This article originally appeared in the Spring 2003 issue of the Children's Advocate, published by Action Alliance for Children.

Budget Issues: Child Care

By Claudia Miller and Jean Tepperman

Child care advocates won the first round in their budget battle this year, as Governor Gray Davis's plan for "realignment" of child care ran into stiff opposition from legislators, budget experts, and the child care community. Now the state Depart-ment of Education seems likely to keep responsibility for child care for at least another year, instead of handing it to the counties.

The catch: with child care back in the state budget, it faces deep spending cuts.

Governor's proposal

Under Davis's original plan, the counties would run and pay for subsidized child care, plus whatever referral and quality improvement programs they decided to fund. The counties, says Finance Director Steve Peace, could do better at meeting local needs, reducing costs, and coordinating child care with other services.

Opponents' arguments

A coalition of 19 statewide child care organizations mobilized to fight the proposal. They and other critics argued that

• Counties have no systems for administering child care. They'd have to "create a whole new bureaucracy," says Pat Leary, legislative advocate for the California State Association of Counties.
  
  
• Families could be stranded. Some families might lose child care under new county eligibility rules. Counties might pay providers less for each child-some might stop taking children receiving subsidies. "In Texas, where they localized child care programs, some counties decided to close those centers," says Nancy Strohl, executive director of the Child Care Law Center.
  
  
• Proposed funds would not meet the need. With more families leaving welfare and federal policies likely to increase welfare work requirements, the need for child care will grow faster than available funds, predicts Frank Mecca, executive director of the California Welfare Directors Association.
  
  
• "The statewide infrastructure that supports quality care and education would be dismantled," says Grace Cainoy, speaking for the child care coalition. That would "would undermine school readiness and links be-tween early education and K-12."

The governor is now pushing a plan to phase in child care realignment over the next year.

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Is child care education?

Child care advocates were enraged by one statement in the governor's realignment proposal. While most child care would shift to counties, Davis wanted the Education Department to keep the State Preschool and the After School Education and Safety programs, "because these programs are primarily educational and not focused on meeting parents' needs to maintain employment."

Quality care and early education are the same thing, advocates counter, citing numerous studies showing that children with high-quality child care do better-in both learning and behavior-when they get to school.

California's child care system is part of the Department of Education because of its "dual purposes of enriching the development of children and making it possible for parents to work," says Nancy Strohl, executive director of the Child Care Law Center. "With new school-readiness initiatives and the new Pre-K-to-12 Master Plan, it makes no sense to destroy that system."

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Parent's stories

Kimberly Woods, a divorced mother with four children under 18, works full time in San Francisco. Her children receive subsidized before- and after-school care. Without that, says Woods, "there's no way I could afford to work at all. It would take all the funds I earn just to pay for child care." But she doesn't want to go back on welfare. "I want my children to see me as strong and working," she says. "I'm setting a good example. I have been working since I was 14, and the few times I've had to go on aid, it's been so degrading. I don't want that for them."

Cassandra Sharp, who works in a dental office in Sacramento, has three children, ages four to 12, receiving subsidized child care. "There's no way they can stay home alone after school while I work," she says. "I've been working for two years and I just don't make enough to support a family of four." To earn more, she could take a second job, but then, "I'd have to leave the kids home alone at night, which isn't possible. My sisters are working so they're not available to help out." She could earn more with more training-but that would require child care too.

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Can California afford to cut child care?

With or without realignment, child care programs are bracing themselves for funding cuts. But cutting child care subsidies will cost the state more in the long run, says Cliff Marcussen, executive director of Options, a child care and human services agency in West Covina, part of the San Gabriel Valley.

Without "Stage 3," a special child care fund for families who have left welfare, "most of those children would end up losing child care. These are the mothers who have gotten jobs and gotten off welfare but are still very low income," says Marcussen.

If these families lose subsidized child care, Marcussen predicts many will return to welfare, "so there will be no savings and probably increases in costs." If desperate parents leave children home alone, Marcussen warns, "Child Protective Services would get involved, calling it neglect, and the kids would end up in foster care-that's another cost the state could avoid." Other families would try to patch together babysitting arrangements, but "that situation is usually so chaotic that it becomes detrimental to the child," Marcussen adds.

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Davis budget strategy: "realignment"

The governor proposed a "realignment plan" that would

• Shift financial responsibility for some health, welfare, and child care programs to the counties
  
  
• Give counties three new sources of funds to pay for them: a higher tax on upper-income taxpayers, a 1 percent sales tax increase, and a dollar-a-pack tax on cigarettes.

His reasons:

• County governments can be more efficient and coordinate programs better.
  
  
• If the new funds go to counties, all the money can go to these programs. If the money went into the state budget, a large share would go to education, as guaranteed by Prop. 98.

Critics' arguments:

• Some believe the new taxes would still be subject to the "Prop. 98 guarantee."
  
  
• Many say the new funds will probably not be enough to keep up with growth in the programs to be realigned.
  
  
• Advocates fear counties would shortchange the programs and that state quality standards would be ignored.

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For more information or to participate, contact:

Parent Voices, 415-882-0234 www.parentvoices.org

Child Development Policy Institute, 916-443-1096, www.cdpi.net

California Association for Education of Young Children, 916-486-7750, www.caeyc.org

Say Yes to Kids Campaign. ACORN Child Care Providers for Action, 213-747-4211

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