitable. But and when you put it in context, not everybody's getting a sufficient share of the increase to even cover a portion of their cost increases
in the same way that other institutions are. And, I mean, I'll hand this back to Rebecca and see if she has additional points she'd like to make. I think the one thing is I would like to highlight that when I said hold harmless, I was talking about the debate that we had as a commission in October when we recommended this allocation versus just a blanket step one, everybody gets a portion, or holding people harmless. I wasn't saying in any way that this allocation didn't have differing impact on different
institutions. I think as a Commission we debated in October the really important, implications though for some institutions if we would have just done a step two allocation that had great performance, and we're not, we're making a bigger, getting a bigger hit that we believe was necessary. I also recognize, those core costs that need to be covered, and that there are varying implications, but I think we were also taking some of that into consideration. But just want to clarify that in no way am I saying that this is
a hold harmless or everybody does just fine in this scenario. I recognize that there's differences, but believe that this is a more equitable and in alignment with with the Commission priorities to recognize, performance and ensure that that funding, when you have this difficult thing of needing to do a cut and also a reinvestment, is distributed in the best way possible. Rebecca, do you have anything you'd like to or Zach address? I think the only thing I would add is just,
the request, the 10,600,000.0 is really, to address those classified staff costs that the institutions have. It was calculated based off of classified staff salaries. POTS is a term for other benefits and health life dental. And then the state average split of general fund, which is 57%. So, the average for other state agencies for these costs gets split around 57 general fund and then the rest other, revenue streams was applied to get that 10,600,000.0
incremental increase. So I can keep us moving to other requests, and, I'll pass it over to Zach for r two. Thanks, Rebecca. So this is r two. It's the Fort Lewis State of American tuition waiver. The department is requesting an additional $333,205, for tuition waivers for eligible students. This brings the total general funding for the program to 21,600,000.0. It should be noted that this support, or this support is provided in arrears or arrears or retroactively,
meaning that the funding that's going out for 2627 is reflective of the, number of eligible students in FY 2526. In previous years, we've we've seen, negative numbers. But this year, the eligible population has increased. And because of that, we are looking for or we're hoping to get an increase from the legislature of the 03/3000. This was pretty simple. On the our three request for the department is a financial aid caseload adjustment. This includes about 2,500,000.0
for the foster ed program that provides scholarships for those who were in the foster system. Just about a hun shy of a 150 k for the Empower Ed program, which provides scholarship for students that experience homelessness in high school, and then just about 20,000 for private cough stipends. And these numbers will continue to shift as enrollment changes, occur and we get some better forecasting numbers for the fall. But it's, similar to r two in that these are scholarship programs where we need to provide
funding for these students and need to adjust it based off of the caseload and the number of students in the program. The department's r four request, is actually additional funding to be run through step one of the funding formula for Mesa and UNC. In doing the funding formula review work over the summer, it was determined that in fiscal year twenty three twenty four, there was wrongly assigned data in the funding formula for the graduation in 100% of time and 150% of time metrics that,
misassigned that, performance data between Metro, Mesa, UNC, and Fort Lewis. And running the fiscal year twenty three, twenty four, and then subsequent formulas, the Mesa should have received about, 190,000.00 more in funding, and UNC should have received 30,000.00 more in funding. So this request, makes them whole and whole and holds all the other institutions harmless that would have received less funding if the data had been assigned correctly. And I'll turn it over to Zach for our five.
Thanks, Rebecca. So this is the department's request for additional staff or support. We are requesting, five additional FTE. It it shows four in the first year. That annualizes to five. And the cost in the first year is about 509,000, and in the second year, 525,000. These five FTE will provide critical support to the department. We are asking for two compliance specialists. Those two positions will help us better, have have better oversight over dollars that are passed out passed through the department and
ensure that, the usage is is compliant with the intention. We are also requesting a budget work work lead to help us manage workflow, I. E. Decision I and then also take an act more active role in decision items and day to day budget analysis. And then, finally, two more accountants that will, allow us to process transactions. Overall, this is just badly needed staff support as we are needing to do enhanced compliance over funds that are passed through the department, and we need to, just scale up our finance division operations to,
I I guess, be in alignment with, the amount of funding that we are working with on a daily basis. And then, s two slash RSIC has to do with limited purpose fee for service funding reductions to help balance the budget in both the current fiscal year and, future fiscal years ongoing. So the supplemental or current fiscal year side of this request is a 50% reduction to the limited purpose fee for service contracts, and this is from the governor's executive order in August to balance the budget in
the current year after the impacts of HR one. And the request also request that that that reduction be made ongoing. And then, also, to discontinue some limited purpose fee for service programs ongoing in the future too, the programs are the Colorado Rural Healthcare Workforce Initiate Initiative, Cybercoding Cryptology for state record, and food system advisory council. If this sounds familiar, it, this was one of the requests brought forward last year to balance the budget also that was, partially taken by the JVC,
through the process. Mister Walker Harvey? Sorry. I had a question on the previous two slides. Zach, I was wondering if you could just clarify. How big is your stuff on the on the finance team right now? Yeah. So currently, we have, a five member strong, accounting team. That's inclusive of an accounting director, senior accountant, and then two general accountants. This would be a request for two additional, general accountants. And then we have, four budget and policy analysts, along with the budget and finance specialist. The budget work lead would, again, kinda manage those workflows, help us get to a point where we're more portfolio driven,
which is similar to other agencies rather than it's a little catch as catch can given the the size of our division right now. And then we also have a compliance manager. He is, term limited at the '66, and mostly related to SLFRF funds. But as our compliance scope is growing, we feel that these special or these compliance specialists, will will help us ensure that we can maintain high levels of compliance over the dollars that pass through the department and the agency. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. I was just obviously, you know what you need for your team. I was just curious given all the dollars are so tight.
You know, sometimes adding new people doesn't always help, if they're not the right folks. So I just was curious about how that looked in the overall picture. And I guess my other question is kind of related to this. We kind of skimmed over the fact that some data had been, like, reassigned in the wrong places. Is some one, like, how did that happen? That seems like a fairly major issue. And then two, like, what is being put in place to make sure that does not happen again? Yeah. Do you like I guess, the r five concern real quick, and then, Rebecca, you passed for you to r four. Just I I think it's really important to mention,
and it is a good point, commissioner Walker Harvey, that, we had we we are highly aware of how challenging this budget year is, and we're incredibly grateful to our partners at the governor's office for seeing some of the challenges that we have based on the size of staff versus the size of the dollar amounts that we're working with. We looked at a lot of comparable agencies in terms of of dollar amounts to see what what their staffing setup was like. And, you know, some of that gets a little subjective and based on interpretation, and there's certainly intricacies. But, you know, we we certainly could have tried to ask for more,
but the department, in partnership with the governor's office, tried to maintain a high level of fiscal responsibility while recognizing this as a critical need. And so these five positions were ranked as our our top five in in in our sort of view of of what was needed for the department. And we really worked to make sure that we vetted those and explained those out, so that everyone had a real understanding of what that was. I think, certainly, we could potentially use more, but this was really to help us meet strong needs, hit KPIs, manage our goals,
and, just kinda grow from the success that we've had over the last year or so, in in trying to correct a lot of errors that have gone through in the department. In regards to the r four and the data, being misassigned, likely, it was due to some copy and past errors in the previous funding formula sheets. The previous sheets required a lot of copy and pasting and, instead of automating it. The department has since then automated the sheets so that it pulls the directly and does not require copy and pasting where there might be some human error occurring.
And the department has, put a more stringent process in place to make sure that institutions are reviewing and double checking the data and affirmatively, confirming that it is assigned to the correct institution. Great. Thank you. Commissioner Harbor? Rebecca, by the way, that was a great answer. I think that's what everybody is is welcome to to hear that answer. Zach, what happens if, the FTE request is not granted? That's an outstanding question. We're going to face a lot of challenges without this because we're in a spot where we cannot do some of these things.
Right? And pardon the double negative, but we have to get this work done. And we're continuing to get this work done. But I I think what we're what we're dealing with is just a lot of challenges. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the division is kinda dealing with catches catch can, meaning that we're not doing the preventative work or the prework. It's just things kinda happen. They land in our laps, and they're always kinda consistently kind of a bomb in our laps. Even though it's some regular cadence of work, I certainly don't wanna say that these are surprises. It's just that given staff capacity versus workload,
we're truly challenged. If we don't get these positions, the work has to be done anyway, and so we'll continue to be challenged. And, you know, I I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we do have great partners in the governor's office inclusive of of Rebecca up on my screen right now who's incredibly helpful. But I think we're all in agreement that, you know, there there's we're going to end up in a logical endgame where where this isn't feasible for the governor staff to be assisting us for external contract folk to be assisting us if we could do that. And so, you know, I just think we'll see continued challenges,
in producing high quality work, that that we kind of pride ourselves on. Mister Tucker? Thank you, Zach. So so, Zach, with that with that said and, with what Rebecca mentioned previously, with some of the spreadsheets being less manually intensive and more automated. Is there is there are there any initiatives within the state or within the department to try to, scale up maybe some automation from AI and things like that to potentially kind of
counterbalance, like, if you don't get all the FTE, maybe some here's some additional support tools that might be there. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. And thank you for that, commissioner Tucker. We are certainly exploring those options as a department right now. We're we're really taking a hard dive into making strong operational improvements as a department. Some of that's inclusive of of, you know, just minor things like better utilization of AI. We've all gone through the AI training. We're teaching, Microsoft Copilot quite a few things, and we're hoping that that'll help produce at least some some skeletal examples of of
work that we can do so that it's it's less cumbersome and less manual on our side. You know? And we're also, making investments in in other things like project management software that will allow us to hold ourselves accountable, so that nothing does get missed. So even if we don't get these additional FTE, we'll at least be able to kind of what I talked about talked to spoke to with, commissioner Harbor's comment was at least, you know, we can try and be more proactive rather than reactive to the workload that's coming our way. But, again, I think just with that additional hands,
we we will be challenged in that realm. But those efforts are happening and are ongoing. I'll just add Go ahead. Oh, sorry. The budget work lead, requested here would also that would be part of the vision for that role is to really create those automated processes, those automated trackers within the division and the department so that that workflow becomes smoother. And I just wanted to name correct. These these recommendations and the work that you're talking about to better improve systems also feeds a lot out of the KPMG work that the department initiated following the,
the calculation or reporting error last spring too. Is that correct? Yes. That's correct, sir Walmart. So a part of KPMG's recommendation was certainly for additional positions. They they saw the challenge, and they saw the need, not only after interviewing people within the department, but external partners and other agencies as well. In that report, there's a lot that's subject to interpretation, and and even KPM our KPMG partners would admit that you could say that, potentially, we need 20 different positions to really fully staff the organization. What we had to do,
our our challenges as department was taking that and translating that into what our needs were, what what was our our needs were, immediately and what they were in kinda out years. And and that's how we got to this request for these five positions. And as we see it feasible and as, hopefully, state fiscal circumstances improve at at some point, we'll continue to make asks to get ourselves fully staffed to be, you know, a a fully staffed and and, well functioning or high functioning, department and division. That that's helpful. Thank you. I I guess I would,
and and I don't wanna step on Chair Tucker's rules with FPA, but it could be helpful to have an FPA conversation about all of the recommendations that came from KPMG, understanding that there are nuances and recommendations about what is possible, that it might live outside of this. So just the Commission is aware of of what's happening with the Department and those adjustments. I think it could be helpful for, the commission to be updated on that. So thank you. We can absolutely explore that, internally, and then we work with chair Tucker. I think we talk at least once or twice a month,
at a regular meeting with him, and so we can figure out what that looks like and try and get an assigned time to to go through and do something like that. Okay. Moving on, Zach, I believe you have this last request. This is me. I I almost forgot which one we were on. So this is, another reduction request. This is a department specific reduction request. What this request does is, eliminates the rural teacher recruitment and retention, program. It's twofold. I will come to the online platform for public benefits reduction as well. But the first portion is the elimination of the rural teacher retention and recruitment program.
But this elimination of this program, which will save $1,200,000 and, point eight FTE will, have a minimal impact as the Colorado Department of Education is implementing a new school finance formula, which, prioritizes funding for rural districts and, allows funding for, teacher recruitment and retention. The secondary component of this one is the elimination of the online platform for public benefits. So, previously, what this was was a spot for, sorry, a a an a website hosted by,
CDHE, that was an outlet for students to, receive public benefits such as, SNAP, TANF, some of the entitlement programs that are out there. This platform, was about was $45,000 a year for us to host it, market it, etcetera. The traffic through our portal on this platform, was was minimal, and it it's a little duplicative because there are places to direct access both state and federal benefits. And so we weren't seeing high traffic there, and there is a conduit for students to go directly to get those without having to go through this platform as a,
a sort of, I guess, pathway to those, benefits. Mister Walker Harvey? Can you say a little bit more, Zach, about how I I'm pretty concerned about the elimination of the rural teacher recruitment and retention, less so about the platform. That makes sense? Can you say a little more about how that actually translates? Like, if there's this new program coming up through the Department of Education, like, does that actually translate in rural teachers getting the same amount as would be going through through this program? Like, can you just kinda give us a little more details on that?
I I think some of that's a little to be determined as CDE kind of sort of tweaks and and finishes up their, financing, distribution. But what our our belief here is is that, as I said, the impact would be minimal because we do believe that this should be fairly close to a one for one. But, you know, again, that that's that's subject to what CE does to refine this program, but it does allow for funding for that rural teacher, recruitment and retention or allows that to be used. And so we think that,
again, there there will be impacts, but we think they'll be pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things. So so the current program provides stipends and other support, to incentivize rural teachers and their, retention. And the new CDE formula, which, we can always follow-up with more information for you on, actually has mechanisms in place to direct more funding to rural institutions and allows or rude rural districts sorry. And allows them that flexibility to spend it on similar programs around recruitment and retention
of teachers. When you say allows flexibility to recognize that, I mean, it will be up to the school districts how they spend that money versus, like, a statewide program? I would have to double check with our education analyst, but that's my understanding. Okay. And I'm curious in terms of, like, outcomes with this program, the rural teacher recruitment and retention. Like, has it shown good outcomes? I'm I don't know the, like, data on it. Let me pull up the request, but go ahead, Zach, while I do that. I I was just gonna say our our our partners, this this program is housed at UNC,
and our partners at UNC has have provided some very useful data. I I think our hope would be and and then there are some successful outcomes, and and Rebecca can pull those up from from the request. Our hope would be that those serve as a benchmark to grow and improve upon rather than, diminish. But, you know, again, like we said, so much of this is subject to CDE and and how they implement this that we have to do some additional checking to get a fuller answer on that, but I'll let Rebecca share hers. Yeah. So the for the real teacher, the we have data on output measures,
not full outcomes. So data on number of stipends, awarded was a 177 stipends awarded, but, no, we don't currently have data on the outcomes. I'll let my fellow commissioners ask their questions. We'll go with commissioner Wilson. Thank you, madam chair. So just to be clear, all that being said, we're cutting back on rural recruitment from this budget, and we're making the districts pick up the slack out of their budgets. Is that correct? I think the the it it's not necessarily
a full making districts, do that. It the current funding formula on the CDE side, to my understanding, allows them that flexibility. And this was really just one of those proposals in order to balance the budget and where we're at with, the state budget and how tight it is and, really, with those increasing cost of Medicaid, we'd had to look at different places throughout the state to in order to balance the budget. And this was one of those where there was, while it an important program,
there was some work being done by CDE that meant that it would have less of an impact compared to other programs for being cut. Just for the record, I want to be sure people understand balancing the budget on the backs of rural districts does not make me happy. Thank you. Commissioner Wilson, I I would love to, and to, I think, to both your questions and Commissioner Walker Harvey's questions. The new K-twelve funding formula, Rebecca's correct, does have an increase, a large increase for rural teachers,
and rural districts to be able to do this work. I'd like to work this is one of those hard pieces because there are programs that live in both, teacher recruitment in both CDHE and CDE. I'd like to reach out to, our partners at CDE and get some follow-up information for the full commission, if I can, just to understand the programs that are offered and what is being reduced here and what is being increased in K-twelve, because there is an increase in k twelve's budget this year. So I will work to get those additional,
documents for you. I'm not in any way saying this is also a concern, but want to make sure that we have the full data that we're looking at and the complete, picture between CDE's budget and CDHE's budget for comparison. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner Harbert? So, I appreciate, Chair Walmer, your plan for follow-up. That was part of my question. A couple of things. One is it seems that having this at CDE makes a lot more sense to begin with. My concern is that it sounds like we know if we terminate this,
we're not assured that there will be a dollar for dollar replacement. And so it almost seems like, you know, should we have considered delaying this a year or having the arrangement such that if CDE doesn't get the additional funding, you know, we're still there so that rural districts do not suffer. So that's just kind of one concept. Last point was not having outcomes for this program or for any program doesn't make a lot of
sense, and I would hope across the department. And so my comment is for the entire department is that, if we have a program, you know, built into it at the beginning should be a measurement of outcomes. Because if you don't, then it's really easy to cut a program like this. Because if I'm at the JBC, and I ask you, Well, what are your outcomes for this program? And if you say, as you did today, Well, we don't have data on it, my response is, You're done in this competitive, limited environment.
So I would hope across the department there's a focus from the beginning on how do we measure outcomes so we can tell what's effective and what's not effective. Thank you. Mr. Abramson? Hi. Thanks. And I don't mean to go down rabbit holes on this, but for me, and full transparency, I just facilitated some conversations this spring for CDE on the educator recruitment and retention program, which came out of SB one eighty five a few years ago that that I had been involved with. For me, I think we need to make sure that there's both the alignment on the outcomes
and what's being monitored and that we're careful to not have these duplicate programs. The the ERRP over at CDE is their broad educator recruitment and retention program. Some of the challenges there are they simply have more applicants every year, than they can fund, but they are very diligent in tracking, which districts, which EdFREP programs, and what communities, those support. So I would just hope that we at least coordinate, and make sure that we're not having redundant programs to oversee very, similar or intersecting programs there.
I know ERP, there's been some ongoing discussions about how much it should focus on rural educators. That was the reason, for the creation of the program in s p January in 02/2021, but it's now gone more national or or more statewide as well. But I just think we should at least be having that conversation as make sure we're measuring the same things, and we're not spending resources to do the same thing in two different ways. Yeah. If if I could just chime in, we we do have outcome data. I'll get that to you all, from the rural program. Thank you.
Rebecca, Zach, any other things to walk through here? Yeah. So we have two slides. I'll I'll go really quick. So these are additional, governor's budget requests. One is the, supplemental o three or s o three College Invest transfer. This is an alignment with the executive order. It's a $9,200,000 transfer, from College Invest First Step master account for, 05/29. It's a transfer back to the general fund from the College Invest Enterprise. Those dollars, will for some, it should be noted that this funding is not from families that are saving for
college or individuals with disabilities who have savings. These dollars had just largely gotten used from the transfer that went to College Invest. And so with that, we saw an opportunity to take it back. We partnered with Angela Bayer over at College Invest to make sure that we weren't doing any sort of harm by taking these dollars back, and and this is just another budget, balancing measure. And then, the statewide r o six brings forward, additional or or, I'm sorry, previous years, reductions that we had requested that that didn't go through. So, a reduction to a a reduction to the teacher mentor grant program,
a roll off of the PSEP or WICHE optometry program, and discontinuing a limited gaming transfer, to the Colorado Higher Education Competitive Research Authority. So that was pretty much it. The next slide is just a rundown of, all of our requests, one through seven, and we are happy to take additional questions at this point. The only question I have is, can you give me a little bit more insight on timing? I know, obviously, there are two different steps before the JBC starts to consider. One is a staff, conversation about this request for higher education and then a department opportunity.
Can you remind us of the dates of those conversations? Yeah. So with, JBC staff, Rebecca and I ran through this, with Alfredo yesterday afternoon. So And go ahead. So the JBC staff briefing, when they brief the committee, the higher education always is going to be at the tail end of the step for JBC. So there, I'm trying to flip through and see if I can find it quickly, but, the JBC staff briefing should be happening in mid to late December.
And then the yes. It's actually December 15 is when JBC staff will brief the committee on these requests and any other topics staff want to bring to the committee. And then the JVC hearings are an opportunity for the department to answer questions on the request. The institutions also have time at JVC hearings to always present and answer any questions from the committee. And those, I think, are still being scheduled out, but are planned to be around January.
Specifically what times I believe are still being scheduled for which, institutions in the department. And then from there in, around in February, JBC staff will brief the committee on supplemental requests. So any of those requests that had an s with them because those are for the current fiscal year, and JBC's staff or JBC will make decisions on those and run the supplemental legislation usually in late February, early March. And then around in March, the JBC will meet again for something called figure setting on all the requests within
r in front of them and make decisions on those requests, for and then the long bill usually runs late March, early April. Thank you. Commissioners, advisers, any other questions for Rebecca or Zach? Well, I thank you. Look at that. Ending exactly 12:29. So appreciate you all. I wanna thank everyone for the thoughtful discussion during today's work session. We're gonna now conclude this portion of the meeting. The commission will take a thirty minute lunch break and reconvene at 1PM for the business meeting. You're welcome to remain connected and just turn off your camera,
or re, log back in on the Zoom link at 01:00. We look forward to your, participation and we'll see you at one. Thank you so much. I think you're good to start the recording. Thanks. Okay. I'd like to welcome everyone to today's November CCHE business meeting. Before we get started with today's agenda, we have a few housekeeping measures. I'd like to ask Emily to review the protocols for the meeting before we get started. This is a virtual meeting, so here is a reminder of the protocols. If you are not a commissioner, adviser, or presenter, please stop your video. This makes it easier for the public and commissioners to see slash hear members of
the commission and its advisers. To maintain order and de quorum, we will ask that members of the public who are participating virtually, please request via the chat function if they would like to address the commission. Please wait until the chair calls upon you to speak at the specified time during the meeting. As as usual, during the commission meeting, commissioners, advisers, and staff members will be freely engaging in dialogue during the meeting, but we ask that members of the public wait to be called upon before speaking. To call roll, please, Emily. Chair Walmart? Here. Vice chair Gonzales?
Here. Commissioner Abrahamson? Yep. Commissioner Barkan? Excused. Commissioner Harbor? Here. Commissioner Hughes? I see her. Here. Sorry. Couldn't get my thing to work. Commissioner Claussenbar? Here. Commissioner Tamiani? Here. Commissioner Tucker? Here. Commissioner Walker Harvey? Here. Commissioner Wilson? Here. Executive director Piccione? Here. Senator Marchman? Senator Bridges? Senator Carson, representative Bradfield, Representative Carter? Representative Lukens? Advisor Artis? Here. Adviser Pratt? Here.
Advisor On Guard? Here. Advisor Crowley? Here. Adviser Leitner? Here. Advisor Chapman? Adviser O'Malley. K. Thank you, Emily. I know that adviser Chapin was is planning to join again. I'll acknowledge her when she joins again so we can mark her here for the record. Our first order of business is approval of the Minutes for the 10/16/2025, Commission meeting. Is there a motion to approve? VICE So move. VICE I'll second. Moved by commissioner Harber, seconded by commissioner Gonzales. Is there any opposition to the motion? Seeing none, those are approved by consent.
Thank you. I'm gonna move on to the chair's report. Last month was a busy month between our last meeting. I'm gonna save some of my comments on some of the things until later in the presentation. But first, was able to represent the commission in front of the legislative audit committee, at their hearing on October 20 regarding the transfer audit. Again, I have some reflections I'd like to share later in the agenda when we talk about transfer. There was a trustee convening on October 21. A huge thank you to Vice Chair Gonzales, who did so much in planning, Emily Blythe and Ann Bambush from,
CTN to make that convening worthwhile. Lots of, trustees, participated. Thank you to Commissioner Costenbauer and Commissioner Haber, who also joined for, the day. So it was a good conversation and really appreciate the effort to make that happen. There was a lot of time spent in October in writing the formula review report, which we will be walking through later this afternoon. Was able to participate in the transfer town hall on elevensix. So appreciate staff in ensuring that commissioners were invited to that as well. Also have some reflections on that and the GE Council meeting earlier this week,
that I'd like to save to our transfer conversation. Lastly, I just was invited to, an AP Kickstarter webinar. Not sure if you all are familiar with AP Kickstart, but AP Kickstart is a new career focused program, that will build into the suites of what is currently being offered by AP. And they are looking at three different, AP kickstarter programs right now. The one that was yesterday highlighted yesterday was their cybersecurity, AP kickstarter program. This program will be available to students in the 2026, but really a focus on a high demand field that we have seen rolled out
in the talent pipeline report. Also highlighted in a lot of the stackable credential work, one of the five key areas of the stackable credential work, that was done in legislation Senate Bill 20 two-one 192. In reviewing that and listening to that presentation yesterday, I'm happy to share information if other people would like to dive into what AP Kickstarter is being offered. But I do it reminded me that there is, a report due on the stackable credential work around the five fields that should, be distributed to the legislature in December.
And we'd just like officially to request an opportunity for either SSWA or the full commission to get an update on that, stackable credential work. And that concludes my report. So I will hand it over to vice chair Gonzales. Thank you, chair, Womer. I wanna echo your thanks and appreciation to everyone who attended and helped make the trustee convening on October 21 a success. I was disappointed. I had to miss it because I was sick. I've been off and on trying to get over the crud that I think everyone
has. But I've heard consistently that it was a productive and, conversation, and it brought valuable connection across the system. A special thank you to Emily, doctor Piccione, as you mentioned, our partners at the governor's office, Nan at the trustees Network, and to you, chair Womer, for helping to collaborate, and make it what it what it was. So thank you. I also had the opportunity to attend a reception yesterday evening for Adams State University, that was hosted, here in Denver with president Tamburg. Ambassador Ken Salazar made some remarks that were thoughtful and I think strongly supportive of
Adam State in the work they are doing. As we all know, Adam State plays a critical role for the San Luis Valley and for rural communities across the region. It serves a high proportion of first generation and Hispanic and Latino students, and it remains an essential access point, for families seeking a clear and affordable pathway to opportunity. So it was encouraging to see that work recognized and celebrated yesterday evening. Doctor Piccione was present along with a few of my fellow commissioners, so it was great seeing you all there.
Lastly, I was able to connect with Lee Wheeler Berliner from the Colorado workforce development, council a couple of weeks ago, and I just wanna say that I'm really looking forward to having, the CWDC join us for a CCHE meeting early in 2026. As you know, I'm a huge advocate for both the learner and business and workforce perspective into all of our discussions, especially as we continue to focus on, you know, the pipeline that's essential for the state's long term talent needs. So excited for that. So good to see everyone.
That concludes my report, madam chair. Thank you so much, Vice Chair Gonzales. Now we'll hand it over to Commissioner Abramson for an update on SSWA. Thank you, Madam Chair. We had another great and productive meeting. Two big takeaways. One, we're really focused on standing up this Transport Committee. We're working to finalize what will be our scope of inquiry, which will start with the things out of the, transfer audit, but we'll also expand in some of the other topics we've all been talking about. Members offered some great ideas, and I'm hoping to, finalize the membership and kick that off soon.
I think we're working working to make sure that we have, I think, outside the box on the membership to make sure we're including, learner and earner perspective from k 12 and from higher ed, that we've got navigators or counselors at all level. We'll probably even look to bring in some outside private sector perspective when it comes to different career pathways. But we'll get that stood up here in the next thirty days. If you have interest in serving on that or wanna suggest some folks reach out to me. Other than that, we've got some ideas that are on the agenda today. One, I wanna flag because it required, two meetings worth of discussions and is an ongoing topic.
There's a blanket waiver request that's been recommended. We had urged them to come back with some modifications to that. They did. But the these blanket waivers continue to be a topic, not just a conversation, but I think worthy of discussion, particularly as with the vice chair's other committee, and our ongoing work. We really continue to focus on, making sure that we're leaning in to the maximum extent, rather than just taking, recommendations and stamping those. So we'll probably have some discussion of that waiver today. That concludes my report, madam chair. Wonderful. Thank you so much.
Commissioner Tucker, would you like to give an update on the standing committee of the FPA? Yeah. From the FPA committee, we met on the October 24, and we discussed a couple of different items, specifically, kind of the flow of FPA meetings in conjunction with the data that's available, especially as we get into the SeptemberOctober timeframe. But that also led to kind of a bigger discussion of, just looking at FPA and commission timelines in terms of the various things that we
do, financial aid, funding formula recommendations, and starting some things earlier. For example, when we are asked to make a recommendation on, the percentages and what we expect to go through, step one, step two, and so on. That's probably a conversation that needs to happen, you know, in the May, June timeframe versus in the October, November timeframe when the the budget is being finalized versus the inputs we could make towards the governor's budget. So that was a discussion that we had there. A couple of items are up on the,
consent agenda, and so you've seen those in your package. And then finally, Zach gave us a great overview of the, kind of, some of the funding formula recap for those, FDA members who weren't in the funding formula group, and we're going to have some of that discussion today. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you. Other commissioners have reports they'd like to share with the commission? Okay. Seeing none, advisors, do any advisors have reports they'd like to share? Advisor Leitner. Thank you very much. Two things I'd like to bring to the commission's attention. The first, if you're not aware of it,
there's a organization called Silicon Flatirons. It's typically associated with the, Colorado Law School on the Boulder campus. And they have a number of really interesting compelling programs. I was able to attend via live stream a program last week, entitled AI and the Future of Copyright Politics. And, professor Samuelson Pamela Samuelson from, Berkeley was the keynoter. She's tremendous and her slides are available. I'm gonna put a link up in a moment.
But just, a suggestion to you to check-in occasionally on their events. They're they're quite good. They're they're free and many of them are live streamed, so it makes it convenient to participate. Taking a turn but still bringing it back to AI, I don't really go around using this term, and so maybe you haven't got it in your lexicon yet. But we all know that two heads are better than one. We talk about brainstorming and so forth. But there's a an overarching term that people bring to this kind of collaboration,
and that's cognitive synergy. Oh, well, we got together and we talked about something. No. We got together and we had some cognitive synergy. How wonderful for us. But, more importantly and to the point, there's a, cognitive synergy that is involving the use of AI. How do you use AI to amplify what you're doing to help you as a research partner, as a thinker and so forth. And not simply, you know, what we worry about a lot is, well, is there plagiarism involved and so forth. So, one of the key frames for learning in higher education and the levels of learning,
this goes back folks at Oregon State have said, well, how do we take Bloom's Taxonomy? Well, folks at Oregon State have said, well, how do we take Bloom's Taxonomy and add on AI as a partner and what do we gain in terms of cognitive synergy? And so they've got a nice chart that has Bloom's taxonomy as we might have read it at one point and then what AI adds to that.
So very positive spin, as opposed to, you know, the negative concerns we hear about AI a lot. So I wanted to bring that to your attention, and that'll be the second link, in the chat right now. And that's it. Just, some, tidbits for the commissioners. Thank you for the time. Thank you, adviser Leitner. Any other advisers have reports they'd like to share with commission? Okay. Seeing none, executive director Piccione. Alright. Thank you, madam chair. We, as you mentioned, we had a very successful trustee convening. And, again, thanks to all the folks that you, thanked as well.
I wanted special kudos to, to Emily from the department, for a lot of the physical management of that meeting as well, she and you and members of the governor's staff as, as well. We recently hosted the national OER conference. The governor gave a keynote here in in Colorado. That our initiative, that OER initiative for the state has cumulatively, we have saved students nearly $60,000,000 in textbook and course material costs. That's fantastic. We have nearly 2,300 courses in the state are now,
using OER, and we should, exceed our goal of 25, z degree, programs in the state. The very first one was in Spanish down at CSU Pueblo, but now, we have many more and should exceed our WIG, wildly important goal, which is 25. We should exceed that. I wanna give a special congrats and shout out to, doctor Gee and her team in equity and workforce and social mobility, her team, Renee Welsh and Beverly Jones and Faye at, Aguilar, and volunteers from the IHEs on reviewing and evaluating the applications for the career connected
campus, that designation. We announced five campuses. This is within the last month at our last meeting. So the five additional campuses are CSU Fort Collins, MSU Denver, UNC, Western Colorado University, and the Community College of Aurora. These applications are very rigorous and really ask for a real demonstration of the commitment to, being a career connected campus, and so very happy to add them. They are joining, just for review, they're joining, Colorado College, DU, Regis, Colorado School of Mines,
CSU Global, and Pueblo Community College, who were our first designees, last year. So, congratulations to doctor G and team. I also attended that very successful town hall to discuss, the audit of for the transfer policies. That was very well attended. I think over about a 140 people or more attended that. So, that was great, and the team did a great job. Carl and team did a great job on that. The outreach team. So this fall this fall, we have about 340 students in the foster ed program,
260 in empower ed, and a 132 who are taking advantage of the education and training vouchers, to use it at whatever, institutions they would like to and whatever training programs they'd like to. Cumulative over the last three years, we have six zero one in foster ed, five thirty three in Empower Ed, which is great, but it's also gives us a a little tale of the, the situation that our our high school students are in. To have 533 who who are experiencing homelessness and who are in the program now
to to get educated is is pretty amazing, but also sad. And 268 over the last three years that, taking advantage of ETV. So, what I'm passionate about, as many of you know, is really helping to make sure that there is access and affordability for the students who are on the margins and how do we bring them into the mainstream and give them the opportunities because it's opportunities that make a difference. And so, I'm really pleased and the outreach team, not only for this part, but also for doing the, FAFSA, CASFA, truly amazing work that they do corner to corner in the state.
There's only a few of them who are doing this. And, you will see something about this in, Chalkbeat. I don't know if it's coming this week, but I just had an interview with, Jason Gonzales, talking a little bit about some of these things. I had many site visits. We were out at Northeastern Junior College. They have a new applied technology campus. It's amazing. Anybody who lives out that direction, you should really take a look. It's truly amazing what they're doing. Met with the student leaders and also met with the women's basketball team. That was fun. Also at Morgan Community College, they're doing some hydroponic, gardening. Hydroponic,
not just gardening, but the best lettuce I've ever tasted came from that hydroponic garden that they have there. If you get a chance at at Morgan, it's not too far away. It really is remarkable that with their senior staff, and they also have a new applied technology center that's also fantastic. So it's great to see that community college is really, making those kind of really truly applied, work available for, for students so they can transfer right into the workplace immediately. I will be up at CSU, tomorrow, speaking to the Academic Management Institute,
cohort. I'll be up there. And then on Monday, I'll be heading down to Colorado College for a site visit. And then December, if anyone wants to take a nice long road trip with me, I'll be heading out to Lamar and Otero, Trinidad, and Pueblo Community Colleges. So So that'll be a two day trip, heading out there. So, also hoping to see all their new programs, meet with their senior staff, meet with some student leadership, and, talk about what issues and concerns they may have, and also remind them of, the strategic plan and, how they can be aligned with what the,
commission is also working toward. So, I will I'll stop on that. Yeah. Oh, no. No. Actually, let me just say, there was a fantastic first generation summit at CSU, Fort Collins. It was well attended by almost all of the institutions of higher ed, their senior vice presidents of student success, great panels, great, great keynote. No. Just kidding. That was me. Anyway, they had a really great it was a great, opportunity to really focus in on what, can we do to make sure that our first generation students are even more successful, in our institutions. So, okay.
Stop there. Thanks, Michelle. Thank you so much. We've reached the point in the agenda whether this is an opportunity for public comment. So feel free if you're a member of the public, would like to address the commission to raise your hand or put a note in chat. We're gonna wait one minute. Emily, has anyone requested an opportunity to get public comment? No, ma'am. Okay. Seeing none, we will move on. The next section of our agenda is the consent agenda, and I I probably should have followed up with Chair Brimson, right after he made his report regarding,
discussion of this waiver item. So I just wanna give you an opportunity if you would like to pull the waiver off the consent agenda. I don't think we thank you, madam. I don't think we need to to pull it off. I just wanted to open, if you or members wanted to address. I think we were comfortable advancing it as a consent item, but it did involve some discussion. And I thought that transparency was owed, to the full commission. So I don't know, you or other members of the SSWA committee, wanna opine on that. I will just say I appreciated, the system coming back and responding, to our request,
particularly to narrow it. But I think it's a consideration we're gonna continue to look at. We have ceded some of our authority on these waivers, and I think it's something we need to continue to look at. But that was it, madam chair. I I didn't need to to open a discussion, but wanted comment from the committee if they'd like to. Okay. Well, let's okay. Go ahead. Commissioner Walker Harvey, please. Oh, I was just gonna say thank you because I wasn't sure, like, how in-depth that had been discussed, and I was gonna ask that at the meeting, but trust you all if you've discussed it in-depth to to move forward.
Advisor Ardis? Thank you, Chair Wilmer. I I participated in the discussions in the committee on this, and I full well agree with what we've come out. I do think we need some procedures, as to how it will be implemented, indeed. But I think the committee or the general education council can take care of that. Okay. So let's move forward this way. We have four items in front of us on consent. Is there a motion from any advice, any commissioner to remove any of the consent items for consideration?
Commissioner Abrahamson, go ahead. No. No. No. No desire to move. I was gonna move to adopt that one. Okay. Second. I'll second that. Perfect. So there is a motion from Commissioner Abrahamson, a second from Commissioner Harbour to approve all four consent items. And as a reminder, I usually state this at each meeting. All of the consent items went through, committees, of reference and with unanimous support are on the consent agenda. Is there any opposition to the motion to approve these four consent items? Seeing none, that is approved. Thank you.
Okay. We are going to be moving on now to the report on the higher education funding allocation formula. Just as a reminder, I know we've talked about this. I can't believe it's been a thirteen month process, and we have had numerous conversations about where we're headed. You will see in your book that I believe it's, I can't remember once it was formatted, about a 22 page report, that includes the recommendations. We can handle this a couple different ways. So I would love, to, well, I guess let's do this. I'm going to share my screen. We are going to walk through the high level recommendations,
of this report. Let me see if I can find it. Oh, you're oh, here it is. Okay. So what is included in your book and it is for in front of us, for approval today is the report on the higher education funding allocation report. Again this is via statute. We were required to do a review of the higher education funding formula. This report, if approved today, will be sent to the governor, members of the JVC, and both the House and Senate Education Committee members tomorrow. Excuse me.
The report itself walks through, you can see a table of comment. We walk through the commission's strategic plan, the review of the process for the review and feedback that we did in consultation with the formula review working group, also engagement with DAG and other committees from CDHE. We walk through how with level setting with with our policymakers about how the current formula is structured, and then move to recommendations that begin on page 10. So those are the main things that I want to highlight for you today, and then we will have an opportunity,
to if you have any questions, before we do the vote on this report, we can move there. As you might remember, we felt like the recommendations, of changes to the funding model fell in three main buckets. The first was structure and naming conventions. Thanks to Commissioner Hughes, and her recommendation of our last conversation, that we should be really renaming all of the steps to levers. Naming things in steps makes it sound like you have to move through in order and we don't want to limit policymakers' flexibility in being able to use all of the different components of the formula.
So our first naming suggestion is to remain, rename all steps to levers. Our second recommendation is to, rename what is currently step two or performance funding in the current formula to lever one, and in a more accurate way describe this step as results inform funding. We do continue to have the eight metrics included in this lever one, but it is not technically performance funding. It doesn't because of the stabilizing factors, we don't believe that performance funding is the right descriptor of that lever,
so that's our second recommendation. Our third recommendation, if I can get there, is to remain, rename what is currently step one, name it level lever two, and encourage policymakers to use lever two as a true performance based funding component. Why we recognize, we spent the earlier part of day talking about the budgetary constraints of Colorado, also the federal uncertainty that that institutions are facing, really believe that lever two is where we apply new money,
moving forward if we are able to cover, some of our requirements in lever one. That lever two is where new a new influx of money can come in to really reward excellent performance and reinforce system goals of both policymakers, the Commission, and the Department. We also did recommend that although what is currently step three has not been utilized, that we think it should remain in the new formula, and call it one time investments. There are a lot of things that we have had long conversations about,
some interesting innovations that are happening. We just recommend to policymakers that they leave this lever three as an opportunity to do an influx of resources, to spur those innovations. Things like we put examples of implementing partnership or bridge programs, other things that can sometimes be one time or limited cost. It could be an opportunity for policymakers to use this lever to move additional funds to institutions to spur those innovations. We've had some conversations, again, about renaming role and mission,
which is really not a role and mission calculation but really is more accurately described as a previous share. But really is more accurately described as a previous year. So those first five recommendations are our naming conventions and changes. The second bucket of recommendations is around data sources and definitions. As a reminder, recommendation number six is a call to move from IPEDS to CERS for retention and graduation rates. As a reminder, IPEDS is the federal, reporting system. Because of the way some of our community colleges are structured, they are not accurately
captured in in IPEDS data, which means that we actually pull retention and graduation rates currently for implementation in our formula from two different systems or data sources. So we pull some from IPEDS and some from CERTS. It's never best practice to have two data sources for something. So we are just making clear, that we should move the data source to CERDS from IPEDS for retention and graduation rates. Recommendation number seven, apologies, is adding native Hawaiian Pacific Islander TURM enrollment chair.
This does as a reminder this does not require statutory change, but instead is more of a practice of the department about what is included in URM population, and enrollment share calculations, but believe that that we needed to call this out in the report as it was the subject of conversation. Recommendation number eight is excluding concurrent enrollment from Pell calculations. Concurrent enrollment students cannot actually receive Pell grants, and they have been included in calculation which we believe needs to be changed. Recommendation number nine, this is one that that did have a lot of conversation moving to Pell receipt
versus Pell eligible enrollment and share. This, is highlighted a lot with the new calculations of FAFSA, making this as a methodology that is less precise. We I recognized in this report and you can see the language in here that we we wanted to recognize and and name that, Pell eligibility was included in the current allocation model as a proxy for socioeconomic status, and we know that Pell received might not be a perfect solution to replace this
prior calculation, but we do believe it is the most accurate. And so this is this is why this recommendation is included here. Recommendation number 10 includes, I'm so sorry, Inclusion of all qualifying transfers in credential completion. So these are to include students who transfer from a Colorado public two year institution to a four year institution. Well, that's what's currently included. We would like to broaden that, and allow and recognize all institutions to accept or I'm so sorry.
I'm not stating this clearly. Sofia, are you on? Can you state it clearly for me? Yes. Happy to. Thank you, chairwoman. Thank you. So this would change from what we currently have where, as chairwoman said, currently, transfers from two year institutions to four year institutions that have at least 18 credits and transfer immediately count count as a credential completion for that home institution that the student transferred from. What is being proposed here is to expand that so that students who are going from a four year institution to a four year institution or a four year institution
to a two year institution would also be considered as a completion in that credential completions measure. Thank you. Recommendation number 11 is a way to recognize partnership programs, those partnership and bridge programs. Many of the students who are brought into these programs are brought in from the point of enrollment knowing that these students will not be graduating from their first home institution. So this recommendation removes those partnership program students from first time graduation cohorts right at the beginning so that there isn't a ding as you would call it from in
your graduation rate for students that that are in these partnership programs. Recommendation number 12. This is the beginning of an opportunity to include consideration of part time student retention and the retention rate. We recognize that forty eight percent of our students enroll part time. It is difficult to to fully capture the the transition that students often make from full time to part time back to full time, many of those things. But this recommendation is saying that we want to at least recognize that these students,
so this is going to be an inclusion in the retention rate for all students who first enroll part time to the retention metric. We would like to, and we add, language in here that we would like the department and policymakers to continue to look at how better we can continue to expand, the recognition of part time students in our formula, but this is a first step, in recognizing them in the in the formula consideration. In addition to those, recommendations that we've, we reach broad consensus on with the working group,
we do name three other areas, for consideration for policymakers in the report. The first is we had, some, some, many conversations about ATC's inclusion in the, in the formula with how they are serving our students in Colorado and can often be seen as a first step into the higher education or post secondary system and really focused on their ability for credential attainment. There are lots of considerations that we don't necessarily know the best way to include them as they are not able,
we are not able to measure all eight metrics that are currently included in the formula for ATCs. So we lay out a couple of different options for policy makers to consider, either applying an individual weight outside of just the average increase for all institutions, possibly including them in lever one or lever two, but there are many ways that we just wanted to recognize the role that ATCs are playing, their increased enrollment, and lay out a couple of different options. We also had numerous conversations recognizing success and efficiency of the system.
Some of the conflicts we have between our 100% graduation rate, our 150% graduation rate, which is the best way to actually model efficiency in the system and students getting to and through post secondary in the most effective ways. So we lay out some option here and some things for policy makers to continue to explore and the best way to recognize success of the system in graduating students. The last portion that is included here is around implementation transparency and data sharing.
All of the conversations that we had were always, of the formula working group, were really structured in it doesn't matter how well you define what the formula is, if there isn't a way to measure and validate data that that there is shared trust among both the department and the institutions, whatever you put in the formula doesn't really matter. So we wanted to make really clear that we recognize that how we measure and validate data is really key to formula utilization and we felt like it deserved that special call out.
We also wanted to talk through the fact that we had numerous conversations about what else could be helpful for policy makers to have access to. We talked about it even earlier today when we talked about all sources of income, does a dollar in or a dollar invested in an institution mean the same thing in each institution? All of these things are things that we just wanted to name that it is important for policymakers to have a true snapshot or picture institution financial health,
and could help, them inform policymaker allocation decisions moving forward. We also wanted to recognize that, we and the Department, and I want to thank Sophia explicitly for all of her work in in this process at large, but also really being open to stating that that obviously we've gotten some requests from institutions, and this paragraph is saying we commit to share all fiscal note considerations and that we will do everything we can to share de identified data to institutions as requested.
So apologies for the croaky voice and the, the rushed breathing as I tried to get through all of those portions. As I mentioned the Commission would send this over, we end the report with the, the request that they that policymakers move forward with the legislation to implement a new formula, in 2026. So with that, I'm gonna pause and see if there are questions and see if there's anything in chat chat that anybody else would anyone would like to talk to talk through. Commissioner Tucker?
I just have more of a comment. I think it is excellent, the recommendations, that are there. And I think it's a great report to go forward and captures the work that happened, over the thirteen month period very well. Wonderful. Thank you, Commissioner Tucker. Advisor Chapin? I just wanna say I think it's actually really awesome too. I got really excited while listening to it. I think it's awesome that you are considering part time learners because I know there was a lot of concern among the students, when that big beautiful bill came out about the fifteen credit hour. And so I think it's just really awesome that you're taking that into consideration.
Thank you, adviser. Any others have questions? Again, I just want to thank the department especially Sophia or I'm sorry Doctor. Laderman. For all of your work and technical expertise in helping make this happen. Commissioner Tucker for serving on, the working group, and all working group members if they're listening, for your time and dedication to come together and really have a conversation about how to best move forward with this. I'm proud of the process and would love to entertain a motion, if I may, to approve this report for distribution for tomorrow. So moved. Okay. Moved by vice chair Gonzales.
Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by commissioner Tucker. Is there any opposition? K. Seeing none, that is passed unanimously. Thank you so much, again, for all of your help. Okay. Apologies. I'm trying to now go to back to the agenda items. Okay. We are gonna now be moving on, to a Colorado promise update. And doctor Laderman, you are up. Wonderful. Thank you, chair Walmart. So we are pleased to share an update on the implementation of Colorado Promise, two free years of college expanded. Colorado Promise is an income qualified program that pays you back for your tax credit
for up to your first 65 college credits if you meet the income and other eligibility criteria. This program recently won an innovation award from the National College Promise Institute. And to present on this, I actually wanna turn it over to and introduce doctor Mark Bachey. He's a senior data and policy analyst at the department, and he leads the Colorado Promise work. Hello. Thank you, so doctor Laderman, and thank you, chair Womer. Thank you, commissioners, for taking time out of a packed schedule to let me come and speak with you all. In your packet, I believe it was around page 73,
I did provide a handout overview for you all, to catch you up to speed a little bit on the Colorado Promise. But to recap it, Colorado Promise is a unique program that enables, the state to provide support for our students through a refundable tax credit. So the tax credit, helps support students in their first sixty five, credit hours, their post secondary education. This looks at credits that are earned solely, during their college or post secondary journey,
and give space to, assure that credits earned during, high school, are not applied. And so we really have a great opportunity to help our students go not only into their first sixty five or two years, but really well into a bachelor's degree. The eligibility requirements are kind of broken into two pieces. We have the overall eligibility requirements, which focus on our Colorado residents, recent high school graduates that, matriculate within two years of completing high school,
to, Colorado public post secondary institution, calls on them to annually complete a FAFSA or a CASFA, which is really a crucial point, that we're trying to bolster our FAFSA completion rates across our state. And then have a family income of $90,000 or less. This income cap is very exciting. It builds upon the work that our partners at the institutions are already doing. We're really excited as of this fall. All of our four year institutions, in Colorado, have a campus level, Promise program.
And those income ranges and the requirements vary from campus to campus. But we see kind of a max threshold around $70,000 With the Colorado Promise, we're able to, expand that ceiling to include, some of our middle income families as well. Eligibility requirements for the Colorado Promise, and this is a unique piece for Colorado, has an academic requirement. And so it looks at the student's academic performance term by term. So it's really an innovative way to reward and recognize the hard work that our
students are doing. So it requires, for each term, a student complete at least six credit hours, and it requires and calls for them to complete the term with at least a 2.5 GPA. And so it's really recognizing the hard work, that our students are putting into their academics and their studies. The the next part, with it is that we're very excited, to share, and let me see if my computer will do this for me. Alright. Hopefully, you all are seeing, the website. And so,
previously, we had built out an affordability website, and some of the feedback we received is that it was a tad bit dense. It was very, very word heavy. A big shout out to our partners here at CDHE on our communications team for helping us build this out. But we really wanted to develop a student focused website, with a with a campaign, with messaging, and with information that really speaks to our students. And so we wanted to, in this website, develop not only an overview of what the program is,
providing visuals and graphics and language that is easy for students and parents to understand, but we also wanted to provide resources for them to help them through this process. And so really taking this tax credit and trying to break it into manageable and digestible pieces that our students, can use to understand to help them see that college is affordable. There are resources for them, and there really is a place in post secondary education here in Colorado for them. Some of the exciting pieces that we built out,
really going through the student eligibility components, and providing clear, language for a student to understand, and to absorb and, and and and see what they need to do in order to, receive and be eligible for the Colorado Promise. The other part, that we're excited, to share is that oh, let me go back here, is that we've also built out resources for our, educational partners. And so, I I do have to say that this work, is in large part to a lot of active participation from,
our institutional partners. We went through and the data requirements to determine eligibility is rather a complex data pool for our institutions. And so working with a group of volunteers from across institutions, developed a guidance and data definitions guide. It's an almost 20 page document that walks them through all of the elements that they need to utilize to to develop the data pool to determine, their eligibility along with all of the technical,
resources that they need to submit the data on an annual basis. You know, I just really wanna take a moment to, thank partners from AIMS, the, CCCS, Mines, MSU Denver, UNC, Western, and Colorado Mesa for their help. CDHE gets data on our side, but the lift for the institutions, to make sure that institutions across the state understand how to do this, was it was it was a big lift. And the members of the institutions who helped us, I just,
wanted to thank them for that. The next part that I wanted to highlight with the Promise, website is that it also provides a direct contact for students, for parents, for educational partners, and for institutions to connect with CDHE staff directly. So we have a dedicated email address, that's already very actively being used where students and parents can email questions about the Promise directly to the department so we can get them information and answers, as well as we offer office hours on a weekly basis,
that despite limited marketing that we've done with the website, we're already seeing traction with this, with, parents, students reaching out to us to schedule these one on one appointments to make sure that we're providing them the information they need. So it's really been, quite, an accomplishment. We're very excited, and especially as we move forward with this. As we move forward, though, we do need to think about the timeline. And so the program went into effect as of the '4, so Colorado Promise is active enrolling. This January, though, is where the the excitement,
is really going to build. As of the January 31, institutions will start to notify students who are eligible for the, the promise and the tax credit. They'll, at the same time, communicate eligible students to the department, and the department will take and, clean that data and pass it along to the Department of Revenue so that students can start filing for this tax credit. The last piece that I want to, bring up with the website and with this process is the partnership we have with the Department of Revenue. Staff over DOR have just been wonderful and exceptionally patient,
working us through the nuance that is tax law, and the the tax, reporting process and helping to develop resources to help guide our students, both here at the department and at institutions. We don't wanna step into the role of a tax professional. We need to recognize when we are stepping outside of our wheelhouse. DOR has just been absolutely amazing with helping to develop those resources so that students and families can connect with resources across the state of Colorado in their local communities. So have been absolutely wonderful with that.
It's just been such a, a wonderful process and partnership with that. The last partnership I would also like to, recognize is the partnership that we've had with OSPB and the Govs Office throughout the process, the legislative process and implementation process. Gov staff as well as OSPB staff have just been a wonderful resource in helping to work through the nuance of questions that we've had. And for those who are on the call, just thank you all very much for your help and support. And then the last piece is Sofia mentioned is that we did receive,
the recognition and the award. And actually going to the conference to receive this recognition was just wonderful to see how Colorado is stepping into, the same area as other states and so that we can really start to hang our hat on what we're doing and what we're accomplishing. Talking with other states, a lot of promise programs are very regionally based or locally based, and states are struggling to figure out how to implement something on a statewide scale. And so as we explained our program to them,
just hearing what we're going to, the lengths, and the resources that we were providing our students, quite a few other programs are very, very excited, especially as we showed them our website. So, you know, other programs that were acknowledged were, the New Mexico Opportunity Promise, the Massachusetts Free Community College Promise, and the Arizona Promise, just to name a couple. But just to be in that echelon of Promise programs really means that Colorado is is starting to move forward in the right direction. So thank you all very much for your time,
and, I just wanted to see if there were any questions that, folks had. Well, first of all, huge congratulations. Okay. I see a couple of hands. Commissioner Tucker. Hey, Mark. Just a quick question. So I I recognize that the Promise program is different than some that the institutions are are offering. Where is the I guess, if I'm a student or if I'm a family and I'm looking at the different options or I'm trying to figure out what the different options are, is that I can go to our the the Promise website,
but then I don't know anything about the institution. So is it going to be more incumbent on the institutions to kind of say, here's our options, but, oh, by the way, there's this promise program as well. Like, who will be the the connector that says, you know, if I'm this student, am I I'm imagining some kind of flowchart or something that says, yes, go here, no, go here. If in between this, look both ways kind of thing. So I'm just trying to figure out I mean, I because I want the students to be able to have the opportunity to do this, and I think more would take advantage of the opportunity if it's there and and
it's easy to navigate. Yep. Commissioner Seifer, thank you for a great question. So there is really there's not an application process for the Colorado Promise. It's handled by institutions. The only requirement is that, that they need to complete is a FAFSA. They, as well as the academic requirements. But, it's all handled automatically for a student. And so, really, the work we're we're trying to do is to market this and to let students know this option is out there. Students don't need to apply for the Promise program.
There will be multiple there will be a multitude of students who receive it who may be unaware of it. And so it flows with and works with in tandem with, institutional Promise Programs. And that's why the the full name of it is Colorado Promise two, three years of college expanded because it really expands upon the work that institutions are already doing and builds upon what their promise programs are already doing. So, you know, as we we work to market this, a key piece has been to educate students,
and our K through 12 partners that this is something that students will automatically be considered for, and that there isn't an additional step or process that they need to go through. With that, I've been traveling across the state, with our outreach team to educate high school and K through 12 counselors, about the promise so that they can start to communicate this at the high school level. So that they can let students know that this opportunity is there for them, and that there is really this reward for the hard work that they put in.
And again, stressing that it's a seamless process, that the institutions will take care of, which is yet another reason to thank our institutional partners for all the work that they're doing behind the scenes to to help bolster this. And if you look at the chat, doctor Laderman put a link in the chat for all of the institutional promise programs that they have. So, you know, if students come to the website and they navigate the website, they'll be able to see all of the institutions. Thank you, doctor Piccione. Mister Gonzales? I I might have oh, thank you. I'm I'm I might have missed this,
but will the Colorado Promise data be disaggregated by income band, race, ethnicity, region, and institution type, in the 2026 report, so we can see who's actually benefiting and where there may be gaps? Thank you, commissioner Gonzales. So the 2026 report, the reporting requirements set out by statute, are kind of a staggered. The first year, because there's there will be a bit of a lag when on when we get data from the Department of Revenue. The first year will have some high over high level perspective
of the report. But the 2027 report will be the first year in which we'll be able to have a a deeper dive. Currently in statute, it focuses more, on, income bands, as well as, the look of, eligible students who claim the credit, eligible students who do not, and non eligible students. Right now in statute, there is not, the request to break it out by those additional bands. But we also have to be considerate of, since this is tax information, it's highly sensitive, and there are restrictions on the level of granularity that we can report on.
And so I think your question about that is one that we're all very curious about. And before I give a definitive definitive answer, I think we we need to do a little more, work and research on what level of granularity we are allowed to report out on. Doctor O'Ladiman, did you wanna add something before I go to commissioner Harber? No. It's just essentially what Mark said. There are, strict federal rules about how we can share tax information, and that actually includes income starting this year. So you may actually start to see less in reporting from CDHE that's broken up
by income bands because we're very restricted on how we can report that information. And I just wanted to state that that's not because we don't believe it's important to disaggregate by income among other things. It's just if we're not allowed to, we will not be able to do that. I totally appreciate that, and thank you. The just lens I'm coming at this from is that, you know, this is a tax credit. And in order to receive this benefit, you have to be a tax filer. And, in Colorado's promise, that could unintentionally exclude, a large portion of the population that essentially we are intending support for.
So just thinking about it from all those lenses, but appreciate that. Mister Harbor? So a couple quick questions. One is, are is the compliance on the part of institutions audited at all? Do we know that every one of them has this set up as an automated system so that students don't have to apply for the program and are automatically put in that program if they qualify? Thank you, Commissioner Herbert. As far as the audit process goes, I I think that will be in part what we see with the the data
when it comes. I can say that, all institutions across the state have been very active in developing the data pools with the questions that they've been asking and, making sure that they are developing a uniform and consistent process. I've been going almost monthly now, to the CFO meetings, the financial aid administrators meetings, as well as the DAG meetings. And they're consistently the theme from institutions is that they really wanna make sure that
a uniform process is developed so that they can assure that one institution is following the same process as another institution. And so what what we've been seeing and observing, really suggests that they are, following statute, in a consistent manner. So, yeah, it'd be interesting if you do get data to see, you know, on an institutional basis, you know, are they all hitting 100 in terms of applicants' students who actually qualify? Or are some, falling through the cracks?
So I think it would be helpful to know. I mean, it should be a 100% foolproof system. I'm just saying it'd be worth finding out if that's what's actually happening, number one. Number two, in terms of the refundability, is there any kind of automated notification where, a student is told, you know, January 1, you know, make sure you file this form or here are the forms, whatever the case may be. Here's how you can file electronically to make sure you get your credit, your refund, and please note that even if you don't have to file by filing,
you will get a check. Thank you, commissioner. So to make sure I understand your question, the notification responsibility falls on the institutions. We have worked with the Department of Revenue to, develop a standard form template, for notification, statute, from this past, session did expand, institutions' ability to communicate electronically. And so it, really enables institutions to not only automate, but also track that process. So that, if they have it in a secure and also make sure that the information,
since this is tax related, is communicated in a secured manner. And so really helping to assure that institution that students receive the information from institutions in a timely manner. Because of the flow of how, eligibility is determined by an institution. CDHE doesn't have the capability, with the cadence in which we receive data to determine eligibility, in a timely fashion to assure that students can file for it. So institutions, have to determine eligibility and notify students.
And they notify students at the same time that they communicate those, that list of eligible students to the department. So when the communication you talked about between, the department or institutions, that is, and the Department of Revenue, so does the Department of Revenue know in advance who has already qualified for the credit? The Department of Revenue, after the after CDHE receives the data, we actually develop and provide a file that we then provide to the Department of Revenue so that when students start to file,
they can have that for the reconciliation process. So you might consider some kind of notification system from DOR because they do that for, believe it or not, for some tax credits already. For example, a donation I made to, a charity, for kids, I got a notification from the department saying, By the way, you qualify for, you know, this child care or whatever it is, credit because you made a donation. I had not included it, on my tax return. And so I was actually being alerted by the Department of Revenue that,
Hey. So my concern is that in a lot of these programs, a lot of people not a high percentage, but some people don't file. It's kind of like when you get a reimbursement certificate, not everybody sends it in, you know, to get their refunds. So it seems like if there is a process where, the student, family, whomever is notified, that, hey, you've qualified. All you have to do is file. Here's the form. Here's the link. I think that since it sounds like the communication is already occurring, I would encourage you to look into that.
Thank you very much for that. We'll definitely follow-up with our GOR partners, and see if that's something that they've already engaged or are planning to, but no, thank you. Keep up the good work. Thank you. The great program. Adviser Artis, did you have a question? Thank you, madam chair. Just a comment. One of the promised programs that's listed is with Pike's Peak State College, my own institution, and all the communications with Promise students are automated. And in addition, each Promise student has something called a coach,
and they are required to meet with a coach regularly if they wanna maintain their status in in in the program. Our particular Promise program with d two in Colorado Springs, which is the most diverse school district in our area. Once we instituted the Promise program, their freshman to sophomore retention rate went from 47% to 74%. It works, indeed. Thank you. Thank you, adviser, adviser artist. That's a great, highlight of how the Colorado Promise is meant to really build and complement the great
work that our individual campus partners are doing, developing programs that are really tailored to their population, and expanding upon it and really intentionally not taking away from those individual programs, but really helping to build, and grow them. So thank you. Any other commissioners, advisors? If not, Mark, I just again wanna say, thank you for all the work on this and really appreciate the, kind of student focused way that the depart I mean that the website has been
updated as well. Just though for for old people like myself who also navigate the system, one crosswalk that might be helpful is, like, if you do something around financial aid in the search bar, it doesn't take you to the promise. It's all geared directly to the student, which is incredibly important and where it should be. You have it both in preparing for college and paying for college. But if you actually type financial aid into the search bar, it it it's buried. So just hoping that there's a way that we can highlight it up so it's
it's something that you always are landing on, would be really helpful because it's a, it's a really, clear, engaging website. So thank you for the work there. Thank you for the recommendation, Chair Wilmer. Okay. Seeing no other things here, we are gonna move on now, to a senate bill twenty four one sixty four and transfer initiated or initiative update. I believe I'm handing it over to Carl and Brad. Is that correct? Just, just myself, chair Wahlberg. Okay. Much. Brad is at a conference, this week. But, thank you very much, chair Wahlberg and vice chair Gonzalez,
executive director Piccione, commissioners, advisors, and guests. My name is Carl Einhouse, and I'm the Chief Student Success and Academic Affairs Officer here at the department. And at the request of Chell Wilmer, I'm here today to provide an update on Senate Bill 20 four-one 164, which we often refer to as the Transfer Transparency Act. It's also a really a beefed up version of the Student Bill of Rights. And I will also be providing a brief update on the transfer audit as well. During previous, student success and workforce alignment standing committee meetings,
we provided updates on 164. Today, I'm going to mostly focus on just the rulemaking authority piece because that is the work that we have most recently done. But if you have any other questions about the 164 deliverables today, of course, feel free to ask. And if you're following along on the agenda, referencing page 80, it's important to know that we have conducted over 65 stakeholder meetings since October 2024 on the implementation of 164. So, just a big shout out to the staff here at DHE as well as the
institutions for all the work that we've already done in implementing 164. And we, estimate that at least 0.5 FTE of work and time has gone into coordinating all these meetings and the work related to 164. So, the relevant statutory authority in regards to rulemaking, you can see that on page 76, which includes the different statutory requirements that we have to be able to implement the rulemaking authority enforcement action. And that includes the the student bill of rights.
And I'm not going to read those off to you, but, they're they're included there on page 76. And, the enforcement action slides begin on page 87. And then in addition to that, what's, what we submitted to the Secretary of State were the actual draft rules that we, that we submitted on November 1 for the regulatory, compliance. So there are many different rules that are included, in statute for the enforcement action, and they include, the GT course list submission to DHE every other year.
So essentially institutions every other year are, in statute are, supposed to be submitting a list of all the GT courses that they offer. The publication of GT course offerings to students. So students need to know if they're attending an institution which GT Pathway courses they actually have there to take and enroll in. And then the actual automatic transferability of GT Pathway courses and then following policy, making sure that policy is being enforced through fidelity, when institutions are receiving transcripts that have GT pathway courses or credit for prior learning,
which are equivalent to a guaranteed transfer pathway course. There's also a compliance checklist, which is mostly operational, that is included in this enforcement action. And then finally, there is the SMART Act reporting, in which institutions are required to submit certain data in regards to the transferability and applicability of GT pathway courses and, making sure that they're doing that on an annual basis. And so how will this play out? So there's basically two separate ways of enforcement action. There are the, all the different categories of enforcement action that do not have to deal with the
student complaint. And then there's the actual student complaint process. And so when we're talking about the non student complaint processes and those are the processes which I included before in terms of, institutions submitting their list of GT pathway courses every year, publishing their GT pathway courses every year and that sort of thing. Basically, when we are notified or we are alerted or we discover that there's a potential violation, we will reach out informally to the institution and we'll have thirty days to respond. We anticipate that 99.9%,
of these issues will be resolved within this informal stage. For those that are not resolved, however, via an informal notification, we will then enact a formal process that includes a formal notice of violation, which the institutions will have three months to resolve. And then it goes through a series of actions, and abilities for institutions to appeal. The final results could, be that there is a judicial view of the final agency decision in the Denver District Court.
And if the institution does not, abide by that enforcement action, they can be held in contempt of court. Again, I don't think we're going to ever, ever, ever get to that stage, but that is what the enforcement action is for those non student appeals. Now for the actual student appeals, and this is probably where we will have, the most action. The student must go through existing IHE appeal process first. So, if a student applies, they submit their transcripts, and they think that they should be getting course credit applied to their program of
study and they are not based upon teaching pathways, they should go through an appeal process of the institution first. And then if the student is not satisfied with that appeal process, then they can file an electronic form on our website to, basically have their appeal heard. So first, the institution appeal process, they don't like what they what they learned, then they'll file through the VHEED for our our process. The department can overturn a course applicability decision related to GT Pathway policy and will issue an FAD if it is straightforward.
So, if it is a straightforward, and an FAD is a final agency decision, by the way. If it is straightforward, then we could we'll just move forward in that direction. However, there might be some times in which it might be a complex issue, Or we see that there is a systemic issue in GT pathways. And if that's the case, then what we'll do is refer it to a new appeals review panel. And so, this will be we don't have the review panel right now. This will be completely new process as well. And the review panel will consist of a member from the GE Council,
a member from the Academic Council, and a member from the Registrar Council as well. And they will review that appeal. And they will make a recommendation to the department, whether to grant, deny, or modify, the recommendation or the appeal. And so, our department will really have the ability to state, yes, we agree with what the appeal panel has to say, or we want to modify, or, we deny, or we disagree, and we're going to uphold it, whatever the end result is. And so, whatever the end decision is,
the institution must abide by that policy and, provide GT pathway credit, if that is what the decision is. We will publish an annual report on enforcement actions so we can see annually, the number and types of enforcement actions that existed. And, we will work with the IHEs to make sure the secure process is communicated effectively with the students, and that they're aware of that process. We will definitely as always be engaged with all the stakeholders and developing this process and making sure that they're aware about it,
including the academic GE Council of registrars and the governor's office. And, and of course, we're always in consultation with the AG. We submitted the final rules to the Office of the Secretary of State as part of our department's regulatory agenda on November 1. And we anticipate that it will be published sometime online by the end of the year. We and then after it is published, we will implement this entire process in the 2026. So that was a lot of language, a lot of information,
so I'm happy to, answer any kind of questions that you all have. Okay, let's start with and try and keep this segmented a little bit. So to Carl's presentation around the rulemaking process and the next steps there. Are commissioners, advisors, anyone have questions? Comments? So I just want to, for clarity's sake, Carl, you mentioned that it's been, registered with the Secretary of State as part of the regulatory process. Once it is posted, it, does that mean that it's approved and then goes into implementation? That's correct. Okay. And what we will do once it is posted and approved,
we will work with the institutions in terms of the implementation process. And we'll also include, creating that appeal panel that I discussed and making sure we have that appeal panel, ready and up and going and trained. Any other commissioners, advisors on the rulemaking process? Okay. Before you go on to other things, Carl, I do have a couple questions around the implementation portion. So I know rulemaking was a portion of that implementation update, so there's multiple slides in there on that process. I do just wanna highlight, a touch concern that on page 63,
I think. I'm not sure if we're looking at the same exact page numbers. But but it is marked as being completed that GE Council submitted recommendations to the full commission. We haven't done that process. Yeah. Because the report was. So I just want to make sure that that is updated. So we we not haven't quite completed that, believe that we are moving to a December conversation around those recommendations, and moving through SSWA because I do know that that also leads into a SMART Act requirement, where you're going to be asked to how did the Commission
adopt those recommendations of the GE Council just and just wanting to ensure that we have enough time to do that process, before the January implementation of SMART Act. Absolutely, Chad Walmart. And and thank you very much for pointing that out. Yes. We we did begin that process and I think that's why it was checked as completed. Okay. But as as you mentioned, there is still some more steps to, pursue. And then I have one question. I noticed that I mean, obviously, you have rulemaking around compliance things from the bill that are moving through rulemaking. They're also though in statute was the requirement,
right, that all question. Yes. So, Well, thank you, Chair Wilmer, for that question. We have not provided a comprehensive audit. We have looked at a few institutions, just as, topics have come up or issues or questions have come up, to see that there is information online. But no, we have not conducted a comprehensive audit. Okay. Great. Any other things around the one sixty four implementation before you're gonna go into two other areas. Right? Both the audit and the town hall, or how would you like to proceed, Carl? Yeah,
absolutely. And they're kind of one in the same too. So thank you, Chair Marmer. So, as you all know, as we have the executive sessions, a couple of them actually, we had an a transfer audit on statewide transfer here in Colorado. And statewide transfer is inclusive of guaranteed transfer pathway courses as well as statewide articulation agreements. And, as you know, the audit was conducted, at a recommendation of Senator Rodriguez a couple of years ago, and, the Office of the State Auditor performed it and,
developed 19 different recommendations based upon that rec based upon that audit. And if you follow along, it's, in the agenda, it begins on page 91, and there's also a PowerPoint, which has a summary of the audit process and the findings. We hosted a town hall on November 6, which included over 160 people, from cross functional areas across all the institutions of higher education, here in the state as well as community members. And I know that there was a couple of commissioners who attended too. So thank you very much for attending. We provided an overview as well during the November 3 Student Success and Reversal Alignment
Study Committee meeting. And essentially, where we're at right now with the audit is that, we will be leveraging the transfer subcommittee, as Terry Abramson had mentioned briefly, during the introductory period, to assist in implementing many of the different recommendations. And we will also be, working with all the different administrative groups that are relevant, and that are touched somehow transfer. That could be the registrar council, the GE council, academic council, the DAI council, which is the inter or the, the IR groups or individuals,
when implementing, all the different recommendations that we have here. The all of the recommendations are due by October 26, so they must be satisfied by the end of the year. There are a number of recommendations which are specific to student issues which are identified that are due in January 2026. And we have already begun working on, communicating that information with the individual institutions that had student issues and making sure that they are resolved, before that 01/01/2026 deadline.
So this is definitely a work in progress. Many of the changes involve changes to policy. And, also clarifying how transfer works. As you might recall that there was a lot of questions that the auditors had because they were just not aware of transfer policy. And really what was I think beneficial of this audit, there's many things that were beneficial. But one of the things that were beneficial is have having a third party come in, someone who's completely outside of statewide transfer to provide an overview and a look and
opinions about what transfer is, what what the confusion is surrounding transfer, and and where we can what we can do to work on to make it clear to students and advisors and counselors, anyone who's interested in transfer, so they know exactly how it is impacted, how they can benefit from it, and and everything else that they'll need to know about that transfer process. And so I think it's also important to know that we have a webpage in development that will provide updates to all things legislative and legislatively related to transfer.
That will include January as well as the transfer audit. So that when any anyone's ever interested in finding out what's going on with any of that work, they can go to that one web page and see all the different meetings that we've had in regards to implementing both of these projects and, and also be able to view the any agendas and and recorded Zoom links. So if there are any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. I Carl, if I may, I have, I guess, first of all, some, some sharing I would like to do about both,
the transfer town hall conversations and just name some concerns that I have, pretty clearly. I think, and I'm I I appreciate your recognition that obviously the auditors, are not completely immersed in in the academic wonderings or applications of transfer policy. But I do want to name that I feel like at a couple different large public meetings, the work of the auditors have been a little bit dismissive, around that it is, you know, they're paid to find problems, they don't really get it.
We may or may not take all of these recommendations, and just wanna name that as chair of the commission and the person who sat in front of the legislative audit committee, I feel like we made a commitment that the commission will be addressing these policies. And so want to ensure that in our conversations with all the advisory group, whether they're faculty related or GE Council or any of the number of institution leaders we have, that we are also being paying some respect to the fact that the role of
the the statewide auditor is to enforce legislative intent. Policymakers, you know, pass policy and I think you you, the department does a wonderful job recognizing all of the ways that Colorado has held up as a leader in this work, and I think we are. I think we've passed some great policies. I think what the audit showed us though is that it's not always being implemented with fidelity. And appreciate, you know, the slide that talks about there was a line in the audit that said, you know, overall it's working as intended. From a commission standpoint, what I struggled with is seeing numbers where it's not working for 23% of the
people who were randomly selected to be a part of this audit. That's concerning to me. And I just want to make sure that in the work going forward, we are recognizing both what we have done well and really understanding that we are being pushed by this audit and by these legislators to say what do we need to be doing to be implementing this for students all across Colorado and ensure there are no gaps in the system. And I don't wanna, I mean, I I maybe I'm putting too much in language, but I believe language is important and just wanna ensure that as we're starting the
transfer subcommittee and we're starting this work, that institutions are hearing clearly from the commission because the the audit called out 95% of the recommendations in the audit were recommendations of the commission doing the work. I want the institutions to hear that we're taking this work seriously, and that we are we are going to be pushing, for real implementation and change here, and just want to ensure that the commission continues to have an elevated voice in next steps. Other commissioners, advisors, anyone else? And Chair Wollmer, if you may,
if I can comment, please know that yes, as you mentioned, it certainly is a balance of celebrating the great work that the institutions have been doing and making sure they're upholding transfer. And and in large part, they are. And as the audit suggested and and made all those different 19 recommendations, there's definitely a lot of work to be done to make it even better, for the making sure that student success can be increased here in Colorado. And please know that our department will is taking it seriously and implementing those recommendations
to the best of our ability. And we will be definitely there with the institutions and and using their, leveraging their expertise and being able to implement these recommendations to the best of our abilities. Pfizer Artis? Thank you, chair Volner. One of the things I've noticed in working in transfer for twenty years now, is that there's a waxing and waning of interest, in transfer and that when it wanes, we tend to think there's a transfer crisis. There's legislation, all that sort of thing.
And perhaps one of the things that the commission might like to consider is keeping transfer on its radar regularly, so that institutions understand its ongoing importance. Thank you. Mr. Abrams. Yeah. Chairwoman, I was just saying, I'm more than happy to make that a standing item, on SSWA, And I think everybody should be very clear that we will have a transfer committee looking at a number of things from the audit and ongoing on transfer. But our learners' ability to transfer credit and experience is a top priority for the
committee, and we will very much be continuing, to monitor that. Any other commissioners or advisers? Okay. Carl, anything else you'd like to add? No. Well, thank you for your time. K. Thank you. Next on our agenda, I don't know commissioner Abramson. Is there anything else you'd like to say? We have it listed as a separate item here, again, around transfer subcommittee update. If there's anything else to add, that would be the time. Otherwise, I'll hand it to vice chair Gonzales. I will just very briefly say, again, members, commissioners, this is, my final call to you. If there's members or topics you want included,
I think everybody should be I wanna be very transparent. We tend to be an assertive, and perhaps disruptive force when it comes to this. We will tackle the issues of the audit, but we intend to make sure that not only in word and paper, but in practice, Colorado is the best place for any learner and earner to apply their past learning towards credentials and degrees. So we will be, dare I say, aggressive, certainly proactive. If you wanna get in on the fun or think somebody should be at the table, reach out to me. Thanks.
If I may, I would love to pose a couple questions right off the bat, and then you can put a pin versus redoing it later. Do have some question about trying to understand the rationale for reevaluating credit that's that's already been awarded by another Colorado institution. This was a debate at GA Council. We are not talking about fraudsters, we're talking about other institutions that are authorized to operate in the state of Colorado. I was concerned about some of the language I saw back and forth about needing
to reevaluate. That hurts students, not institutions. I also have some questions about if a course or program's already been evaluated by GT Council, shouldn't it be transferred automatically? I heard people asking for additional steps or an ability to review, which I don't understand. And would love to understand how we might be able to leverage national organizations that look at things like military, occupations in the industry certifications like ACE, and how we could leverage those things. So those are some of my big threes that I would love to be able
to dive into on the transfer subcommittee and look forward to being a part of that process. Noted and included. Thank you, madam chair. Commissioner Artis? Yes. I think you have hit the nail on the head with those issues, that they ought to be really at the top of the list of the ones that we're, looking at, especially reevaluation of credit, PLA, especially military PLA, and credit for, war related, PLA. Those areas are muddy in transfer, and I I would completely agree we need to give them emphasis.
Madam chair, I'm just gonna name it so people aren't surprised by my approach to this. Those are gonna be the top issues. They are muddy. They are muddy in some cases because people would like them to be. Mhmm. And that is not going to be an acceptable state of things for Colorado going forward. Okay. Thank you so much. Let us know how we can help, commissioner Abramson. Mhmm. Vice chair Gonzales, I'm gonna hand the closing segment to you, about any updates you have to share from the ad hoc committee with the group. Yes. And, commissioner Abramson,
I'll say I've been conditioned to use the word assertive instead of aggressive, but I love aggressive. So thank you, madam chair. At our last public hearing or public meeting, I shared that the ad hoc committee has been spending time looking closely at the commission's statutory responsibilities and how they are exercised in practice. We're shifting away from the question of what can CCHE do to more important question of what should CCH do. And in order to focus on the areas where our engagement has the greatest impact,
we, as a subcommittee or the ad hoc committee, have met to continue this work. We spent time, stepping back from the long inventory of statutory tasks and instead began analyzing them into or organizing them into a clearer set of potential focus areas. This shift is allowing us to move from a very broad, overwhelming list to a more structural set of themes where commission leadership may be most appropriate, whether that relates to statewide vision setting, policy development, academic planning and program approval, or budget and finance.
The purpose of this work is not to expand what we do, but to be more intentional about the roles where the commission can add the most value and, equally, where execution is better suited to the department or other partners. So our approach is to clarify where CCHE leads, where we advise, and where we support in a way that strengthens alignment and reduces ambiguity. So, we're currently in the stage of preparing for a discussion with the attorney general's office to ensure that as we refine these areas, we are grounding our work in a clear understanding of the scope of the commission's
authority, any limits on those authorities that we have, and whether responsibility properly sits with the department or with us. That legal guidance is essential so that any framework we develop is both realistic and aligned with statute, what we bring forward. So our next step will be, to take this work and translate it into a draft, that outlines potential priority areas and the commission's appropriate role within each of those areas. And I wanna emphasize that we will be bringing that full recommendation to the commission for discussion, feedback,
and direction. The intent of this ad hoc committee is not to set priorities on behalf of the commission, but to prepare a well organized starting point so the full body can engage in that conversation with clarity. So I just wanna say the committee is noodling through quite a bit, and it's taking a little longer than we had anticipated or wanted. But I'm excited for the juncture that we're at now. And at the very next meeting, we anticipate we're gonna have something for us to roll up our sleeves and dig into. So thank you to the committee and to everyone for their support with this. Thank you. Thank you, vice chair Gonzales. And,
any commissioners, advisors have anything else they'd like to add that's been a part of those conversations? Okay. Seeing none. I wanted to, go ahead at one additional, discussion. I know I know that some back and forth about whether today was going to be a hybrid meeting. I would like to put on the table and recommend to the group that we do a full hybrid meeting again in December. With the reminder that our January meeting is a meeting in partnership with the Colorado Workforce Development Council. We would like to encourage as many commissioners to attend that meeting in person as
we will be doing work with another council on that day. So we'd like to propose that we make December fully hybrid with the hope we can do as many commissioners as possible. There still will be a hybrid option if you are unable to attend, but to prioritize, in person attendance for January if possible. Does does that work for everyone? Okay. So with that, we are going to end today's meeting, by announcing that our next meeting date is 12/04/2025 from 11:30 to 4PM. It will be a fully hybrid meeting.
And we wanna thank everybody for your participation in today's conversation. We appreciate your engagement and look forward to seeing you all soon. I think that is all we have. Thank you very much, madam. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't mean fully hybrid. I meant virtual. Language matters. Fully virtual for December, prioritizing in person for January, which will be a hybrid meeting. Okay. We knew what we we knew what you meant. What I meant. It's the day quill. Okay. You all have a wonderful day. Thank you so much. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Thursday.
Share Walmart. Feel better soon.