Earning your contract

A good time was had by all at the CDPI Fall Public Policy Forum. As I said earlier,  a big topic was earning your contract, or more specifically, what CDE is doing to help people earn their contracts. The legislature is on CDE's butt to spend all the money the leg allocates. CDE is trying three main things:

• Combining CCTR and CPRE into CSPP, so money and kids can be moved between programs
• Using local planning councils to facilitate transfers of money between under-earning and over-earning programs
• When someone relinquishes a contract, especially mid-year, simplifying the procedure for getting a new contract issued to a new contractor

Although they didn't seem to like it being out in public when someone brought it up at a workshop, in the back rooms of CDE, they are also considering:

• multi-year contracts (CCDAA has been pushing this for years)
• competitive bidding for contracts, on the Head Start model (boy, do I see some problems here)

Hey, when contractors are sending back $200,000,000 in unspent funds in a year, that's a lot of services not being received by the public, and  you gotta do something.