Like many of you, I have been optimistic that through this pandemic adversity, child care would be made a TOP priority. Finally, we were seeing the demand to provide child care to essential workers backed-up with huge investments in federal and state dollars. We were hearing that the economy could not rebound without child care. The focus on finally addressing the critical needs of family child care providers and centers that have stayed open for the last year when schools were closed and continued to be the lifeline of support for working families was finally in our grasp.

Or so I thought.

Less than two weeks ago, legislation moving through the process to expand Transitional Kindergarten (AB 22) to all 4-year olds and some low-income 3-year-olds only on school grounds funded at the expense of child care was pushed through a committee. The merits of the bill aside, here again was another example where child care dollars funded under the General Fund (GF) are being taken away and put under Proposition 98. And let's put this in context. Proposition 98 essentially gets 40 percent of the state budget. Child care that supports infants, toddlers and subsidized families including those with children up to age 13 is funded at less than 4 percent of the state budget. This same taking of monies happened during the 2010 recession wherein child care was actually moved out of Proposition 98 and the overall dollars allocated to support our lowest income families with child care, slashed. To date, aside from the emergency and one-time monies resulting from this pandemic, child care has continued to be forgotten year after year after year.

Now that child care is in focus on both the state and federal landscapes billions in relief dollars are coming in to increase access for working families to child care as well as providing family child care providers some stipend relief. Where we should be celebrating this as the year of focus and growth of California's child care capacity, it has shifted to a raid of the child care funds. Further, the shifting of the child care dollars from the GF will be permanent. So when current emergency allocated child care dollars are expended, California will be left with less overall child care dollars compared to where we were prior to the pandemic.

Bottom line, California's working families need access to child care in hours that support real working needs. They need access to child care for more than 3-4 hours Monday thru Friday. Working families need wraparound supports like transportation so that if they chose to have their 4 year old participate in TK, the means to get them to the school grounds and then to wraparound child care is available.

I am throwing it out there to the universe. What has to happen in order for those in power to prioritize the real needs of working families and their children? I thought it was the pandemic. Now I am not so sure.