ISSUES AT A GLANCE

Since the beginning of the legislative session, with state revenues below what was needed to maintain services, the governor and the legislature relied primarily on budget cuts to close the estimated $150 million gap in the fiscal year 2011 budget (which begins on July 1, 2010).

For a portion of that budget gap, policy makers created the "Challenges for Change" initiative, which has the goal of providing better state services for less money. The Legislature passed a bill in February that provided a set of "outcomes" - objectives that defined what they expected state government to do for Vermonters.

The legislation removed $38 million from General Fund spending to represent the amount that would be saved by making the administrative changes. The bill charged the administration to come back in approximately four weeks with their plan for restructuring state government to save at least the $38 million. It asked for a list of changes in laws that would be needed in order to put the restructuring into place. The promise of "Challenges" was that services would be maintained or improved.

This proved a daunting task, especially with such a short time frame. In early April, the administration unveiled its proposals. Some of the proposals seemed not focused on the outcomes set by lawmakers; nor was it clear how they would save the required amount of money.

Nonetheless, by the end of the session, the "Challenges" legislation listed most of the required savings and passed into law.

Within the context of the revenue shortfall and the Challenges Initiative, the Child Development Division (CDD) in the Department for Children and Families has been working to reconfigure some of the ways it provides services and contracts with service providers. Some of the work had been going on before the Challenges Initiative. CDD will be convening working groups to help with planning and implementation of the changes to the existing service delivery system. Kids Are Priority One and Building Bright Futures will be engaging in the process with CDD to help improve outcomes for children and families as these changes are made. Stay tuned for more details.

During the 2010 legislative session, Kids Are Priority One Coalition played an active role in or monitored the following issues: State Funding for Early Childhood Programs and Services, Building Bright Futures, Pre-Kindergarten through 16 Council, Act 62-Public Funding for Quality Early Education, Paid Sick Days, Child Care Advisory Board.

ISSUES UP CLOSE

State Funding for Early Childhood Programs and Services

Vermont's Child Care Financial Assistance (Subsidy) Program: Funding for Vermont's Child Care Financial Assistance (Subsidy) Program remained at FY10 levels. That means we were able to hold onto last year's increase and avoid any cuts this year, in spite of the difficult fiscal situation. This victory reflects your excellent advocacy efforts over the past few years, which had a great deal to do with the Governor's recommendation at the beginning of this legislative session that funding for the program remain at current levels.

Community Child Care Support Agencies: As part of the budget process and Challenges for Change, the legislature reduced funding for eligibility determination in the Child Care Financial Assistance (Subsidy) Program by $275,000. Intake for this program has historically been handled by community child care support agencies, which provide what are commonly referred to as child care resource and referral services. As of February 2011, the Child Development Division (CDD) and the Economic Services Division (both housed within the Agency of Human Services) will process the majority of these applications. As a result, funding for the community child care support agencies will be reduced but not eliminated. Some resources will be used to ensure that the local community child care support agencies will have staff for families who need additional help completing their Child Care Financial Assistance application. The Child Development Division will monitor this new system and how it works for families in anticipation of a report due to the legislature on January 15, 2011. Kids Are Priority One and Building Bright Futures will also be engaged in monitoring. Also affecting the community child care support agencies is a decision to move the administration of specialized child care services from those agencies to Children's Integrated Services (see below). This will happen over time.

Children's Integrated Services: Children's integrated Services (CIS) is the name for child development and family support services provided by three programs: Healthy Babies Kids & Families, Children's Upstream Services, and Family Infant Toddler. While state funding for Children's Integrated Services was not cut, Vermont's Child Development Division (CDD) is changing the way it grants these funds to the regions as part of an effort within CDD to reduce overlap and increase efficiency. It is approaching this change incrementally. ??The first step involves moving to one regional grantee (a single contract) for Children's Integrated Services in three regions. On June 16th, there will be a state-wide informational conference call to explain the details and interested regions will be asked to submit a letter of intent by the end of June. In July, CDD will announce the three regions that have been selected. With technical assistance from CDD, these regions will work towards November 1st implementation. CDD hopes to move in this direction with additional regions over time. The Division has put on hold discussions concerning further consolidation of its grants and contracts.

Starting Points Networks: Although there was some talk about possible cuts to the Starting Point Networks, funding for these early education providers groups remained untouched in the FY11 budget.

Building Bright Futures

This was an important session for Building Bright Futures. Senate Bill 268, now Act 104, establishes Building Bright Futures in state statute. A hearty thanks goes to the Building Bright Futures Legislative Committee, including Senator Clare Ayer (Addison) and Representative Bill Frank (Underhill), for their leadership on this bill.

The legislature made a number of changes to the original bill:

• The Senate Government Operations Committee added language regarding specific outcomes and indicators to measure progress towards those outcomes.
• The House Human Services Committee:
• Changed the language in the "findings" section to confirm that the Building Bright Futures State Council is Vermont's designated State Early Childhood Advisory Council;
• Specified that one of the twelve at-large State Council members must be a school board member designated by the Vermont School Boards Association; and
• Strengthened the language regarding the regional councils to read: "The council must support the establishment of and maintain relationships with regional councils providing regional capacity to further the council's goals."

To see details on the makeup of the State Council and their powers and duties see pages 4 and 6 of the law which you will find here. ? ?As originally written, the legislation authorized the existing BBF State Council to develop bylaws and form a nominating committee which would design a process for selecting the at-large members - those members of the council not specifically named in the legislation (such as state representatives and senators and various agency secretaries and commissioners.) ??At the last minute, the Governor's attorneys raised concerns over the process for selection and the need for the governor to appoint all the members to fulfill requirements for being the State Early Childhood Advisory Council. They advised that the entire BBF State Council continue to be appointed by the Governor and the change was made with the approval of the bill's legislative sponsors. The State Council nominating committee will have a key role in recommending to the Governor who the appointees should be and will make sure that the selection maintains the intent of the law, which calls for members to have a commitment to early childhood well-being and to represent a range of perspectives and geographic diversity.

Newly Created Pre-kindergarten through 16 (through the fourth year of college) Council

Higher education is the focus of another bill (H.709) that won legislative approval. This bill establishes a pre-K through post-secondary council that will include a member of the Building Bright Futures Council or designee. The bill states: "It is the policy of the state of Vermont to encourage and enable all Vermonters to acquire the postsecondary education and training necessary for the state to develop and maintain a skilled, highly educated, and engaged citizenry and a competitive workforce." (the council) is created to help coordinate and better align the efforts of the prekindergarten- (grade)12 educational system with the higher education community in order to increase: (1) postsecondary aspirations; (2) the enrollment of Vermont high school graduates in higher education programs;?(3) the postsecondary degree completion rates of Vermonters; and?(4) public awareness of the economic, intellectual, and societal benefits of higher education. To view the final version of the bill, click here.

Act 62 (Public Funding for Quality Early Education)

Thanks especially to the leadership efforts of PreK Vermont and the Vermont Business Roundtable, the final FY11 budget includes language that relaxes the cap on the number of three and four year olds that some school districts can count in their student count.

For the 101 towns (out of a total of 256) with schools identified as not making "adequate yearly progress" according to the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), there will be a new way to calculate how many pre-k slots a school district may count in its "average daily membership". The school district will inventory all pre-k slots in programs run by and through the school district and in qualified private providers, including out-of-district partnerships. That number of students will then be set as the capacity of that district and towns can count children up to that capacity. ??These towns will essentially be able to count all three and four years old at their maximum capacity. That capacity number will be frozen at current level for those districts who have been identified under NCLB, of for the level inventoried when a district is identified under NCLB. The old cap rules will be unchanged for those districts that are not on the NCLB identified list.??This is an important step towards increasing children's access to high-quality early education. Also important is the fact that state policy makers have acknowledged in statute that quality early care and education is a significant tool to help schools improve student performance.

The new language in the budget bill (H.789) (Sec. E.500.1 - page 113 of the pdf) reads:

"(iii) Notwithstanding subdivision (ii) of this subdivision or any other provision limiting the number of prekindergarten children a district may include within its average daily membership, if the commissioner determines that a school district or a school within the district has made insufficient progress in improving student performance as required by subsection 165(b) of this title or federal law, then until the commissioner determines that sufficient progress is being made, the school district may include within its average daily membership the total number of children enrolled in prekindergarten education offered by or through a school district; provided, however, that the number included in the average daily membership shall not exceed the maximum number of children who can be accommodated in all qualified prekindergarten education programs, as defined in state board rule, that are offered by or through the school district and by private providers within the district as of:

(I) June 30, 2010 if the commissioner's determination of insufficient progress is made on or before that date; or

(II) June 30 of the year the commissioner's determination of insufficient progress is made for districts added to the list after June 30, 2010."

Paid Sick Days

The Vermont Paid Sick Days Coalition worked hard during the 2010 legislative session for passage of H.382, a bill calling for a minimum of 56 hours of paid sick days for every Vermont worker. The coalition called a press conference in the fall of 2009 and introduced the bill to the public while focusing on the theme of its importance to public health. The relevance of prevention of the spread of the H1N1 virus resulted in a strong press response.

The coalition organized parents, workers, school nurses and doctors, child care providers and business owners who supported the bill and provided testimony to the House General Housing and Military Affairs Committee. However, because of strong urging from a segment of the business community, the Committee chose not to take up the bill while the current economic climate prevails.

Child Care Advisory Board

In its efforts to look at all existing state boards and commissions, the legislature compiled a large list of units to be discontinued and incorporated that list in bill H. 760. At the beginning of the session, the Child Care Advisory Board was on the list to be terminated, but when bill H. 760 passed the House, it looked like the Advisory Board would continue. However, when the Senate got the bill, the Advisory Board was placed back on the list of those boards that would be ended and that version passed into law. This means that officially, there will no longer be a governor-appointed Child Care Advisory Board .

The Child Care Advisory Board played a key role in our state in advising and assisting the Child Development Division of the Vermont Agency of Human Service as well as in the submission of an annual report to the Legislature on the status of and needs for improvement to Vermont's child care system. We hope that the functions of the Advisory Board can be performed within Building Bright Futures without any lapse in this important work. Many thanks to the members of the Child Care Advisory Board who have worked tirelessly, and many on their own time, to further the cause of quality child care in Vermont. We will do what we can to make sure you can continue informing policy makers on the issues you know so well.