Colorado paid UPK preschool providers late; Program leaders say “that was a mistake that should not have happened.”

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - Some in house preschool providers in southern Colorado are worried and frustrated after payments from a state office were days late, impacting some providers two months in a row.

In 2022, Colorado passed a law creating the Universal Preschool Program, commonly called "UPK," allowing every child in their year before kindergarten a set number of preschool hours free to families, paid for by the state. UPK leaders say about 2,000 providers are opting in as of September 2024.

"How can I be a good teacher when I have concerns and worry over how to pay my bills?" That's a hypothetical question posed by Sandra Richardson. She and her husband Brad Richardson run Little KIGA Preschool near Falcon.

The Richardson's reached out to 11 News expressing multiple communication and logistics concerns over working with UPK. One of their bigger concerns was UPK changing how it pays providers from year one to year two.

"We were kind of building the payment system as we were implementing in year one because it was such a rapid launch under a compressed timeline," said Dawn O'Dean, UPK Program Director.

O'Dean says, in the 2023-2024 school year, providers were paid monthly on the 8th. In school year 2024-2025 providers are now paid monthly on the 15th for the month prior's work, also known as payment in arrears.

"It was very bumpy, very rocky, nobody knew what was going on," said Brad Richardson.

In August, providers opened their bank accounts on pay day to find the UPK payments had not cleared. At the time of this writing, UPK officials had not confirmed exactly how many providers were impacted by August's late payments. O'Dean says banking information was mixed up, causing the issue. It took until Aug. 19, four days after pay day, for UPK's payments to clear.

"That was a mistake that should not have happened. We did a big de-brief on why that happened and how we can ensure that it doesn't happen again," O'Dean said.

But then it did happen again with the next payment. Providers were supposed to be paid Monday, Sept. 16 and the state confirms about 20 providers did not receive payment on time. Two providers tell 11 News it took days to receive September's payment. Shayna VanKooten is one of them. She, like the Richardson's, runs a small in-house preschool and relies on her business as a main stream of income.

"Their soft and fuzzy deadlines that only apply to themselves, it's not functional," VanKooten said. " I do worry honestly. I opened my doors because I support this program, but if they continue to make it a hardship for providers, then they're not going to be able to continue to offer the mixed delivery system that the voters approved."

"We definitely want to stabilize ... We agree that we want to keep it stable and consistent and that is the plan moving forward," O'Dean said.

UPK Officials say providers can reach out to the payment company, Metrix, directly with payment issues at