2019 Legislative Day Brief

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2019 Legislative Day Brief

Early Care and Education (ECE) Coalition

The Early Care and Education (ECE) Coalition is a partnership of early childhood education advocacy and service organizations working together to secure access to high-quality early learning and care for California’s low-income children and families.

2019 Bill Package
Reimbursement Rate Reform
The state’s current bifurcated ECE reimbursement rate system is limiting access to care, fails to maximize program quality, and is forcing many child care providers out of business. It is crucial to adopt the policy in this year’s budget to begin the process of developing a single, regionalized reimbursement rate system, since this reform will take several years to achieve and implement. To create a more effective ECE system, our state needs to transition to a reimbursement rate system that will better meet the needs of California’s young children, their families, and their teachers.

  • AB 125 (McCarty) adopts a policy to begin the process of developing a single, regionalized reimbursement rate system.
  • AB 174 (Leyva) adopts a policy to begin the process of developing a single, regionalized reimbursement rate system.

*Two bills will run concurrently in each house.

Facilities
One of the main impediments to serving more eligible children is the lack of child care facilities in the state. In order to expand the capacity of the ECE system, it is essential to build the supply of facilities so providers can serve more children.

  • AB 452 (Mullin) would provide grant funding for program facilities to serve children from birth to age three.
  • AB 124 (McCarty) creates a preschool facilities school bond.

Slots
There is currently a severe shortage of child care spaces in California. The shortage is most acute for our youngest children, ages zero to three, with less than 14 percent of infants and toddlers who qualify for subsidized child care receiving services.

  • AB 194 (Gomez-Reyes) invests $1 billion dollars throughout five years to create additional child care slots. This funding will go towards Alternative Payment programs and General Child Care, which generally serve the vast majority of eligible infants and toddlers in the system and where the need is most dire.

Workforce
ECE providers play a critical role in creating a safe and enriching environment for children while their parents are at work. However, there are a number of barriers to recruiting and retaining a qualified ECE workforce.

  • AB 324 (Aguiar-Curry) This bill would require the development of guidelines for AB 212 programs based on a set of principles to ensure a standardized and effective AB 212 professional development and retention system.