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May 15, 2014 - Presented to: Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Education Finance
April 10, 2014 - Presented to Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education
April 10, 2014 - Presented to Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittees No. 1 on Education and No. 3 on Health and Human Services
April 4, 2014 - We believe California's child care and development system has several serious design flaws. Most notably, families accessing some subsidized child care programs may choose among a broad array of providers whereas families accessing other programs have access to child care only offered in particular places. In addition, some child care programs are required to include developmentally appropriate activities whereas other programs are required to meet only health and safety standards. While these two elements--choice and developmentally appropriate care--are strengths of specific child care programs, the fundamental shortcoming of California's current system is that no subsidized program exhibits both of these strengths concurrently. Given the serious shortcomings of the state's child care and development system, we recommend the Legislature fundamentally restructure it. Our report lays out a plan for a new, simplified, more rational system that treats similar families similarly. Since a fundamental restructuring would take time, the report also includes a roadmap that the Legislature could use for incrementally moving to this new system.
March 11, 2014 - Presented to Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 1 on Health and Human Services and Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Education Finance
March 4, 2014 - In this report, we provide an analysis of the Governor's budget proposals for the state's child care and preschool programs. Specifically, we review the caseload and cost assumptions underlying the Governor's proposal. We find that the Governor likely overestimates caseload and underestimates per-child costs—on net leaving child care funding a few million dollars short of fully covering 2014-15 costs. Once additional data is released in April, the Legislature will be able to develop more accurate caseload and cost estimates for the child care programs in 2014-15.
June 5, 2013 - Presented to Budget Conference Committee
May 2, 2013 - Presented to Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education
March 20, 2013 - Presented to Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Education Finance
October 9, 2012 - Presented to Assembly Select Committee on High Quality Early Childhood Education
May 23, 2012 - Presented to Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education
May 21, 2012 - Presented to Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Education Finance
April 12, 2012 - Presented to Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 On Education
March 1, 2012 - Presented to Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee
February 22, 2012 - The Governor proposes to reduce funding for the CalWORKs program and state-subsidized child care programs. Under his budget plan, these programs would be reduced a total of $1.4 billion or about 20 percent in 2012-13 compared to what current law otherwise would require. These savings would be achieved by imposing stricter limits on which families are eligible to receive which types of services, as well as lowering state payments for CalWORKs recipients and child care providers. Additionally, the Governor’s proposal would make major changes to the way the state administers both welfare-to-work and child care services. In this report, we describe and analyze the Governor’s proposals related to the CalWORKs program and then turn to a similar discussion of the proposed changes to child care programs. We conclude by providing the Legislature with illustrative packages of ways to achieve savings in these two areas using different approaches than the Governor's.