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January 2020 Featured Agency of the Month
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Crystal Stairs, Inc.
(CSI) was founded in 1980 by Dr. Karen Hill-Scott and Dr. Alice Duff, who recognized the value and need for high-quality early care and education programs for children from low-income families.
For 40 years, Crystal Stairs, Inc. has been a trusted community partner and institution. CSI is also one of the largest, private non-profit childcare and development corporations in California and the largest alternate payment provider in Los Angeles County. CSI serves over a 200 square mile area that spans some of the most concentrated low-income demographics in California by providing much-needed programs and services to children and families.
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CAPPA Member Only Benefits
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CAPPA Member Benefits now available on the Members Only website:
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Just added to the Member's only website:
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CAPPA's
2019-20 Board of Directors
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Rick Richardson
Child Development Associates
Karen Marlatt
Valley Oak Children's Services
Beth Chiaro
Child Care Resource Center
LaVera Smith
Supportive Services Fresno
Martin Castro
Mexican American Opportunity Foundation
Jeffrey Moreira
Crystal Stairs, Inc.
Public Policy Co-Chair
Phillip Warner
Children's Council San Francisco
Tina Barna
Choices for Children
Abby Shull
YMCA Childcare Resource Service
Leslie Reece
Family Resource & Referral of San Joaquin County
Jeanne Fridolfs
Napa County Office of Education
Mike Michelon
Siskiyou Child Care Council
Marco Jimenez
Central Valley Children's Services Network
Michelle Graham
Children's Resource & Referral of Santa Barbara County
Joie Owen
Glenn County Office of Education
Denyne Micheletti Colburn
CAPPA CEO
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ELCD/CDE, DSS & CCLD Updates
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January 2, 2020
California State Preschool Program (CSPP) Free or Reduced-Price Meal Eligibility Criteria to Enroll Four-Year-Olds
December 10, 2019
November 6, 2019
FY 2019-20 RFA for CSPP Expansion Funds
November 5, 2019
FY 2019-20 RFA for CCTR Expansion Funds
October 14, 2019
15-day comment period is now closed.
September 17, 2019
September 9, 2019
Fiscal Year 2019-20 Two-Day Fiscal Training for Center-Based Contractors.
Additional information regarding location details and how to sign up for these trainings will be forthcoming
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Is Your Organization Hiring?
Post your job announcement here for thousands to see!
There is no charge for CAPPA members.
Non-members will be charged a fee of $75.
Please
email us
your posting!
Associate Governmental Program Analyst
California Health & Human Services Agency
4Cs of Alameda County
Colusa County Office of Education
Solano Family and Children's Services
International Institute Los Angeles
Children's Council San Francisco
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The CAPPA Board has made it a priority to support our field with a coordinated calendar to note upcoming statewide conferences, federal conferences of relevance, CDE and DSS stakeholder meetings and legislative and budget deadlines and hearings.
NOTE: If you would like to share your newsletter or items of interest with our field via the Monday morning e-Newsletter, then please
email us
a link. Please make sure that you have a link included to an online version or viewing.
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Become a Monday
Morning
Update Partner!
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Our Monday Morning Update supports our Early Learning & Child Care field with timely information about what is going on in California and nationally; as well as dates to be aware and upcoming events.
Our weekly (50 times per year) Monday morning distribution is to more than 4,000 federal and state local agencies, resource and referrals, contractors, legislators and their staffs', centers, parents, providers, state departments and advocates.
To help support the continuation of this resource and or advertise in the Monday Morning Update, click
HERE.
You can also make a donation to CAPPA and CAPPA Children's Foundation
The Children's Foundation is a non-profit organization (501(c)3), Taxpayer Identification Number is
03-0521444. Your generous donation is tax deductible.
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A BIG thank you to all who participated in Child Care & End Child Poverty in CA Advocacy Day!
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On behalf of our partners, we would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to to all that participated last Wednesday in legislative visits, educating lawmakers and advocating to
#EndChildPovertyCA
#EndHunger
and get
#ChildCare4All
! ! Collectively, we were able to connect to over 90 legislative offices in ONE DAY, and this would not have been possible without all of you. In addition, thank you to our expert group of panelists and speakers from California Department of Education, Department of Finance, Legislative Analyst's Office, California Budget and Policy Center, and Assembly Budget Committee.
Also, we would like to give special recognition to our event sponsors!
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2020-21 California State Budget
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UPCOMING BUDGET HEARINGS
NOTE: CAPPA will only highlight those upcoming budget hearings relevant to our field.
- February 27 @ 9:30 am - SEN Budget & Fiscal Review - Housing & Homelessness
NOTE: All 2020-21 Budget relative hearings, reports and materials will be
hosted here.
As we advocate for more child care and to end child poverty in California, information will be shared to help frame the conversation and the uneven distribution of wealth and benefits in the state.
Chris Hoene, Executive Director of the California Budget and Policy Center
Tweeted "The next time that someone says CA/the#cabudget can't afford to do more, remind them that we're giving away $60 billion annually in mostly questionable tax breaks; $$$ that could be better used to stimulate the economic opportunity." Below is a slide prepared by the
California Budget and Policy Center:
In supporting Governor Newsom and legislators to make the most impactful of decisions, to change the downward spiral of children to an upward trajectory, and to create a plan to lift children out of poverty now we must continually remind them of the data and the need. If the above tax loopholes were addressed and the state had more monies to lift up those in highest need, some investments might be:
California is the 5th largest economy in the world. We have the resources to do better by the children in this state.
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For the past three weeks, legislators have begun to amend and introduce legislation for the final year of this 2019-2020 legislative session. Hearings have begun to be scheduled and deadlines are approaching. Please refer to the CAPPA legislation page to keep update on bills.
Upcoming dates to be aware:
- Jan. 31 Last day for each house to pass bills introduced in that house in the odd- numbered year
- Feb. 21 Last day for bills to be introduced
In the
CAPPA Monday Morning Update,
we will be a tracking legislation relevant to our field. We too will also host all of the legislation for this session here along with factsheets and sample letters. If there is a piece of legislation that you would like to have noted for our field, please
email
.
ASSEMBLY BILLS:
SENATE BILLS:
Below are dates and committee hearings to be aware. CalChannel no longer exists, so please watch or listen to the hearings here:
- Monday, January 27:
- ASM Second Reading File
- ASM Third Reading File
- Wednesday, January 29: Joint Legislative Audit (Salas, Chair) @ 10am - Rm 444
- Oversight Hearing - K-12 Local Control Funding: The State's Approach Has Not Ensured That Significant Funding Is Benefiting Students as Intended to Close Achievement Gaps (Report Number 2019-101)
- Thursday, February 13: SEN Full Budget Hearing
- Thursday, February 27: SEN Budget & Fiscal Review (Mitchell, Chair) 9:30am - Rm 4203
- Informational Hearing - Housing and Homelessness
Click here to see calendar of field events/interests and legislative hearings and deadlines. If you would like something added to the field calendar,
click here and submit details.
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2020-21 Federal Budget Update
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 Government spending gets even more out of control
According to the
Congressional Budget Office, "The federal budget deficit was $358 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 ... $39 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last year."
Even more shocking, the CBO notes the $358 billion deficit occurred as tax revenue increased by 5% during the first quarter of fiscal 2020. The reason for the ballooning deficit is quite simple: Although the government took in 5% more in taxes, it increased spending by 7% during the same period.
The U.S.
national debt now exceeds $23 trillion; the "debt per citizen" is $70,184, and the "debt per taxpayer" is $187,390
 Trump Opens Door to Cuts to Medicare and Other Entitlement Programs
President Trump suggested on Wednesday that he would be willing to consider cuts to social safety-net programs like Medicare to reduce the federal deficit if he wins a second term, an apparent shift from his 2016 campaign promise to protect funding for such entitlements.
The president has already proposed cuts for some safety-net programs. His last budget proposal called for a total of $1.9 trillion in cost savings from mandatory safety-net programs, like Medicaid and Medicare. It also called for spending $26 billion less on Social Security programs, the federal retirement program, including a $10 billion cut to the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which provides benefits to disabled workers.
 Cities, states sue over planned Trump cuts to food stamps
A coalition of 14 states and two major cities filed a lawsuit Thursday in an attempt to block the Trump administration from eliminating food stamp benefits for hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans.
The administration's new rules will restrict the ability of states to provide food stamps to jobless residents. Instead, "able-bodied" Americans who are not caring for a child less than 6 years old will be eligible for food stamps only if they're employed or enrolled in a vocational training program.
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Profiled Legislator of the Week!
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"The Bill That Could Make California Livable Again -
S.B. 50 would make the state denser, cheaper, greener, and more affordable.
California Senate Bill 50, winding its way through the state legislature again this month, could generate tens of thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars of new investment, reshaping the geography of the biggest state and solving a large chunk of the cost-of-living crisis the Trump administration has assiduously avoided addressing by, essentially, forcing California communities to allow more construction.
It, or some version of it, desperately needs to pass. California has a hyperacute version of a problem affecting a number of states and, especially, metro regions within those states. Based on the housing-unit-to-population ratio in similarly wealthy and urban states, such as New York and New Jersey, California is short 2 million to 3.5 million
housing units. (California has 358 homes per 1,000 people, whereas New York and New Jersey each have more than 400.) Right now, the state ranks 49th in units per capita, behind only Utah."
Attaining affordable housing continues to be a significant barrier to stability and self-sufficiency for the working families that CAPPA supports. CAPPA hopes that the legislators looking into housing issues this year will include access to child care centers where affordable housing is being built. Many of California's fragile families who need affordable housing do not have their own transportation.
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CDE Information & Updates
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Information to Agencies Regarding the Passing of Assembly Bill 5
Attention: ELCD Contracting Agencies
The ELCD has received concerns regarding the recent passage of Assembly Bill (AB) 5, which codifies the legal test to be used to determine which professions in California can be designated as employees versus independent contractors for purposes of the Labor Code, the Unemployment Insurance Code, and the IWC wage orders, and how this new law will impact agencies working with subsidized childcare programs.
It is the CDE's position that licensed family child care providers and license-exempt providers working in subsidized childcare programs are not employees of the state or any agency that provides reimbursement to the provider, whether reimbursement is through a family child care education network or an alternative payment program, and AB 5 did not change that.
The recent passage of AB 378, which established collective bargaining rights for family child care providers, amended the Education Code (EC) to include language that addresses this concern. The EC Section 8432.5 specifically provides:
EC
8432.5
Family childcare providers are not public employees, and this article does not create an employer-employee relationship between family childcare providers and the state, any agency or department of the state, any political subdivision of the state, or a contractor or subcontractor administering a state-funded early care and education program, for any purpose, including, but not limited to, eligibility for health or retirement benefits, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, liability under the Labor Code or state wage orders, or vicarious liability in tort. This article does not alter the status of a family childcare provider as a business owner, an employee of a family, or a contractor.
If you have questions regarding the information in this email, please contact your assigned regional Consultant on the ELCD Consultants Regional Assignments web page at
https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/assignments.asp
or by phone at 916-322-6233.
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2020 Election Information
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Information on Upcoming Initiatives
March 3, 2020 Statewide Ballot Measures
November 3, 2020 Statewide Ballot Measures
- 1856. (18-0009) - REFERENDUM TO OVERTURN A 2018 LAW THAT REPLACED MONEY BAIL SYSTEM WITH A SYSTEM BASED ON PUBLIC SAFETY RISK.
November 2020 Eligible Statewide Ballot Measures
- 1840. (17-0044, Amdt.#1) - Restricts Parole for Non-Violent Offenders. Authorizes Felony Sentences for Certain Offenses Currently Treated Only as Misdemeanors. Initiative Statute.)
- 1851. (17-0055, Amdt.#1) - Requires Certain Commercial and Industrial Real Property to be Taxed Based on Fair-Market Value. Dedicates Portion of Any Increased Revenue to Education and Local Services. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
Upcoming Senate, Assembly, and Presidential Elections:
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Seven candidates, including a veteran politician from Mountain View and a perennial candidate from Los Altos, are vying to take State Sen. Jerry Hill's place representing the 13th District. The primary election is March 3.
Hill is termed-out after serving eight years in a district that stretches from San Bruno to Mountain View, Los Altos and Sunnyvale. Five of the seven candidates are Democrats. The 13th District is dominated by Democratic-leaning voters.
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 Sign the petition: Pass the End Child Poverty Plan in FULL
There's a question we should be asking our leaders in 2020: What kind of people are we in California?
What a Year
One year ago, we were bundled up and standing on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento. And we weren't alone: Parents, children, lawmakers, faith leaders, and members of grassroots organizations and partners were all standing with us.
Pastor and community leader Lesley Simmons stepped up to the mic to reflect on why.
That was the day the End Child Poverty CA Plan was launched. Since then...
We've earned broad support for new investments in California children and families.
We rallied to #EndChildPovertyCA in Sacramento, Chula Vista, Los Angeles, Pomona, Weedpatch, Fresno, Salinas, Oakland, and San Bernardino. Our community of 47,000 Californians continues to grow, and we now count more than 60 organizations among our partners. This fall, in San Bernardino, we launched our partnership with Dolores Huerta and the Dolores Huerta Foundation to continue to build the statewide End Child Poverty community organization.
$5 billion in End Child Poverty Plan recommendations were adopted in the state budget.
The budget doubles the California Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income families, includes a new Young Child Tax Credit for parents with children under 6, expands health care access to young Californians aged 19-26 regardless of immigration status, invests in youth-focused housing and rapid-rehousing programs, and more. Hundreds of you joined us at our advocacy day last January and joined us to testify in front of lawmakers about the urgent need. These are your victories achieved for all Californians.
In 2020, we'll be working to get the rest of the plan passed so we can end extreme child poverty in California for good.
Achieving the goal of ending extreme child poverty will take a movement, and we laid a strong foundation for it together this year. We're eager to expand our community in 2020 with on-the-ground outreach and a powerful digital campaign.
Your involvement will help spread the word and make this happen. Join the End Child Poverty organization in your community being led by our partner Dolores Huerta and the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
It's been a landmark year for the #EndChildPovertyCA campaign. Thanks for staying involved as we continue to fight to end child poverty and build a bright future for ALL California children.
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Fixing a Broken Marketplace:
Talking Childcare with Elliot Haspel
"Quality and affordability are two sides of the same coin," says Haspel. The key word here is coin. As in, this stuff costs money, and currently, "There's not enough money in the system." Without proper funding, all the things we count on to come from childcare-whether it's about building young minds or simply enabling parents to work without worry-are out of reach.
Quality, for Haspel, simply means enabling a child to develop in a healthy way. The relationship between caregiver and child matters, and quality of care matters more than setting. "Regardless of what parents prioritize," he says, "we want to honor those preferences while making sure all childcare settings have strong caregiver-child relationships and knowledgeable caregivers.
Troublingly, some of the families Haspel spoke to reported sacrificing quality in order to make ends meet. He cites a family in Denver who pulled a toddler out of a highly rated childcare center so they could afford care for their second child.
We know what affordability means. Paying for childcare has never
not
been a problem, but the economics have gotten even more precarious in recent years.
Childcare Aware of America
estimates that the national average childcare cost is roughly $9,000 per child, per year. (
See how your state stacks up.
)
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It's finally 2020, Census year. You've been preparing and now it's here.
While the Census will occur throughout the year, in some parts of the country the count will begin as early as this month.
New research shows
that much work needs to be done to help families understand the importance of participating in the Census. Child care providers and Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (CCR&Rs) can play an important role sharing these messages.
In 2010,
the Census missed over two million children
age 4 and under, resulting in a loss of half a billion dollars of funding for communities and families each year over the last decade. Participating in the Census, and ensuring all children are counted, helps local government plan for the future and determine where federal funding goes. When children are counted in the Census, local schools and the early childhood education system can plan, and receive enough funding, for all children.
Take a look at the full article to see what's in store for the month of January.
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Finally, a Bipartisan Bill That Would Help All Families
Mitt Romney (R-UT) teamed up with Michael Bennet (D-CO) to endorse an expansion of the child tax credit. Crucially, the bill includes something essential to the economic security of families: a child allowance. If the government would give money to all parents, no matter their income, it would solve two major problems facing Democrats. First, by helping both rich and poor families, parents as well as children, it would unite groups that are often pitted against one another. Second, it could be passed through the process known as reconciliation, which expedites budget bills. This means if Democrats control Congress and the White House next year, the law could
go into effect
quickly, helping millions of families almost immediately.
The Bennet-Romney proposal would make several changes to the current system; the most important is that most of the child tax credit would be fully refundable. At the moment, a family needs to earn wages to receive benefits. But if the child tax credit is made fully refundable, families with little or no income will receive checks in the mail. This law isn't just for poor people, though; families further up the income ladder would also receive extra money. Effectively, the bill would create a basic income for all families with children, linking the interests of poor, working-class, and middle-class families. This would dramatically bring down poverty among children, as it has in other countries that have put such a system in place, like Canada and the United Kingdom.
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The Rising Cost of Inaction on Work-Family Policies
A common excuse given for the lack of work-family support policies in the United States is that they would be nice to have but are "
extremely costly
." This simplistic approach to understanding the fiscal and economic effect of work-family policies-looking at the total cost of benefits paid out in isolation of how they interact with other programs and benefits-ignores the many ways that these types of policy interventions can save money in other areas. For example, the passage of the
Federal Employees Paid Leave Act
, which will provide up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave to qualifying federal employees, is anticipated to
save the federal government $50 million
in costs related to employee turnover.
Potential savings to businesses or other government programs are not the only factors that need to be taken into account when analyzing the true cost of work-family policy supports, however. The current narrative generally also ignores the fact that individual workers and families-especially working families of color, low-wage workers, unmarried working parents, and other vulnerable workers-are already experiencing direct hits to their income as a result of not having these policies in place. The longer Congress and the Trump administration refuse to act on work-family policies, the higher the costs to families will continue to climb.
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County Child Welfare Services experiencing caseload increase
The number of children in foster care in Santa Barbara County increased in 2019 after four years of steady declines.
In 2015, there were 433 children in the county's foster care system, but this dropped to 327 three years later, before increasing to 396 in 2019, according to a presentation from the Jan. 14 county Board of Supervisors meeting. Amy Krueger, deputy director with the county's Department of Social Services, presented these numbers to the board as part of the county's Child Welfare Services annual update.
The department has also experienced an increase in the number of in-person child welfare investigations that social workers have completed over the last two years. Social workers completed 2,812 investigations in 2017 and more than 4,000 in 2019.
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Food on the table:
Trump administration wants to cut food stamps, but California goes to court
Fourteen states, including California,
filed suit Jan. 16 against the Trump administration to block a rule that would eliminate food stamps for an estimated 688,000 Americans.
"No one should have to choose between a hot meal and paying their rent," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said
in a statement
. "Yet again, the Trump Administration has failed to offer any legitimate evidence to justify decisions that have real consequences for the health and well-being of our residents."
The states plus Washington, D.C., and New York City are claiming that the Trump administration failed to follow the steps required to enact such a far-sweeping rule.
The new rule, scheduled to go into effect on April 1, requires that adults without children must work at least 20 hours per week to consistently receive food stamps. In California, that will initially affect about 400,000 Californians, or 11% of people currently getting food stamps, according to the state Department of Social Services.
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Gavin Newsom asks Trump's HUD to turn over California land for homeless housing
Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the Trump administration to turn over surplus land owned by the federal government in California so cities could build housing for homeless people.
"Emergency shelter solves sleep and we agree this is an urgent priority," Newsom wrote in a letter Tuesday to Ben Carson, the U.S. secretary of housing and urban development. "But only housing and services solve homelessness."
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Tax Breaks: California's $60 Billion Loss - High-Income Households and Corporations Benefit the Most From California's Tax Breaks
California loses a large amount of state revenues through tax breaks, also called "tax expenditures," with much of the benefits going to high-income households and corporations. Personal income and corporate income tax expenditures combined are projected to amount to more than $63 billion in forgone state revenues in 2019-20 (the fiscal year that started on July 1, 2019), or an amount equivalent to more than 40% of the 2019-20 General Fund budget. This is revenue that otherwise could go to Californians who need additional support to be able to live and work in the state while strengthening the state's economy.
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