Public Policy Update
By Matthew Flory
In the last few months, there has been a great buzz in the early childhood community as traditional children’s advocates have been joined by a new wave of parents and providers and as existing coalitions have been strengthened by a greater emphasis on working together. At the same time, as the tri-partisan government attempted to dance between its responsibility for the care and education of young children and its desire to provide substantial tax relief, the voices for children often felt that the Governor and the legislature were hardly listening.
Concern for the availability of child care services and staff raised the questions of
qualifications and standards, as advocates argued about the merits of experienced aides, legally unlicensed care, and annual inservice requirements. Providers approached legislators about escalating turnover and the difficulty in keeping the most capable providers in the field, particularly when wages are low and public recognition is slight and advocates for the poor tried to get enough funding to serve the children and families who are on the waiting list for child care assistance.
The following summary details the events at the capitol and some of the movement within the community. As the 2000 Legislative Session
recedes and the 2000 election approaches, consideration of these items can be used as the foundation for future activism.
AT THE STATE LEGISLATURE
Supplemental State Spending
ECFE Funding
Both Senator Foley (DFL-Coon Rapids) and Rep. Mulder (R-Ivanhoe) authored bills to correct the mistake made in ECFE's funding formula in the last session. This legislation passed with $41.218 million and an additional $2.46/child, bringing ECFE to $115.96/child. This is not an increase, but rather prevents a funding cut to $113.50/child.
Basic Sliding Fee
$35 million was sought to provide service for the 4,175 families who are currently on the waiting list. Several versions of this bill were authored by Senator Becky Lourey (DFL-Kerrick), Rep. Satveer Chaudhary (DFL-Fridley), and Rep. Greg Gray (DFL-Minneapolis) differing largely in their use of state dollars or federal TANF funding. The Senate Education omnibus eventually included $21 million for BSF but the House had none. The final compromise included $6.415 million for 2001-2003.
MFIP CHILD CARE
One criticism of MFIP, the Minnesota welfare to work program, is that the requirements for the use of child care assistance have been too tight and not enough funding has been provided to assist families with a wage earner that is seeking treatment for chemical dependency. The Legislature changed this so that MFIP participants are now able to use child care assistance for any social services approved by their work plan (under the discretion of their individual caseworker). The Legislature also added $9.395 million in federal TANF funds to this program for FY 2001-03.
Transition Year Child Care
This provision adds $8.74 million in additional funding, from 2001-2003, to provide uninterrupted child care for families moving off of the Transition Year program, following participation in MFIP. In counties with waiting lists for Basic Sliding Fee, families might be put on the waiting list in order to continue receiving child care assistance. Any remaining funds from this allocation will be used for child care assistance.
Early Childhood Facilities
The bonding bill included $3 million for the establishment of a request-for-proposal process through the Department of Children, Families & Learning to help meet the need for construction, expansion and rehabilitation of early childhood facilities.
Changes in Staff/Facility Regulation
Experienced Aid
Under this new provision, an aide aged 20 or older with at least 4,160 hours of child care experience may work with children in a center without being directly supervised for up to 25% of the aide's day if a teacher is in the building and the aide has received first aid training within the last 3 years. The use of an experienced aide working without direct supervision is limited to 25% of each classroom's daily hours of operation.
A child care center using this provision must notify the Department of Human Services annually, reporting the approximate number of hours per classroom per month that experienced aides are used. Parents will be notified upon their child's enrollment and once per year if the center uses experienced aides in this manner.
This provision is sunsetted in 2003 for legislative review.
Reduced Inservice Requirements for Center Staff with Post-Secondary Degrees
Up until now, child care providers have been required to complete annual in-service training equal to 2% of their working hours, or 40 hours for full-time workers. Representative Bud Nornes (R-Fergus Falls)
sponsored a bill which suggested a reduction of hours for center staff with two and four year degrees. At the suggestion of the Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development and with the support of the larger child care community, Representative Nornes redesigned his proposal to reduce inservice hours for individuals who had earned specific early childhood and child development degrees.
This new provision creates three tiers of educational backgrounds. Depending upon a provider's educational background, a provider will now be required to complete annual in-service training equal to 1%, 1.5% or 2% of their working hours. This new system provides recognition for staff who have pursued credit-based degrees and provides an incentive for directors to hire more educated staff (reduced training costs). Some advocates have also noted that the funds saved on training might be devoted to higher wages and compensation.
Legally Unlicensed Care
Although Representative Fran Bradley (R-Rochester) authored legislation to expand the number of children who could
receive care from legally unlicensed providers, it did not move forward this session. Legislation offered by Representative Luanne Koskinen (DFL-Coon Rapids), which would have created an enhanced category of legally unlicensed providers, would have required that they
receive background checks and verify the immunization records of children before they could
receive state child care reimbursements. This legislation was also unsuccessful.
Churches under Rule 2
This bill was supported by the Early Care & Education Finance Commission and authored by Senator Robling (R-Prior Lake) and Rep. Sykora (R-Excelsior). It allows religious organizations to run child care centers for 14 or less children using Rule 2 (typically used for family and group family day care).
Heard but not passed
Staff Retention Initiative
This bill, sponsored by Senator Linda Higgins (DFL-Minneapolis) and Representative Mary Jo McGuire (DFL-Roseville) would have provided annual wage incentives of $750-$3000, based on experience and education, for child care providers who remain in their programs for a year. Although heard in both the Senate and House Early Childhood committees, the proposal was not a part of the final Education bill.
Parental Leave
Authored by Senator Janezich (DFL-Chisholm) and Rep. Greiling (DFL-Roseville), and spearheaded by the Children's Defense Fund, this bill offered a public/private response to the issue of paid parental leave. If funded, businesses would have, on a voluntarily basis, been able to pay their employees 1/3 of their salary for up to 26 weeks of parental leave, with the State paying a matching 1/3 of the salary and the remaining 1/3 forfeited by the employee. This bill was included in the Senate's Omnibus bill for a $1 million pilot project, but was not funded by the Supplemental Budget Conference Committee.
Children’s Check-Off
This proposal, offered by Senator Randy Kelley (DFL-ST. Paul) would have provided a Minnesota State income tax check-off so that individual filers could contribute funds to supplement existing child abuse
prevention grants. Although this bill was heard and referred to the Senate tax committee, it was not included in the final tax proposal.
Children’s Endowment
Authored by Senator Hottinger (DFL-Mankato) and Rep. Mariani (DFL-St. Paul), this bill would have created a constitutional amendment to be placed on the November ballot. Minnesotans would have voted on whether or not the tobacco settlement funds should be used for universal early care and education programs.
IN THE COMMUNITY
Early Care and Education Finance Commission
The Early Care and Education Finance Commission has approved a plan aimed at building a permanent grassroots constituency for Early Childhood Issues. The plan, developed by Grassroots Solutions, involves the construction of networks for more efficient communication of legislative information and action alerts, as well as the development of an infrastructure which can mobilize people to communicate the general needs of children and the early childhood field (i.e. larger budget targets for early childhood initiatives).
In addition, Fallon McElligott, a nationally recognized advertising firm is providing a million dollars of pro bono work to promote a
Kindergarten readiness campaign around Cubby K, a little Teddy Bear that would come with a
backpack stuffed with all the things a child would need to be prepared for kindergarten. A possible theme for the campaign is "read a story, tell a story, share a story" which emphasizes both literacy skills and the importance of a child’s time with adults.
The Finance Commission continues to work on its Legislative Recommendations which will probably be released in August, accompanied by a media event announcing the "birth" of Cubby K at a local hospital.
BIG LEAP
Big Leap is a coalition of Early Childhood Education Programs including groups such as Head Start, ECFE, Learning Readiness and
the Child Care Resource and Referral Network. During the last legislative session, they have established a substantial voice for young children and the programs that serve them. During the upcoming legislative campaign, they intend to hold community forums in 15 "swing" districts to assure that candidates and voters know where they stand on issues which effect young children.
TREEE Campaign
The Alliance Taking Responsibility for Effective Early Education Program brings early childhood professionals together with other child care stakeholders and members of the community including parents, local businesses, faith based communities and policy makers. Currently, there are active TREEE chapters in the Cedar-Riverside (Minneapolis) and Midway-Frogtown (St. Paul) neighborhoods as well as in Bloomington and Kandiyohi County (Willmar). These groups have worked to make connections with local policy makers and the businesses community as well as doing work such as the clean-up of local parks used by children.
Child Care WORKS!
Child Care WORKS will have its second biannual convention at MnAEYC preconference on Thursday, May 6th. The primary goals are as follows:
1) strengthening the CCW coalition;
2) establishing common ground between different issue groups
3) clarifying a message and creating a plan to make sure legislators know what it is, i.e. "5% of the state budget for under 5" Potential Issues of interest and discussion would include full day
kindergarten, staff retention strategies, wages and compensation and recommendations of the finance Commission.
Child Care WORKS! has also launched a new website at www.childcareworks.org .
Minneapolis STAND FOR CHILDREN
On Sunday June 11th, the 4th Annual Stand For Children festival will be held from 1-5 p.m. in Loring Park in Minneapolis. There will be live music, fun and educational activities for children and booths with resources and information on children’s issues. Free Parking will be available at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College.
In State Government
The Legislative Audit Commission recently requested an audit of Minnesota’s Head Start Programs to determine how
efficiently they spend state funding and how effective these programs are in comparison to other early childhood education programs and initiatives. A copy of the request for study can be found on the webpage of the legislative auditor at
http://www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/ped/pedrep/ep00-02.pdf . Legislative Information largely provided by Child Care WORKS Updates.
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