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A group of lawyers and parents reached a last-minute settlement yesterday that will postpone deep cuts to crucial child care services that were vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month.
Schwarzenegger eliminated funding to CalWORKS Stage 3 Child Care,a program that subsidizes care for about 56,000 children whose parents have successfully transitioned from welfare and who are employed but simply can’t afford to pay the full cost of child care.
“Originally families had been told they were going to lose their child care in less than two weeks. Now families know they have their childcare through December,” said Melissa Rodgers, a lawyer with the Child Care Law Center.
The settlement is the result of a lawsuit parents and advocates filed against the California Department of Education on Oct. 29, demanding due process for Stage 3 recipients. They argued they needed more time to get screened to see if they qualified for alternative child care services.
Hilary McLean, spokesperson for the California Department of Education, which administers the funding for Stage 3, said the only person supporting the cuts to the program is the governor himself. The $256 million program was one of many programs slashed, adding up to more than $900 million in recent cuts.
“The governor believed that the level of the budget reserves was inadequate,” said H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for the California Department of Finance.
But the costs of stripping parents of child care are higher than subsidizing child care, according to a 2009 study [PDF] that found that every $1 invested in child care yields a return of $3.50, adding up to an economic benefit of $800 million per year.
Cuts to child care funding have been on Gov. Schwarzenegger’s agenda for months. In August, he proposed to cut all state child care funding and the CalWORKS program, but the Legislature rejected those cuts, according to a recent report by the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security [PDF]. Stages 1 and 2 are still in tact, leaving the damage to Stage 3.
Tahira Al’Ghaffaar, a single mother who is raising a 2-year-old and a 9-year-old, relies on Stage 3 to pay for their child care. Al’Ghaffaar has worked her way through the three stages of the welfare to work program. She has kept the same full-time office job throughout. As a Stage 3 recipient, the only subsidy she now receives is for child care.
She was happy about the postponement of the cuts but said she doubts she will be accepted into any alterative programs.
“My son has been on the wait list for the Boys and Girls Club for over a year and there are no openings,” she said.
She believes her only alternatives are to quit her job or leave the kids at home so she can work. She’s already explored other measures during recent financial hardship, when she was forced to dip into her retirement account.
“The other alternative is rent and child care will be paid, but we won’t have food,” she said.
The average annual cost of child care in California is $11,580 while the median income for a single mother is $28,579, according to the UC Berkeley study.
The Stage 3 program reduces Al’Ghaffaar’s cost of childcare to a relatively manageable co-pay of $300 per month, she said. But when the cuts take effect at the end of the year, she has no idea what she will do, she said. Her children’s child care provider told her she would have to pay $800 a month when the funding runs out.
Mary Ignatius, executive director of Parent Voices, one of the petitioners in the lawsuit, said she received an e-mail from a mother who said she was considering suicide as a result of the cuts.
“It was total shock, it was anxiety, it was fear,” Ignatius said. “It was a blow to the dignity they had acquired in the process of getting off these services. All they had done felt in vain if the only option was to quit their job, go back on welfare, or go to the unemployment line.”
Child care providers will also feel the impact, said Ritu Mahajan, an attorney with the Early Care and Education Law Project. She spoke to one child care provider who serves primarily low-income families. Eight of the 10 children at her center are subsidized by Stage 3.
Parents and advocates are hoping that the delay in cuts will buy parents time to find alternative child care services. But there’s already such a high demand for child care – an estimated 200,000 children are on the waiting lists in California.
When the Stage 3 funding disappears at the end of the year, Los Angeles County alone will add its load of 20,000 Stage 3 children to that list.
“We don’t anticipate that all 56,000 children in the state will get care,” said Rodgers. “We know there aren’t enough openings.”
In the meantime, state departments must figure out how to fund the program until the end of the year. McLean, with the Department of Education, said where the funding will come from is still unclear.
Palmer, with the Department of Finance, said $34 million will come from loans from the First 5 commissions and another $6 million will come from the Assembly’s operating budget.
McLean said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell is committed to coming up with a solution to restore long-term funding to the Stage 3 program.
“We believe that child care services for families who are working hard to get on their feet are important,” she said.
If the program’s funding is restored, Stage 3 recipients who ended up finding other child care are entitled to return to the program.
“Stage 3 was the best thing ever. You become more self-reliant. Taking this away is like a handicap. It’s like a cruel joke,” said Al’Ghaffaar. “Our tax dollars pay for millions of different things. Why can’t one of them be helping ourselves?”
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