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To help support you staying on top of the 2023-24 budget process and materials connected to the budget, CAPPA is hosting all of the materials in one place.
Click here to access CAPPA's Budget Page. NOTE: CAPPA has created an Excel document to help you track budget actions. Click here.
Follow the above links to find more details about each hearing. If you would like to provide input or testify at a budget hearing, please check on the respectiveSenateand Assembly Committee pages to see if they allow for remote testimony.
If you would like to provide input or testify at a hearing, please check on the respectiveSenateand Assembly Committee pages to see if they allow for remote testimony.
Click hereto find a full list of Senate Committee chairs and assignments. The Assembly Committee chairs and leadership can be found here, and the committee assignments can be viewed using this link.
2023 State Legislation:
The following bills of interest have been introduced. You can follow these bills and more on CAPPA's on our website. As more legislation is introduced, bills of interest will be profiled and hosted on CAPPA's State Legislation page.
Child Care & Early Learning
AB 14 (Davies) Income Tax: Childcare Savings and Investment Accounts.
To view all the bills that the Assembly and Senate introduced in the past week, click here.
BILL OF THE WEEK
AB 85 (Weber) Social determinants of health: screening and outreach.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Akilah Weber was elected April 2021 to represent California's 79th Assembly District, which includes La Mesa, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley/La Presa, and parts of the cities of El Cajon and San Diego. Dr. Akilah Weber is a medical doctor, educator, former City Councilmember, San Diego native, and mom to two young boys.
Dr. Weber is a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist, and she is the founder and past director of the Pediatric & Adolescent Gynecology Division at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego. She also served as an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at UCSD.
Follow this link to read Dr. Weber's full biography.
Over the past week, California's Legislative Analyst Office has released reports detailing their recent findings on child care, CalWORKs, and Transitional Kindergarten. Click below to read the complete reports.
This report was presented to the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review as resource with background information on child care and preschool programs administered in California and how they are funded.
In this brief, the LAO compares the economic and demographic characteristics of the estimated CalWORKs-eligible population to those of the overall population of California, and compares the CalWORKs take-up rates for various demographic and economic groups of eligible families. These findings can inform future policy decisions aimed at increasing participation rates in the CalWORKs program.
This brief provides an overview and analysis of the Governor’s proposals for transitional kindergarten (TK) and State Preschool including: delaying facilities funding and maintaining current TK staffing ratios, several opportunities for savings in state preschool, and more.
HHS Launches the First National Early Care and Education Workforce Center
The National Early Care and Education Workforce Center’s research and technical assistance activities will work together to build a career pipeline for the early care and education workforce, including support for pursuing credentials and degrees while maintaining the sector’s diversity and identifying and implementing sustainable ways to increase workforce compensation and benefits.
The Administration for Children and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded a cooperative agreement to establish and operate the National Early Care and Education Workforce Center for the next 5 years to Child Trends, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, BUILD Initiative, ZERO TO THREE, the University of Massachusetts–Boston, and the University of Delaware.
Question: Is there a deadline for childcare providers to use their 16 paid nonoperational days?
Answer: Yes. The deadline for the use of the additional sixteen (16) COVID-related nonoperational days is February 28, 2023. The reason is that the 16 additional days were only approved if the provider were to close due to a COVID-19 self-quarantine or self-isolation when recommended by a local public health department.
The Senate and House are out of session for the Presidents Day recess.
At NWLC, we are focused on securing the highest possible number for child care and early learning programs in President Biden’s FY2024 budget - thank you to Reps. Bonamici and Jacobs for leading the House Democrats’ letter to the Administration: Bonamici, Jacobs Lead Call for Investment in Child Care, Early Childhood Education | Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (house.gov), now expected to be released on March 9th. We continue to educate Congressional staff on the need for additional investment in child care and early learning programs, especially as states are running out of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds, with some expiring in September of this year. We are also closely tracking the debt ceiling negotiations and potential cuts to federal child care and early learning programs.
Please feel welcome to reach out with any questions or opportunities for collaboration as we begin the 118th Congress.
Announcement - HHS Launches the First National Early Care and Education Workforce Center
From the Administration for Children and Families (ACF):
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), is announcing the launch of the new National Early Care and Education Workforce Center (the ECE Workforce Center). The ECE Workforce Center is the result of a $30 million investment to support research and technical assistance for states, communities, territories, and Tribal Nations to improve the recruitment and retention of a diverse and qualified workforce across early care and education programs.
Since 2020, the child care sector has lost almost 80,000 jobs, or about 7.5 percent of its workforce, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many organizations that provide early care and education services today say it is difficult to locate skilled candidates to fill vacancies. At the same time, a significant percentage of early care and education workers, who are overwhelmingly women and often have children of their own, live in poverty. Early care and education professionals are among the lowest-paid workforces in the country, despite the skills and expertise they possess to successfully support the development of young children.
“The new National Early Care and Education Workforce Center will help improve early care and education workforce recruitment and retention with a focus on career growth and better compensation for teachers, aides, and other caregivers,” said Secretary Xavier Becerra. “HHS is honored to launch this first-of-its-kind research and technical assistance center to support the essential early childhood workforce who partner with families every day to ensure young children have what they need to thrive.”
The ECE Workforce Center's research and technical assistance activities will work together to: 1) build a career pipeline for the early care and education workforce, including support for pursuing credentials and degrees while maintaining the strong diversity of the early childhood sector; and 2) identify and implement sustainable approaches to increase compensation and benefits.
ACF conducted a competitive award process to identify the organizations best equipped to launch and implement the ECE Workforce Center for the next five years. Child Trends—along with partner organizations like the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, BUILD Initiative, ZERO TO THREE, University of Massachusetts-Boston, and the University of Delaware —won the cooperative agreement to carry out the ECE Workforce Center’s critical work.
CCAoA has a new blog available summarizing trends we're seeing and hearing across state leg sessions, and from organizational policy agendas, this year.
Brief - Improving child care subsidy access for Hispanic families
From the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families:
A new brief from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families explores changes to child care subsidy programs’ processes and provision of services during the COVID-19 pandemic based on a survey of child care subsidy staff in North Carolina. The findings—which can inform state agencies’ efforts to improve their engagement with Hispanic families—indicate that some changes, such as the increased use of electronic communication, created language and technological barriers to accessing services for some Hispanic families. Some respondents also noted opportunities that emerged in response to the pandemic, such as increased time for staff outreach in Latino communities and the loosening of documentation requirements.
Respondents provided the following recommendations for improving child care subsidy access for Hispanic families through better engagement:
Expand community outreach.
Increase Spanish-speaking staff.
Provide program materials in Spanish.
Increase funding for subsidies and culturally responsive child care capacity.
Address client families’ immigration concerns.
Make revised COVID-19 application processes and eligibility requirements permanent.
Analysis - Majority of Governors Highlight Child Care As Key to Workforce Growth
From the First Five Years Fund:
Analysis of 2023 State of the State addresses given by Governors across the country found one issue in particular cut across state and party lines: the importance of fixing child care. The First Five Years Fund (FFYF) analyzed transcripts from all 35 Governors who delivered addresses by February 13, 2023, and found that two-thirds (65%) devoted a portion of their remarks to the importance of investing in child care and early learning. This analysis found:
The issue was important on both sides of the aisle, with 40% of Republicans and 60% of Democrats talking about it.
30% of governors representing states that will be critical to the 2024 White House and Senate outcomes, including Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, South Carolina, Ohio, and Kansas.
And a 14% increase in the number of addresses devoted to child care from 2022.
Learn why the Farm Bill matters, what you need to know about it, and what concrete steps you and your state partners can take to promote SNAP benefit adequacy and equitable access. With the hunger cliff looming, elevating the needs of people with lower incomes in the Farm Bill is more important than ever.
Presenters include:
Ellen Vollinger, SNAP Director, FRAC
Caitlin Hodgkins, Policy Director, House Committee on Rules
Leslie Villegas and Nicole Hsu address misconceptions about language learning in the first three years of life.
Brief - Bold on Early Educator Compensation Learning Community 2022: Lessons from State Actions
From the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE):
Better pay and access to benefits are long overdue for the early care and education (ECE) workforce. In the absence of adequate federal funds for ECE, we know that many state leaders want to act to improve early educator compensation. CSCCE’s new brief, Lessons learned from State Actions draws on key themes from the Bold on Early Educator Compensation Learning Community to highlight emerging solutions to common barriers.
Don’t have time to read the whole brief? Check out the executive summary table for quick highlights.
Brief - Child Care Hiring and Retention Challenges Driven by Low Pay
From the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center:
The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center’s third issue brief from its four-part series, “Child Care in Crisis: Texas Case Study,” centers on instability in the child care industry. In a representative statewide survey, child care program directors overwhelmingly pointed to hiring and retaining high-quality early childhood educators as their greatest challenge, with directors citing low pay as the root cause behind these staffing challenges. Data from “Child Care Hiring and Retention Challenges Driven by Low Pay” acknowledges the compensation issue, but adds that paying educators what they deserve would mean raising tuitions. The study uses the survey data to connect the dots between understaffed child care programs, limited access to child care for families and the impact on parents’ ability to enter or stay in the workforce.
Grant Opportunity- ECE Compensation Capacity-Building
From the Early Educator Investment Collaborative:
The Early Educator Investment Collaborative is excited to announce a new funding opportunity as part of our grantmaking strategy to support increased compensation for the early childhood education (ECE) workforce. We are currently accepting proposals for a limited number of grants to support the capacity of state/local/municipal/territorial/tribal governments to innovate financing systems to increase the compensation of ECE workforce.
The total amount of funding to be awarded is approximately $10 million over up to three years. Grants will vary in size according to identified need and the proposed reform’s stage of development, with minimum grant awards ranging from approximately $400,000 to $800,000 and maximum awards ranging from approximately $2 million to $4 million.
H.Con.Res.9 [118th] Denouncing the horrors of socialism.
H.R.185 [118th] To terminate the requirement imposed by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for proof of COVID-19 vaccination for foreign travelers, and for other purposes.
In January, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Children’s Bureau announced a grant opportunity to promote better coordination between early childhood education (ECE) programs and child welfare services.
Even though ECE programs and child welfare agencies share common goals to support children’s healthy growth and development, there are ongoing challenges with collaboration between these entities. The “Building Early Childhood-Child Welfare Partnerships to Support the Well-Being of Young Children, Families, and Caregivers” grant opportunity aims to ensure more children involved in the welfare system and in foster care can benefit from high-quality early learning programs. The notice explains that this funding could “effectively prevent child abuse and neglect and provide comprehensive supports to children and families.”
Danielle Caldwell has been operating her home-based child care program, The Children’s Room, for 27 years. But lately, she’s been considering other career options.
The North Carolina child care provider has long known that her work would not lead to riches, but years ago, that was less of a concern.
“When I got into this, it was about making it fun. It was all about the kids,” says Caldwell, who started her business shortly after becoming a mother. “I wasn’t thinking about the future.”
Now, though, she’s thinking about little else. Caldwell is 56 years old, and she’s tired. She knows she can’t handle the physical demands of working with young children forever — several of her peers in the Durham area have developed back problems from the constant bending down and picking up, she notes — and like anyone else, she hopes to retire at some point.
Contractor Connections: Reminder About Upcoming Training Webinar
This a reminder that the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), Child Care and Development Division (CCDD), will host the training webinar Parent Appeal Process on February 28, 2023, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
The webinar is one of the series that the CCDD will host as part of its overall goal of working collaboratively with child care and development contractors to reinforce their understanding of contract requirements, ensure their proficiency in accessing current information about program requirements and staying informed, reduce errors in documenting and certifying families, and support continuous improvement and program integrity. The webinar topics were generated from a recently completed survey of contractors and from findings of past contract monitoring reviews.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with information about joining the webinar.
General Child Care and Development (CCTR) Fiscal Year (FY) 2022–23 Request for Funding Applications
The California Department of Social Services (CDSS), Child Care and Development Division (CCDD) is administering applications for the General Child Care and Development (CCTR) program funds to provide direct services for California children from birth to age three and for children that are school-aged. Funds are available for both Local Educational Agency (LEA) and non-LEA applicants to provide full-day/full-year services on or after April 1, 2023.
If you have any questions regarding the RFA, please contact us via e-mail at CCTRRFA@dss.ca.gov or by phone at 916-639-7944.
The purpose of this Child Care Bulletin is to announce the launch of the MyChildCarePlan.org consumer education website, and to remind Child Care Resource & Referral (R&R) contractors of responsibilities related to the provision of R&R services.
The purpose of this Child Care Bulletin is to provide guidance and information to specified child care and development contractors regarding implementation of the provision in Senate Bill (SB) 1047 (Chapter 923, Statutes of 2022) related to categorical eligibility for child care and development services. Effective immediately, SB 1047 amended Welfare and Institutions Code (WIC) Section 10271 to extend eligibility for child care and development services to families in which a member of the family has been certified as eligible to receive benefits from certain means-tested government programs.
CAPPA is committed to supporting our field with a coordinated calendar. Click here to see current calendar of events. If you have an event to add, email CAPPA and it will be added.
The Weekly Good
An uplifting way to start the week, for those of us who need a break from the chaos that is our lives.
During this time where we are all stressed, it would be great to celebrate the positive. Each week we will celebrate everyday heroes, inspiring movements and great things happening in our field.
The Resource Connection of Amador and Calaveras Counties is hosting an ECE Mini Conference on March 4th. "This free event is open to all early learning providers in Amador and Calaveras counties! Scan the QR Code below to register, or click here -
Go Kids, Inc. was established in 1975 when it was awarded a grant from the City of Morgan Hill to provide early childhood education services and training opportunities for low-income women in Santa Clara County. Since its incorporation in 1978, the agency budget and service area have continued to grow, providing comprehensive child-development and family support services in Santa Clara, San Benito, Monterey, and Santa Cruz counties.
Get to know them and the full scope of their work with thisAnnual Report, highlighting how they are supporting the needs of family child care providers and families in Santa Clara, San Benito, Monterey, and Santa Cruz counties.
Community based public and private Alternative Payment Programs (APPs) support the needs of working moms and dads with access to child care and other supports earmarked to lift families up from poverty. During the pandemic, these programs have distributed emergency essential worker child care vouchers, family child care and center stipends & PPE, diapers, food and clothing. Throughout California, these APPs may also support parental choice to CalWORKs Stages 2 & 3, preschool and center-based programs, general child care, After School Education and Safety (ASES), Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), Family Child Care Home Education Networks (FCCHENs), transportation, behavioral & mental health services, respite, regional centers, health and safety, 21st Century, resource libraries, and Trustline.
Our commitment to you is to have scheduled at least once per week a call wherein we can all connect. As questions arise, forward them to CAPPA so that we can address them on these calls. Look for a weekly email to register. Recording and Q&A will also be posted on the Member's Only page.
Job Descriptions and Salary Information
CAPPA has collected more than 85 job descriptions from member agencies that you can view and use when you create your agency's next job posting!
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