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Excerpted from: Child Care
Advocacy Newsletter
Distributed online by the Children's Defense
Fund
July 16, 2001
So far, in 2001 states have made
some progress on early care and education, but the overall
picture is not bright.
Due to lower-than-expected revenues,
many states face a widening gap between revenues and
expenditures and few so far are choosing to include
increases in funding for child care, Head Start, and
after-school care. The biennial "Fiscal Survey of States"
sponsored by the National Association of State Budget
Officers reported that states have had to make downward
adjustments to their FY 2001 revenue estimates and FY 2002
forecasts.
Some highlights
- Connecticut passed an
initiative to increase compensation paid to child care
providers for educational opportunities, including
incentives for educational advancement and support for
the establishment and implementation of an apprecticeship
program for child care providers. However, no new funding
was allocated for this initiative.
- While Illinois' budget
decreased funding for child care overall, the budget does
include a small increase in funding for the state's
training and compensation program, Great START (Strategy
to Attract and Retain Teachers), by $2 million in FY
2002, bringing total funding to $5 million. Great
START rewards child care professionals by
supplementing their income based on education they have
already attained above licensing standards.
- Ohio's budget includes a
dramatic shift of federal TANF funds to some
programs previously funded with state money. TANF will
now largely fund the state-funded Head Start program.
Fewer Head Start children will be served, but children
currently eligible for child care assistance that are
enrolled in a child care/Head Start partnership program
will be eligible for Head Start if their family's income
is below 185 percent of the federal poverty level.
However, the earmarking of TANF for a variety of other
programs could hamper the ability of the state to meet
overall child care needs in the budget's second year.
- Oregon's budget includes
an expansion of the Employer Dependent Care Tax
Credit to provide employers with $.50 in tax credits
for every $1 they spend in child care services for their
employees. To claim this credit, an employer may provide
cash assistance to their employees, offer resource and
referral services, or develop an on-site child care
center. The hope is that this will motivate businesses
who are not currently using the Employer Dependent Care
Tax Credit to invest in quality, affordable child care
for their employees.
- Pennsylvania's budget
includes $2 million (using TANF surplus funds) for the
Head Start Collaboration Project to build full-
day/full-year child care capacity, $15 million for
local after-school and summer programs, $4 million
for a voluntary parent-child home visiting program with
an early literacy focus, $10 million in challenge
grants for child care facilities for equipment and
materials, and $250,000 to train child care professionals
in using I Am Your Child's early childhood development
and parent education curriculum.
- South Dakota passed
legislation that provides $1 million for before- and
after-school programs. Vermont's Kids Are Priority One
campaign won a 10 percent increase for the state's child
care subsidy program and $150,000 for school-age care in
the state budget.
New Bill in Congress to Grant
Incentives
On June 7th, Senator Reed (D-RI)
introduced the Child Care Quality Incentive Act of 2001
(S. 1000) which would amend the Child Care and
Development Block Grant by establishing a program of
incentive grants to states to improve the quality of, and
access to, child care by increasing child care payment
rates. The bill would set the maximum federal share of
activity costs at 75 percent.
The bill would authorize the
Department of Health and Human Services to make an annual
payment to an eligible state if it was determined that: 1)
the state had made progress, through the assisted
activities, in maintaining increased payment rates and 2)
the state conducts an initial child care market rate survey
at least once every two years. The bill would require a
state that receives a grant to use the funds to increase
significantly (up to the 100th percentile of the market rate
survey) the reimbursement rate to providers for subsidized
child care.
Find out more:
http://www.childrensdefense.org/
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