A legislative committee voted to recommend funding the R7 County Administration and CBMS enhancements operating request, a packet of county-support and technology upgrades presenters said would reduce county worker workload and improve eligibility processing. Representative Paschall moved the recommendation; the roll call recorded multiple "aye" votes and one excused member, and the committee chair announced the motion approved.

The request before the committee asks for a $5,100,000 general fund investment that presenters said would leverage federal matching to yield about $40,000,000 in total program resources. Director Bimstaffer, who opened the presentation, described R7 as "our budget request that supports our counties and our eligibility process and our systems therein." Maribel Klukman, eligibility division director, and Nina Mack, head of product for CBMS, led a technology-focused briefing on the specific projects R7 would fund.

Why it matters: committee members and county directors said the proposed work aims to shorten processing times, reduce manual data entry and free eligibility workers to focus on complex cases. "Counties are the primary users of the system. We have approximately 2,500 users across the state, and it is the most critical tool we have in delivering both public and medical assistance to our communities," said Katie McDougall, Adams County human services director.

What the proposal would fund: presenters outlined three primary automation and improvement projects plus infrastructure investments.

- Increased CBMS development hours: Klukman said the department requests "additional pool hours for the development of CBMS projects for medical assistance only projects." The request assumes at least two to three large or extra-large projects per quarter — roughly 5,000 development hours per quarter — to address a backlog and county-voiced system challenges.

- Intelligent character recognition (ICR): Klukman said ICR has been used since June 2021 and now serves 54 of 64 counties. She described the tool’s performance: "Eligibility workers have benefited thus far from 98.9% automated extraction of data with 99 accuracy of extracted handwritten information." The department said ICR reduces manual entry and can prevent erroneous denials or terminations caused by untimely data input.

- AI-generated plain-language correspondence: the department proposed testing an artificial-intelligence tool to generate plain-language summaries of eligibility notices. Klukman said the technology is newer and "will be tested with members to ensure positive benefit." Committee members pressed about the risk of incorrect AI output; Klukman and other presenters said they plan testing for complex scenarios before deployment.

- Interactive voice recognition (IVR) expansion: the IVR system already supports SNAP by allowing callers to obtain benefit amounts and eligibility status without a worker. Klukman gave usage figures: since February 2023 the IVR has received about 150,000 calls, 39% requesting benefit information and 55% resolved without a live agent. County directors said expanding IVR would free staff time for more complex client needs.

- Technical infrastructure and licensing changes: Nina Mack said the department requests automated testing tooling, automated monitoring and replacement of a data synchronization tool whose annual licensing is expected to rise dramatically in 2026. "We are looking at going from around 1,800,000 in licensing costs to somewhere between 5 to 9,000,000 in licensing costs if we don't replace this tool," she said, explaining the rationale for replacement and procurement planning.

County officials and county directors emphasized the need for county engagement in prioritization and governance. "A critical point for counties in this discussion is that we as the main user of the tool, must be engaged in every part of the process of prioritizing system[s]," said Jamie Ulrich, director of the Weld County Department of Human Services. McDougall and Ulrich both asked that counties continue to be included in planning and testing.

Committee questions and procurement notes: members asked whether the department had completed RFIs or RFPs for proposed tools and whether vendor lock-in was a risk. Department presenters said they had not issued RFPs for the technologies discussed but that they had implementation experience with several tools already in use elsewhere in state government or in other programs; they said procurement-stage market research would take place before final purchases. On vendor lock-in, a presenter said the department was seeking open-source options where appropriate to avoid lock-in.

Vote and next steps: Representative Paschall moved that the committee recommend funding the R7 County Administration and CBMS enhancements operating request. The roll call recorded multiple "aye" votes and one excused member; the chair declared the motion approved and the committee will forward its recommendation to the Joint Budget Committee (JBC). The department said it will provide a written CBMS update to the committee in the coming days covering county engagement, user satisfaction, the Colorado state network pilot and procurement status.

The committee adjourned after the vote.