Do you have a story to share with the Governor?

As you know, S.5743(Grisanti)/A.3498A (Peoples-Stokes), the 60 day notification bill, passed both houses of the legislature. If signed into law by the Governor, this law will give parents and providers time to prepare for an increase in co-pay for child care assistance or an altogether a loss of subsidy.

The legislation requires local social service districts to notify the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) at least 60 days before the effective date of a planned reduction in eligibility or increase in co-payments for child care assistance. OCFS will in turn notify key community organizations, including CCR&Rs, as well as providers.

Currently, affected families only receive 10 days notice to adapt to a change in subsidy assistance. Such a short notification period often forces parents to quit their jobs or place their children in questionable care until a better solution can be found. Do you have examples from local child care providers and parents that illustrate the need for this legislation? Please forward these stories (1-2 paragraphs) for use by the Winning Beginning NY Subsidy Committee by July 17^th in asking the Governor to sign this legislation into law.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Best,

Jessica

Jessica Klos Shapiro

Senior Policy Associate

www.earlycareandlearning.org

230 Washington Ave. Ext.

Albany, NY  12203

518.690.4217 ext 32

518-690-2887 (fax)

www.facebook.com/earlycareandlearning

http://twitter.com/#!/NYS_ECLC

https://www.rebelmouse.com/NYS_ECLC/

POLICY and ADVOCACY ALERT: Recap of This Year's Legislative Session

6/28/13

The legislative session in Albany is always an interesting and exciting time, with this year proving no different.  Many different issue were brought to the table and despite the atmosphere and budgetary constraints, there was forward progress made for early care and learning. There is also the possibility of additional legislation passing if a special session is convened later this fall.

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Child Care Legislative Victory

S.5743(Grisanti)/A.3498A (Peoples-Stokes), the 60 day notification bill, passed both houses of the legislature. If signed into law by the Governor, this law will give parents and providers time to prepare for an increase in co-pay for child care assistance or an altogether a loss of subsidy.

The legislation requires local social service districts to notify the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) at least 60 days before the effective date of a planned reduction in eligibility or increase in co-payments for child care assistance. OCFS will in turn notify key community organizations, including CCR&Rs, as well as providers. Currently, affected families only receive 10 days notice in this situation.

This bill will provide families with much more time to plan how they might be able to continue to work without a subsidy and will allow child care providers more time to adjust accordingly when parents withdraw children from care because of the loss or reduction of a subsidy.

Members of the Winning Beginning NY Child Care Subsidy Committee worked hard to achieve passage of this bill. It is currently being opposed by the New York Public Welfare Association, so there is a bit more advocacy to be done to ensure the Governor signs the bill into law.  

Information on reaching out to the Governor’s Office will be coming and thank you to everyone for all their hard work thus far!

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Expand Full-Day Pre-Kindergarten

The 2013-2014 NYS budget provided a victory for early learning though $25 million in competitive grant funds to school districts across the state to establish new full-day pre-kindergarten placements and to convert existing half-day slots into full-day ones. The competitive grant sponsors programs that adopt quality indicators and offer instruction consistent with the state’s common core standards. The pre-kindergarten competitive grant targets high-need school districts and students. The RFP is set to be released in the coming days.  Again, thank you to all who advocated tirelessly on this issue, particularly the commitment to quality.

Stay tuned for more updates and have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Jessica

Jessica Klos Shapiro

Senior Policy Associate

(518) 690-4217 ex. 32

POLICY and ADVOCACY ALERT

6/11/13 CCDBG Reauthorization Bill Introduced through Bi-Partisan Effort in US Senate Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) have introduced a bill to reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), the primary federal grant program that provides child care assistance for families and funds child care quality initiatives. The legislation, “The Child Care Development and Block Grant Act of 2013,” would reauthorize the program for the first time since 1996. Under the Reauthorization Bill, states would be required to ensure that all child care providers who care for CCDBG funded children: • Receive health and safety training in specific areas • Receive comprehensive background checks (including fingerprints, checks of the sex offender and child abuse registries) • Receive on-site monitoring This bill includes many measures to improve the quality of child care and ensure that all children in child care settings are safe. Currently, more than 500,000 providers serve about 1.6 million low-income children through this funding nationwide.  The bill is currently being considered by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Early Learning Days of Action Last week, advocates across the country participated in the Strong Start for Children Campaign’s Early Learning Day of Action which included a tweet chat using the hashtag #PreKforAll.  This chat and usage of the hashtag resulted in 1.3K unique participants and a reach of 4.5 million people! To compliment this, many CCR&Rs are participating in Winning Beginning NY’s Early Learning Days of Action to support President Obama's Early Learning Initiative which calls for an investment of $75 billion in early childhood education. The President's bold plan includes investments in supporting early learning and healthy development from the prenatal period, through school age!  The plan also includes critical investments in quality improvement, including better compensation for the early childhood workforce.  To see pictures and media from the NY events as well as our partners, visit https://www.rebelmouse.com/NY4EarlyLearning/. To support the President’s Early Learning Plan: Click Here to Contact your Member of Congress today. Stay tuned for more updates. Sincerely, Jessica Jessica Klos Shapiro Senior Policy Associate (518) 690-4217 ex. 32

Early Care & Learning Council demonstrates Commitment to Quality

Contact: Bonnie Primus

Early Care & Learning Council

518-690-4217 ext 27

bcohen@earlycareandlearning.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

6/4/13

 

Early Care & Learning Council demonstrates Commitment to Quality

The 2013 Annual Meeting and Luncheon will highlight the many ways the Early Care & Learning Council and its Child Care Resource and Referral Network agencies are connecting parents, providers, employers and government officials to the child care information they need. At every level this work is driven by a shared commitment to quality.  In 2012,

Penelope Andrews, President and Dean of the Albany Law School will be the keynote speaker at the Early Care & Learning Council’s Annual Meeting & Luncheon.  Three “Excellence in Leadership” Award honorees will be recognized.  This year’s recipients are:

·         Marcia Brogan, Niagara National Insurance, Inc.

·         Robin Beller, New York State Office of Children and Family Services

·         Subrina Dhammi and Isabel Lim, WNYT News 13 Live at Noon

WHEN:                  Wednesday, June 5, 2013 12:00 pm

WHERE:               Albany Country Club

300 Wormer Road

Voorheesville, NY 12186

WHO:                     (bios attached)

Penelope Andrews, President and Dean of the Albany Law School

Marcia Brogan, Niagara National Insurance, Inc.

Robin Beller, New York State Office of Children and Family Services

Subrina Dhammi and Isabel Lim, WNYT News 13 Live at Noon

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Early Care & Learning Council: For more than thirty-five years, the Early Care & Learning Council has been a leading voice for early care and education in New York State.  With its statewide network of child care resource and referral agencies, the Council has successfully fought for increases in funding to support early childhood programs and for the reform of child care laws, regulations and policies to improve safety and quality in child care settings.  The Council was a founder and convener of both the Child Care that Works Campaign and Winning Beginning NY, both statewide advocacy coalitions.  The Council and partners work to increase the quality, affordability and capacity of the early care and learning field and does so through training and technical assistance, data management and advocacy initiatives. For more information, please call (518) 690-4217 or visit www.earlycareandlearning.org

Take Action on Sequestration

As you know, federal sequestration that went into effect March 1, 2013 will have an effect on child care in New York State that is yet to be determined.

At this time we know that approximately $5 million will be reduced from the NYS Office of Children and Family Services discretionary portion of the CCDF grant, but exactly which programs will be cut and to what extent are still unknown.  

If any money is to be restored our federal Representatives and Senators really have the power at this moment, as proven by the legislation to ease the air-traffic delays that sailed through both houses of Congress late last week.

Find your member of Congress and contact information for our U.S. Senators here: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

In addition, advocacy to state representatives should still be ongoing. State representatives can discuss the issue with all departments of government.

Thank you for your attention to this issue and please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Jessica

Jessica Klos Shapiro

Senior Policy Associate

(518) 690-4217 ex. 32

Recently, President Obama released his 2014 budget proposal. This budget includes historic investments across several early childhood programs including increased investment in a comprehensive birth-to-five early education continuum built upon child care, home visiting, Head Start, Early Head Start, and preschool – all critical programs for children, especially the most vulnerable children.

From the National Women’s Law Center and CLASP:

The President's plan does three incredibly important things: It expands voluntary home visiting programs that support and educate parents, increases availability of high-quality child care for infants and toddlers, and gives all children in low- and moderate-income families access to high-quality prekindergarten programs. Click here to send a letter to President Obama 

To show our thanks for this ambitious initiative, we need to gather as many letters as possible. After you send yours, please show your support one more way — by forwarding this email to any networks that you're a part of. If you are a parent or work with children, handwritten thank-you artwork would be a great addition! All notes and artwork must be received by NWLC (11 Dupont Circle, NW, #800, Washington, DC 20036) by May 2. If you have any questions, please email the National Women’s Law Center at info@nwlc.org.

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Families Need Child Care. Ask our Senators to Sign Senator Franken's CCDBG Letter Today

Child Care Aware® of America   
Throughout the country, child care is hard to find, harder to afford, and too often, it is of questionable quality. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) wants to help. He is collecting signatures from members of the United States Senate on a letter to be sent to Appropriations Committee members urging an increase of nearly $1 billion in funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). Urge our Senators today to sign onto the letter. The deadline for signing is COB, Today, Thursday, April 25.

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Social Services Block Grants Supplemental Funds Available

HHS has released $474.5 million to help five states, including New York, recover from Hurricane Sandy.  All funds will be awarded no later than September 30, 2013 and must be used by September 30, 2015.  New York State's allocation is $235,434,600.   To read more about ACF's efforts to help people recover from Hurricane Sandy click here.  For more information about SSBG, click here.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Sincerely,

Jessica

Jessica Klos Shapiro

Senior Policy Associate

(518) 690-4217 ex. 32

NYS Passes $135.1 billion budget

3/29/13

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, Senate Majority Coalition Co-Leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver today announced early passage of the 2013-14 Budget. 

The Budget closes a $1.3 billion gap with no new taxes or fees.

• Total State Operating Budget: $90.2 billion
• Total All Funds Budget, excluding Sandy and the Affordable Care Act: $135.1 billion

The Enacted Budget continues the state's focus on economic growth through a series of initiatives to create jobs and grow the economy including new tax cuts for small businesses, tax cuts for middle class families, major education reforms and investments, and an increase in the minimum wage to $9 per hour. The Budget passed both houses of the Legislature days before the April 1 deadline, marking the first time New York has had three consecutive, on-time budgets since 1984, and the earliest budget since 1983.

Early Care and Learning Budget Victories include:

$7.265 million earmarked for facilitated enrollment :  $1.147 for Monroe; $2.767 million for Oneida and $3.442 million for NYC, funded from TANF transfer dollars.

Right now the total appropriated for child care stands at $910,510,924  which is $3 million more than last year, and $9 million more than was in the Governor’s proposed budget.  This does not reflect Flexible Fund for Family Services transfers made by the counties (they usually have until June to make these transfers). If FFFS transfers equal the $6 million made last year, New York’s children will be $3 million ahead of last year and $9 million ahead of the Governor’s proposed budget. 

Pre-kindergarten Program Expansion: Recognizing that quality early education is critical for long-term success and that children who attend full-day pre-k often outperform their peers, the Budget provides a $25 million additional investment for pre-kindergarten with an emphasis on high quality, full-day pre-k. Funding is targeted toward higher need students in lower wealth school districts via a competitive process.

Thank you to everyone for their advocacy efforts throughout the budget season and keep up the great work!

Sincerely,

Jessica

Jessica Klos Shapiro

Senior Policy Associate

(518) 690-4217 ex. 32