Cari O'Connor
06-30-2009, 11:55 AM
For example did you know:
The Child Day Care line is being savaged. Since the beginning of the year, cuts and adjustments – if not reversed – would mean the CDC line would begin FY2010 down more than $135,000,000 million. This, on top of elimination of pre-K, decimates early learning opportunities for young children. It will ensure that more and more children will show up at the schoolhouse door with problems that will fall to the public k-12 system to pay for year after year. Moreover, the CDC cuts seriously undermine quality efforts. Providers and parents will be paid for only 75 hours every two weeks. Who works 37.5 hours a week including travel to and from child ? Just a year ago, it was 100 hours. How can this possibly help Michigan to a system of high quality care??
More specifically on quality, ECIC’s $14.3 million was eliminated in the Senate budget. (Budget line was $14.8 but we don’t get all of that. An attached fact sheet shows how this money is used by ECIC: $11.9 for child care quality improvements related to training, resource and referral, consumer education, evaluation and etc. $1.1 million goes to Great Start Collaborative support and $950,000 goes to ECIC admin.)
This money comes from a larger pool of federal Child Care and Development Block Grant Funds that come to Michigan, most of which is spent on child care subsidies for low income working families. Michigan must spent 4 percent of the total federal dollars on quality efforts but traditionally has spent more. And just to make it more confusing, a portion of these quality dollars are targeted and the rest are discretionary. ECIC receives most of the targeted dollars as part of its contract with DHS.
The Senate cut the ECIC $14 plus million completely – targeted dollars and all. It wasn’t cut from ECIC and appropriated back to DHS. It was eliminated. Even if it had been appropriated back to DHS, the department would have to take over the work of contracting, monitoring, budget compliance, audits, RFPs, etc. By the time DHS took back those responsibilities and the money was restored, there would be little to no savings.
The focus here wasn’t on cutting ECIC but cutting the dollars. The Senate had been advised that the dollars are expendable because DHS spends more on quality than required by the feds. What they failed to recognize is that the targeted dollars may only be spent on the activities for which DHS currently contracts with ECIC. This arrangement, created 3 ½ years ago, was initiated in the belief that ECIC can focus on quality improvement more cost effectively, creatively and be held to greater accountability. DHS held these contracts for years but recognized that with its other responsibilities, it could not itself invest the time and manpower needed to evaluate their effectiveness at improving the quality of child care across the state and make necessary changes.
While some areas have done a great job, child care quality in Michigan remains a real concern. We’re losing licensed providers at an alarming pace. Few would argue that the state is best positioned to improve child care quality. This is a local issue. That is why ECIC was asked by the department to dig into these issues and make changes that would lead to a better system for Michigan. You have to give the department enormous credit for caring enough about quality child care to turn these responsibilities over to another and also for seeing how important it is to link child care with other early childhood work. Too many in our state, including most lawmakers, still see child care as one thing and other early childhood pieces such as pre-k as unrelated.
The Child Day Care line is being savaged. Since the beginning of the year, cuts and adjustments – if not reversed – would mean the CDC line would begin FY2010 down more than $135,000,000 million. This, on top of elimination of pre-K, decimates early learning opportunities for young children. It will ensure that more and more children will show up at the schoolhouse door with problems that will fall to the public k-12 system to pay for year after year. Moreover, the CDC cuts seriously undermine quality efforts. Providers and parents will be paid for only 75 hours every two weeks. Who works 37.5 hours a week including travel to and from child ? Just a year ago, it was 100 hours. How can this possibly help Michigan to a system of high quality care??
More specifically on quality, ECIC’s $14.3 million was eliminated in the Senate budget. (Budget line was $14.8 but we don’t get all of that. An attached fact sheet shows how this money is used by ECIC: $11.9 for child care quality improvements related to training, resource and referral, consumer education, evaluation and etc. $1.1 million goes to Great Start Collaborative support and $950,000 goes to ECIC admin.)
This money comes from a larger pool of federal Child Care and Development Block Grant Funds that come to Michigan, most of which is spent on child care subsidies for low income working families. Michigan must spent 4 percent of the total federal dollars on quality efforts but traditionally has spent more. And just to make it more confusing, a portion of these quality dollars are targeted and the rest are discretionary. ECIC receives most of the targeted dollars as part of its contract with DHS.
The Senate cut the ECIC $14 plus million completely – targeted dollars and all. It wasn’t cut from ECIC and appropriated back to DHS. It was eliminated. Even if it had been appropriated back to DHS, the department would have to take over the work of contracting, monitoring, budget compliance, audits, RFPs, etc. By the time DHS took back those responsibilities and the money was restored, there would be little to no savings.
The focus here wasn’t on cutting ECIC but cutting the dollars. The Senate had been advised that the dollars are expendable because DHS spends more on quality than required by the feds. What they failed to recognize is that the targeted dollars may only be spent on the activities for which DHS currently contracts with ECIC. This arrangement, created 3 ½ years ago, was initiated in the belief that ECIC can focus on quality improvement more cost effectively, creatively and be held to greater accountability. DHS held these contracts for years but recognized that with its other responsibilities, it could not itself invest the time and manpower needed to evaluate their effectiveness at improving the quality of child care across the state and make necessary changes.
While some areas have done a great job, child care quality in Michigan remains a real concern. We’re losing licensed providers at an alarming pace. Few would argue that the state is best positioned to improve child care quality. This is a local issue. That is why ECIC was asked by the department to dig into these issues and make changes that would lead to a better system for Michigan. You have to give the department enormous credit for caring enough about quality child care to turn these responsibilities over to another and also for seeing how important it is to link child care with other early childhood work. Too many in our state, including most lawmakers, still see child care as one thing and other early childhood pieces such as pre-k as unrelated.