1. No category

Assembly Bill 188 (Garcia)
Supporting working families; protecting public monies
SUMMARY
California’s community based mixed delivery system of
public and private nonprofits that support CalWORKs and
working families with parental choice and access to child
care are required to comply with stringent eligibility
enrollment of families with inadequate funding.
BACKGROUND
In 1976, Governor Brown’s office set forth a pilot
program to expand the growth of child development
programs in the state. The outcome of that pilot program
was legislation in 19801 to create Alternative Payment
(AP) child care programs in each of California’s 58
counties. The purposes of Alternative Payment Programs
(APPs) were to allow innovative community based public
and private agencies to develop non-traditional regional
approaches that best supports the needs of working
families with parental choice of access for children from
birth on to a variety of early care and education settings.
Today, California’s working families are supported by a
network of 68 APPs. APPs contract with the California
Department of Education to support working families and
those on the California Work Opportunity and
Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) programs with access
to a variety of early care and education settings inclusive
of high quality Title 5 centers, Family Child Care Home
Education Networks (FCCHENs), family child care
providers, and small business early care and education
providers. In 2014/15 APPs are supporting over 213,000
children and 142,000 families.
Integral to the success of working families attaining selfsufficiency, is reliable and stable child care that supports
both the needs of a working parent and supports the
immediate and longer term outcomes of their children.
Families that are eligible for a child care subsidy struggle
with a multitude of poverty stressors; stressors
exacerbated by the uncertainty of being able to support
familial necessities such as housing, food, health care and
education.
The existing infrastructure of public and private early care
and education agencies have a great capacity to meet
the needs of working families and children but need a
1
AB 3059 (Sieroty); Chapter 798, Statutes of 1980
stable and reliable level of funding in order to efficiently
maximize the subsidy dollar. Agencies are only paid as a
percentage of monies put out the door for direct payments
for child care. However, there is no funding for the costs that
are accrued by these agencies for mandated work and the
protection of public dollars, verifying family need and
eligibility for care that may never result in a payment made.
Further State policy decisions such as the past elimination of
funding for Stage 3, the ensuing disenrollment of families,
complying with over 142 separate Child Development
Division Management Bulletins since 2010 are all examples of
unfunded mandates. Since 2010, our caseworker family
loads have increased on average from roughly 1:40 to 1:185.
For APPs in particular, the funding of the eligibility
determination process of families is not separate from the
funding to support families and operate a contract. In a
survey of our agencies, 23 to 62 percent of working poor
families that seek subsidized child care are deemed ineligible
for services or enrollment into a subsidized child care
program. These families are either transferring from
CalWORKs Stage 1 to Stage 2, or walk in our doors seeking
support. This situation in particular has contributed greatly
to the insurgence of the caseworker family loads noted
above.
WHAT THIS BILL DOES
This bill provide we provide crucial funding to community
based agencies that will allow them to more fully meet
the needs of working families needing child care, will
support protection of public dollars by only enrolling
those working families that meet stringent eligibility
criteria, and that will lead to a greater strengthening of
our “safety net” programs.
SPONSOR
California Alternative Payment Program Association
OPPOSITION
None
CONTACTS
Vivian Ericson
(916) 319.2058
[email protected]