Linda Olivenbaum |
Legislative Session Concludes; Some Child Care Bills Passed!
The 2015-16 legislative session has now concluded with the Governor signing—and also vetoing—bills that CAEYC supported.
We’re pleased to report that he signed into law:
AB 1567 (Campos): Amends After School and Education (ASES) Program priorities for enrollment to include homeless youth and CalWORKs
AB 1712 (Obernolte): Authorizes CDE to use digital signatures, including for direct-funded programs
AB 2036 (Lopez): Online companies that advertise license-exempt child care services must post statement about Trustline
AB 2368 (Gordon): Establishes Santa Clara County pilot subsidy system
We’re sorry that he vetoed:
AB 492 (Gonzalez): Included $50 monthly diaper needs benefit in CalWORKs supportive services
And some bills that we supported “died” in the legislative process, meaning that they did not make it to the Governor’s desk. Those bills are:
AB 598 (Calderon): Amended law pertaining to Family Child Care Home Education Networks (FCCHENs)
AB 1644 (Bonta): Renames the School-based Early Mental Health Intervention and Prevention Services for Children Act to the HEAL (Healing from Early Adversity to Level the Impact) Act and expands services to include children attending preschool at publicly funded elementary school sites
AB 1897 (Mullin): Establishes a birth to entering first grade license
AB 2150 (Santiago and Weber): 12-month eligibility for subsidized child care services
SB 670 (Jackson): Tax credits to employers who develop and offer child care services for their workforce
The budget that the Governor signed:
- Increases funding for child care services by $527 million during the next four years (far short of the $800 million that the Women’s Caucus advocated for)
- Effective January 1, 2017, increases reimbursement rates that acknowledge the growing costs of operating programs related to increases in the minimum wage, including:
- Increasing the Standard Reimbursement Rate (SRR) by 10 percent
- Raising the Regional Market Rate (RMR) to the 75th percentile based on the 2014 survey
- Raising the Alternative Payment rate to exempt providers from 65 to 70 percent of regional reimbursement rates for Family Child Care Providers
- Adds 8,877 full-day preschool slots during the next four years
- Prioritizes expenditures for improving quality through the Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS)
- Provides funding to Los Angeles Trade-Tech College to provide job training, mentoring and college courses through the Early Care and Education Apprenticeship Pilot Program
- Maintains funding for the Local Child Care and Development Planning Councils (LPCs)
Your Public Policy Committee members will hold a two-day Strategic Planning Meeting at the end of October to envision our goals, structure and work plan for the next three years. We thank the CAEYC Board for allocating the funds to allow us to meet face-to-face for these crucial discussions necessary to maintain a strong public policy presence for CAEYC as the new structure decided by the National Dialogue is implemented.
Contact Us!
If you have any questions about the work of the CAEYC Public Policy Committee please contact Linda Olivenbaum at lolivenbaum2@comcast.net. We will work hard this year to let you know how you can participate in this important work. Our voices are crucial to making sure that the children and families in our communities receive the highest quality child development programs and other services they need. All of this begins with informed public policy decisions.