Budget Salvation

An initiative has qualified for the November ballot that would, if passed, allow the legislature to adopt a budget by majority vote. It could save California. Therefore it hasn't a chance.

Flash: cutting child care means people can't get to work

To people in the field, this was obvious, but now, at least, it has reached the consciousness of the Ruling Class. An article in the New York Times discusses low-income workers whose subsidized child care has been cut, so they lost their jobs, so they had to go on welfare. And it's not like people who qualify for APP or Title 5 are likely to be in jobs where they are irreplaceable. I've seen grumblings in the paper from California Democrats that they get that fact and that cutting CDD programs loses the federal match.

So when do we go off the cliff this year? September? I've heard people from CDE say October, but they think most of us will survive, and only a few of those will be really seriously injured.

I just realized that nobody who doesn't follow the California subsidized child care budget has much idea what I said above. So be it.

And in the middle of our budget cuts, I see a story (thank you, Google News) on 3 new centers being built at the  naval station on Coronado, near San Diego. Two are normal hours, and one is 24-hour. As with all military-based child care, the centers will be accredited and inspected I think it's monthly. I know someone involved in military programs in our area, and they seem to be really well done. The article says the reason they are building the new centers is that the existing centers are inconvenient for sailors to drive to.

Having a CDC on base is going to be great,” said Operations Specialist 3rd Class Nakia Levenberry, assigned to NAB Coronado. “I won’t have to worry about being late to pick my son up due to traffic issues, and in case of an emergency I won’t have to travel far to get to him. I also have the comfort of knowing he’s close enough for me to check on during the day.”

I don't think I'm jealous, because I don't want the military not to have this kind of child care, but I am certainly envious when I think of the May Revise and read about military child care.

Post-May revise depression

Going to planning meetings this week has been like being in a car hurtling toward a cliff, and we're inside talking about what to do if we survive. How injured do we expect to be? What direction should we try to crawl? Should we put the least valuable of us on the bottom as a cushion for the more valuable? What if we end up so injured that we face a life of constant pain?

And what if we all die? Nobody talks about what if the budget is really passed as proposed. What if we do lose all those programs, 140,000 slots, and I forget how many billions of dollars in revenue? I guess a lot of us find new jobs.

It's depressing as hell, and the personal questions are worse. Is there a non-child-care position open at your agency, or what would you like your next career to be at your age?

Buck up, kiddo. The Dems won't let that happen, although the Reps seem pretty united. In the past the Dems have been able to peel off a Rep or two by offering them something (such as Prop 14, or something for their district), but this time the Republican leadership is telling them that they will be dead to the leadership if they vote for a budget with a single tax increase.

I'll say it again. Voting Republican is a character fault. Voting Republican enthusiastically is a personality disorder.

California child care care budget: the bad, the worse, and the ugly.

Oh. My. God. The governator proposes to eliminate CalWORKS and "the remainder of state funding for need‑based, subsidized child care." All but state preschool.

Actually it's a little ambiguous. It says cut all the programs, but then it proposes changes to how the programs are administered, such as requiring programs to recover all overpayments and changing the RMR percentile. It says it's cutting 141,000 slots (I think this is just center-based), but then it says there is enough federal money for 78,000 slots, with an income limit of 60% of the state median income. I presume they put the administrative changes in so they will have some budget cuts left when the Democrats refuse to allow the elimination of CalWORKS and all need-based subsidized child care programs.

Come on, guys*. It's time to put on your big-girl panties and raise taxes. I'm not the most affluent person in the state, but I could live with, say, a 10% increase in my state taxes in order not to cut these programs. I wonder how much effect a 10% increase in state income tax revenue would have.

I will repeat myself. Voting Republican is a character fault. Voting Republican enthusiastically is a personality disorder.

*I almost called legislators a word I try not to use except literally; it is a colloquial name for a body part and means a weak-willed person. I can think of several other body-part names that would also be appropriate, though rude.

$300,000 a year for a preschool director (but that includes benefits)

Ron Williams is executive director of an NAEYC-accredited preschool program with two sites in Paterson, New Jersey. He is site director of one of them. They care for 350 to 375 kids at the two sites on a budget of $4.3 million, of which $4.2 million is state or federal subsidy. After 16 years there, during which he took the program from 15 kids to its current size, he makes $300,000 a year, including pension and benefits.

There is no suggestion of illegality (although his wife is vice-president of the board that sets his salary, and the preschool itself was founded by a church whose pastor later became a corrupt politician, convicted of bribery). Other local directors with similar-size programs make about half as much.

I have mixed feelings about this. I think the real problem is not that he makes twice as much as he should but that the others make half as much as they should. One thing that would make me trust him or not is how much the teachers make. If the preschool has a high wage in general, cool. If the teachers in his preschools make $20 an hour, let Williams have his 300 grand. If not, he's probably just greedy, although he has stuck around a preschool for 16 years. He he were just a scammer, he wouldn't be running an accredited program.

We have people in California running quality programs for that many kids. I wonder how much they make.

New legislation

Just got my weekly child care legislation update, and there are some interesting bills.

• SB 1126 would basically require agreements between CSUs and community colleges so that community college ECE classes would transfer as upper division major classes at CSUs and hopefully UCs.
• AB 2323 would allow CDD contractors to who under-earn to carry over up to 20% of their contract to the next fiscal year. Contractors who over-earn can be reimbursed up to 10% from the following year's funds. This is really cool and is obviously part of the effort to reduce under-earned contracts. I don't have any inside information, but it smells like something CCDAA and CDD would be collaborating on.

One reason these have a chance in hell is they wouldn't cost any money.

Child care budget

The governor's proposed budget is out. It proposes to reduce voucher program reimbursement ceilings from the 85th percentile of the RMR to the 75th percentile of the 2005 RMR. They say they'll cut $77 million in costs there.

License-exempt care goes from 90% of family providers rates to 70%.

Stage 3 gets cut $112 million. They say it's because giving them an entitlement gives them an inequitable advantage over CAPP program applicants. That's true, it does. Or did. I need to see how much a cut $112 million comes to and whether any of that money was put into CAPP.

I think I saw a minus 0.38% COLA. That would be interesting, if true.

I expect Tim Fitzharris to explain it all to us shortly by email. If you're involved in California child care and don't subscribe to the CDPI information bulletin email list, you should do so right now. You can sign up on their web page.

Budget about to come out.

The Governor's proposed budget comes tomorrow about 11:30. Bosses want initial report within two hours. No problem.

I predict there will be no cuts to child care. Child care has been pretty near sacred, even in this economic climate. Everyone seems to get the relationship between having child care and being able to go to work, except readers of the Wall Street Journal.

The actual cost of child care

A group called Public Policy Forum has put out a report called The Price of Quality: Estimating the Cost of a Higher Quality Early Care and Education System for Southeast Wisconsin. (PDF)

They now spend $5625 per kid, and they estimate it would cost $11,500 a child for best quality, but you could improve on what they have for $8023 per kid.

They figure they are spending $370 million on child care now (mostly wages), and to get to a high-quality system would take about $700 million. And the dish ran away with the spoon.

The report is interesting. It goes over the various studies about long-term effects of good child care and the cost-benefit analyses done.

It makes a stab at defining high quality, and most of the items are generically good (high education and wages, low ratios, and family support. But then they add, "For three‐ and four‐year olds, use of a professionally developed prekindergarten curriculum." I wonder if they could consider Reggio or High Scope a curriculum or a teaching style. This scares me, as I have said before. I fear canned curricula in general and for preschool in particular. Especially if they specify "professionally developed curriculum" but ignore environmental rating scales or teacher-child interaction evaluations. I guess that's because they were just looking at the things that cost money.

I do believe the main point, though. The actual cost of high-quality child care in California as well as Wisconsin is lots higher than CDE reimburses centers. The Title 5 centers that succeed do so on subsidies and grants.

Ventura First 5 creates loan fund

Ventura First 5 is doing a good thing. They are putting $2.6 million into low-interest loans  between $15,000 and $800,000 (with other very nice provisions) to centers for planning, building, buying, or remodeling a center or for refinancing. For-profit businesses and organizations, including child care and school operators, employers and private developers; nonprofit organizations; public and private schools; and public entities are eligible. They expect to fund 4 to 6 projects, depending on what they are presented.

What with banks not lending much at all lately, especially at affordable rates, and the "profit" margins in child care being so slim, this is a real nice thing for Ventura First 5 to do.

While we're sharing good news, at a time when Title 5 centers up and down the state are closing or barely scraping by, Saddleback College is starting a new toddler program. You have to assume the college is subsidizing it. Nobody can run a Title 5 toddler program on the $48.13 per kid per day. (Okay, there are probably some programs that do, maybe in counties with relatively low cost of living, but I'd bet money you can't do it in Orange County.) Anyway, good for Saddleback's administration for agreeing to subsidize it (or good for the center director for pulling the wool over their eyes).

California's foster-care payments illegally low

A U.S. appeals panel has ruled that the practice of paying foster parents 80% or less of the actual cost of care is illegal. In fact, advocates say, the payments of about $500 a month cover about 60% of the actual cost.

One reason for paying more, beyond the obvious fairness of it, is that fewer people are willing to become foster parents. There are 5000 foster kids in California, compared with 16,000 in 2001, and it's not for lack of need. Here's another thing we're going to have to pay for. And we should. While there are no doubt people willing to take kids when it costs them money, it is clear there aren't enough of them. If we want to have a foster care system, we have to reimburse foster parents the cost of care. If we don't have foster parents, we have to put the kids in more expensive group homes or leave them with the biological parents.

And there's nothing in the budget left to cut. 

So we have to raise taxes. The discussion should be which ones and how much, not whether.

UC Santa Cruz to close child care center

UC Santa Cruz is planning to close its faculty and staff child care center because of a $500,000 and growing annual budget deficit (that's for the center, not for the whole university). Apparently their Title 5 program for students will continue. Their academic senate is pissed and is asking the administration to "speedily develop a plan to provide affordable, high-quality child care." Some employees tried to start a non-profit to take over the center, but the president said it would have to be competitively bid. Their 22 families, with 30 kids, will have to go to the off-campus open market for child care.

This is just another example of the fact that affordable high-quality child care is a self-contradiction. The facility, teacher education, and ratios you need to run, for example, your typical Title 5 center can't be bought for what any but the rich can afford to pay.

And you cannot run a Title 5 program based solely on CDD contracts. It can't be done. Every successful program I know of succeeds by getting outside grants, or finagles free rent and in-kind gifts, or all of the above. I heard just yesterday about a school district relinquishing its State Preschool program, because they can't afford to subsidize it, and you can't run it on the SRR.

ELQIS on YouTube

I just discovered that somebody named WendyRCL is posting clips from ELQIS meetings onYouTube. Good for her. Here's Dennis Vicars on the design subcommittee:


Cliff Marcussen on the finance subcommittee:



I'm glad these guys are there.

Whoring for ARRA money: SB5X-1

I know it's a good idea over all, but it still seems a little unseemly for California to change its considered education policy for money.

SBX5-1 has passed the senate and is in the assembly. It permits tying teacher salaries to student achievement. As a state, we don't believe in tying teacher salaries to student achievement. It's just too hard a problem for professional educators to solve, although we will have to do so. As I said before, it should be possible to figure out the influence of individual teachers by handing the problem to statisticians. Let them gather whatever data we need and do a regression analysis (i.e., do magic).

But there's no good reason to think the legislature and CDE will do it right, so this bill amounts to agreeing to degrade our system for cash. Bend over and grab your ankles, Uncle ARRA has some money for you.

PITC training North Carolina trainers

The training that North Carolina is using ARRA money to send 16 employees to San diego for is the PITC Trainer Institute.

They'll like San Diego in January.

• North Carolina's "Average January temperatures range from 36°F to 48°, with an average daily maximum January temperature of 51° and minimum of 29°."
• "January is usually the coldest month of the year in San Diego and the only month when temperatures below the freezing point were experienced at the National Weather Service. Only on 9 days has a reading of 32 degrees or below been recorded since records began in 1872 with the absolute low of 25 degrees on January 7, 1913. The average minimum temperature for the month is 49.7 degrees, the average maximum 65.8 degrees and the mean 57.8 degrees. Daytime readings often reach 70 degrees and occasionally 80 degrees and on January 10 in 1953 rose to a high of 88 degrees."

(God, I love Google. You want to know average January temperatures in North Carolina and San Diego? You have but to word your query well, and you shall be answered in milliseconds of time.")

In fairness to North Carolina, I know for a fact that the eastern part of San Diego County gets snow, and the National Weather Service is probably talking about the airport, right near the ocean, so how much the North Carolinians like San Diego weather probably depends on what part of San Diego they're in.

ARRA money is also building a 72-slot infant-toddler center in Visalia. Yay for free money.

Increased California withholding

George Skelton (whom I would add to my list of intellectually honest conservatives) has a column in today's LA Times about California's increased income tax withholding being effectively a $2 billion tax, because it is effectively a tax, because they take it away from you every month.

It's like this analogy:

You pay $1,000 rent on April 1, as you do the first of each month. Then the landlord says he'll need the future rent 15 days earlier. But not to worry, the rent won't increase. On April 15, you pay $1,000 for May. But wait a minute: Now you've forked out $2,000 in April.

You'll pay another $1,000 in May and each month thereafter until you decide to move. Finally your last month living in the rental, you make no payment. Only then do you recoup the $1,000 extra payment made that long-ago April.

He says this means it's just a tax, because it effectively keeps the money until you quit work or die. But that's not completely true. You get the money back each April, but you don't have to pay the whole thing back in May. The float the state is getting is a monthly payment to them. So what Skelton is saying is sort of true but a much smaller magnitude than he says. It's continual rather than continuous.

But more important, we have to raise taxes somehow to pay for what we want the state to do for us. The only way to increase the SRR, for example, is for the state to bring in more money. Our 2/3 budget system and state Republican party intransigence have conspired to make taxes impossible to raise in the ordinary way, by just voting an increase. They have to use sleight of hand and word games, because that's all they have in their quivers.

So Skelton is sort of right in how the system works but entirely wrong in his conclusions.

More ARRA money into California for child care training

North Carolina is using part of it's ARRA child care quality set-aside to send 16 employees to child development workshops in San Diego, and people who don't understand quality set-aside are pissed because they're not using the money to increase enrollment and reduce the waiting list. Well, because the law says we can't.

I haven't been able to find out who is doing the training, but whoever it is, congratulations on getting more ARRA money into the state.

Skyline College's center may close

Another college child development center may close, because it costs more to run a Title 5 center than the state reimburses. Skyline College, in San Bruno, is going through something they call a Program Improvement and Viability process (i.e., figuring out what programs they can afford to keep), and the child development center may not be one they can keep.

They have 50 kids, half from single parents, who will go onto either the CEL or the private market. The parents, trying to go to college ... well, I guess it's just bad luck. They'll like their new job instead of school.

CDD will have another few hundred thousand dollars that won't be earned, because Skyline College can't afford to subsidize their CDD program. Good luck to CDD finding somebody else in the neighborhood who can afford to take the contract.

I have heard anecdotally of other Title 5 prog that are considering closing, because the SRR just isn't enough, and other funding streams have dried up. I wonder how many programs will have to close before the legislature raises the SRR to a level that pays for the state's staffing requirements.

Watch your allowable expenses list

The Economic Opportunity Council of San Francisco runs lots of valuable programs in San Francisco, including CDD programs. They are accused of spending $542,000 of state money on unallowable expenses, such as "the $8,300 Cache Creek Casino retreat, $2,300 spent on water, buying $700 worth of coffee and shelling out $460 for facial tissue." They are supposed to get $159,000 in ARRA money to help people weatherize their homes, but this may be taken back because:

The state concluded that the 40-year-old nonprofit has financial management problems, needs organizational reform and has no feasible plan to improve these issues. ...

San Francisco officials also raised concerns about the nonprofit this year. In August, mayor's office director Dwayne Jones sent a letter to the executive director, Nathaniel Mason, and board chairwoman, Hazel King, informing them the city was undertaking a management audit and other oversight measures. The letter details a litany of problems, including losing a child on a field trip and leaving a child locked in a facility after staff members closed for the night. Additionally, as in 1998, the nonprofit has not enrolled enough children in its child development programs, putting funding for the group's other city programs at risk.

Apparently they lost a state preschool contract 10 years ago because of consistently underearning their contract and not communicating with parents, and they haven't learned their lessons.

Morals:

• Get to know your Green Book. Make it your friend.
• Enroll enough kids to earn your contract.
• Don't lose kids or lock them in the center overnight.

ARRA money funding center in Visalia

The Navy is building a 17,000 square foot child development center to 72 infants and toddlers who are on a waiting list at the Visalia Naval Air Station. It will be paid for with $7 million in ARRA money. They plan to hire 30 more providers when they open.