"Children Learning, Parents Earning, Communities Growing"
May 31, 2022 | Issue #22
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Governor Newsom, You're Pro-Life? You Support Child Care?


I think I must have missed something. Since when did Governor Newsom support child care? I know when he first ran for governor he championed as part of his platform that of a candidate who supports child care. However, since his election to date, I am confused that his actions simply do not support his rhetoric.

Let's see where we are now. Our child care providers are reimbursed at paltry rate ceilings. Yes, the governor increased the child care reimbursement ceilings January 1, 2022. However, he increased their rates to 2018 levels. The rates that he increased, well nearly half of the highest quality child care centers, they had a "hold-harmless" applied to them meaning that the new 2018 rates implemented on January 1, 2022 were LESS than they were already reimbursed so this gracious governor said he would not lower them. Seriously? New 2018 rates required the governor to carve out a clause so that some providers would not be reimbursed less than the current rates they were being reimbursed from 2016! And don't get me started on the governor's total avoidance to even discuss health or retirement benefits for a workforce whose very existence contributes to a healthy and viable economy.

Governor Newsom, how about being a champion for child care like the platform that you ran on and simply increase all provider rates by at least 20 percent. That is what leadership looks like. That is about valuing individuals that have chosen as their vocation, nurturing and teaching our very youngest babies and children so that their parents can work. That is about shoring up a workforce so that working parents can report to work, can build a better future for their children, and that businesses can count on their employees showing up.

Governor Newsom, your "Pro-Life" child care platform is hollow. You support use of federal one-time monies to fund child care slots with an aspirational goal of achieving 200,000 new subsidized child care slots by 2025-26. However, your actions and your avoidance of talking about rates and benefits for family child care providers and centers all but guarantees a continued exodus of the very workforce you so passionately claim to support. Further, you provide federal funding for the actual child care slots, but not one single dollar connecting poverty stressed families to those slots. Governor Newsom's failure to adequately follow the continuum of allocating monies for slots, then funding the community partners to work with income eligible families to actually access an open child care slot, then completing the equation by reimbursing a child care provider business a guaranteed payment is a situation of system failure. In other words, exactly what is happening in California now.

I understand Governor Newsom is starting to set the stage for running for a higher office. However, as I again listen to Governor Newsom's Pro-Life Video, in all due respect, spare me. As you aspire to govern the nation, what you are allowing to happen to California's child care and early learning system is wrong. You are siphoning monies away from private family child care businesses and centers and only funding additional programs under school districts. You are shuttering a child care industry because your actions want all child care to only go through public school systems. You don't actually say you want all child care starting at birth to only be delivered via the public school system, however, your actions and your placement of dollars say something else. You are ignoring the needs of millions of parents that require child care options outside of school hours and that better meet the needs of families.

Governor Newsom, please reconsider your Pro-Life position especially as it relates to child care. Every single baby and child deserves the same right to access and receive care. Every single parent regardless of income or status deserve to have access to child care so that the future of our children can be the brightest possible. Lift the needs of all children and families fairly and equitably. Line up your actions with your words.