Colorado's 5 Star Certification Program: How It Works

Colorado public health officials have launched a certification program that could help businesses speed up their reopening process.

The Five-Star Certification Program is similar to the state's variance process, which has allowed some malls, attractions and other operations — those that prove they have enhanced COVID-19 protocols — to operate under a higher capacity cap and fewer restrictions.

To be eligible for the program, a county needs to prove it's seen a two-week sustained decline in cases, a positivity percentage lower than 10 percent or "demonstrably improving over the past two weeks," fewer than 90 percent of intensive care unit beds in use, and steady or declining regional hospitalizations, public health officials said.

Each county can decide whether the program is "a good fit for their community," the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in a statement.

"Counties may exercise significant flexibility and creativity in designing their program, , so long as it meets — at a minimum — all of the requirements listed."

The state agency listed the following requirements:

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❏ Determine how the program will be administered. Each county must set up an Administrative Committee responsible for implementing the program. The committee must include the Local Public Health Agency (LPHA) because they are the agency that has jurisdiction over development, compliance, and enforcement of public health orders, but the LPHA should not be primarily responsible for the administration or coordination of the committee. The committee should include other partners like the local Chamber of Commerce, nonprofits, local elected leaders, or industry association members. In addition, members of the community at-large should be a part of the Administrative Committee. Any 1 of these entities may host or provide the day to day operations of the Administrative Committee, so long as the LPHA is a participating member.
● Who will your committee members be?
● What roles will the different entities play?
● How often will the committee meet?

❏ Determine what resources a city or county will be able to devote to this program. Due to the demanding nature of the pandemic, and critical existing public health responsibilities like vaccine distribution and contact tracing, public health dollars should not be diverted to fund this program. The Administrative Committee will need to identify resources it may need to ensure the successful implementation of the program.
● Will administering this program require new staff?
● Will setting up the program require contracting with other organizations to help conduct compliance and enforcement checks?
● What is the Administrative Committee budget and what sources of funding will be used to appropriately resource program needs?
● Who will administer the financial portions of this program?

❏ Determine how you will ensure compliance and enforcement. At this point in time “self-certification” of individual businesses is not allowed. It is required that all businesses receive a live third party inspection. The entity doing the inspection must be trained and follow an inspection procedure developed and approved by the Administrative Committee.
● How will the committee assure that live inspections are completed by a third party prior to a business being certified?
● How will you develop the training and procedures for inspections?
● How will you conduct live inspections?
● How will you ensure all inspections are conducted with appropriate rigor and quality?

● How will you ensure that every certified business has a publicly advertised way for a customer or consumer to file a compliance complaint with the Administrative Committee?

● How will the Administrative Committee respond to these complaints?

● How will the Administrative Committee issue single warning citations, and then revoke certifications for non-compliant businesses?

❏ Begin preparing your application to CDPHE. The Administrative Committee must submit a variance application to CDPHE to receive approval to stand up this program. As is standard with all variance applications, this variance requires a supportive letter from the local hospitals, county commissioners, county sheriff, some local police departments, mayors, emergency managers, local tribes (if applicable). The application requires you to answer questions such as:
● What is the composition of the Administrative Committee?
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● How will you ensure that this program does not detract from a public health authority’s ability to conduct core public health functions such as contact tracing and vaccine distribution?
● What is your protocol for conducting live inspections?
● What is your protocol for enforcement?
● How does your Administrative Committee plan to process compliance complaints from customers and members of the public?

❏ Begin preparing the application you would like your businesses to use. Each county may tailor their own application.
● Who will develop the individual business application?
● How will the Administrative Committee track applications?
● How will you ensure individual businesses are trained on the specific requirements for their sector?
● Will you provide your businesses a template to write their individual prevention plans to file with the Administrative Committee? Will these templates be industry specific?

● What is the full application process a business will go through including education, application, inspection, and certification?

"In order for a county to launch the program, they must apply for a variance from CDPHE," the state's public health agency said in a statement.

"As is standard with all variance applications, this variance requires a supportive letter from the local hospitals, local hospitals, county commissioners, county sheriff, some local police departments, mayors, emergency managers, local tribes (if applicable).

"The Administrative Committee must report weekly updates to their LPHA and to CDPHE about the new certifications granted, the businesses that receive warnings, and the businesses whose certifications are revoked. CDPHE may remove approval of the Administrative Committee at any time if they do not conduct effective compliance and enforcement.

"A business may only receive one warning. If non-compliance continues after a warning, the certification must be revoked. If a county does not enforce this, CDPHE will remove its approval of the Administrative Committee."