Financing Child Care in the United States - Ewing Marion Kauffman ...

03 LONG–TERM THINKING
Successful strategies are rooted in a plan for advancing
child care that recognizes the value of incremental steps.
An example of this may be found in Rhode Island, which
has sought to address parent affordability and teacher
compensation issues over a period of several years. As
part of welfare reform, the state included health care
coverage for family child care providers and an
entitlement to child care assistance for all families with
incomes at or below 185 percent of the poverty level.
Health care coverage was made available to a growing
group of child care providers, both center– and
home–based. The child care entitlement was raised each
year, so that by July 2000 families with incomes at or
below 250 percent of the poverty level (about $34,000
for a family of three, or roughly 50 percent of the state
median income) are able to receive a child care subsidy.
Most recently, the state has begun to tackle the issues
of quality and cross–system linkages with a new initiative,
called Starting RIte, that will make a variety of direct
subsidies available to child care programs.
Successful strategies are often developed over time: civic
and business leaders in Rochester, New York, spent years
studying the demand and supply and outcomes for early
childhood programs, bringing in new partners, and
educating wider circles of the community. Their long–term
community plan is generating revenue partly through
efficiencies and leveraging that they could not have
predicted when they began. In Aspen, Colorado, two
years were spent developing a community child care plan.
When the opportunity for raising revenue for child care
through a new tax was realized, the municipality was
ready with a plan for how the funds would best be spent,
including establishing a permanent trust fund for child
care. Long–term commitment and planning paid off—the
tax has been renewed by the voters for ten more years.
04 MULTIPLE APPROACHES, MULTIFACETED
SOLUTIONS
It comes as no surprise that several states and localities
appear in these profiles more than once as they attempt
to address service availability and infrastructure
simultaneously. This illustrates the efficacy of multiple
approaches. Increasingly, both the services and the
systemic elements necessary to support them are
considered and funded together. Connecticut’s School
Readiness program, for example, integrates child care
and preschool, funds state–wide systems for accreditation
and professional development, includes facility financing
and rests on a community–based approach to planning
and service delivery.
05 LEADERS, PARTNERS AND
NON–TRADITIONAL ADVOCATES
Many of the strategies presented here were developed
by broad groups of individuals representing business,
government, child care professionals and advocates,
whether at the community, state or national levels. Child
care experts and advocates listened to new perspectives
on old issues and focused on different approaches to old
problems. Higher education and housing experts eagerly
rose to the challenge of finding innovative solutions and
are now working with several states and communities to
develop new financing strategies for child care.
Civic and business leaders can be influential child care
advocates and powerful messengers for children in state
legislatures. When civic and business leaders engage,
they often do so after a lengthy education process,
allowing child care advocates to play a behind–the–
scenes role on financing measures. Child care advocates
were not always present when financial measures were
presented or finalized, but as a result of long–term
efforts, their messages were.
However, not all communities are able to engage
their civic and business leaders. There are successful
strategies that have relied almost exclusively on the
leadership, persistence and expertise of the child care
community and its close allies.
6