BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1897|
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Bill No: SB 1897
Author: Burton (D)
Amended: 6/29/04
Vote: 21
SENATE HEALTH & HUMAN SERV. COMMITTEE : 9-3, 4/21/04
AYES: Ortiz, Alarcon, Chesbro, Escutia, Figueroa, Florez,
Kuehl, Romero, Vasconcellos
NOES: Aanestad, Ashburn, Battin
NO VOTE RECORDED: Vincent
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 8-4, 5/20/04
AYES: Alpert, Bowen, Burton, Escutia, Karnette, Machado,
Murray, Speier
NOES: Battin, Aanestad, Ashburn, Poochigian
NO VOTE RECORDED: Johnson
SENATE FLOOR : 22-11, 5/26/04
AYES: Alpert, Bowen, Burton, Cedillo, Chesbro, Ducheny,
Dunn, Escutia, Florez, Karnette, Kuehl, Machado, Murray,
Ortiz, Perata, Romero, Scott, Soto, Speier, Torlakson,
Vasconcellos, Vincent
NOES: Aanestad, Ackerman, Battin, Brulte, Denham,
Hollingsworth, Margett, McClintock, Morrow, Oller,
Poochigian
NO VOTE RECORDED: Alarcon, Ashburn, Figueroa, Johnson,
McPherson, Sher
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : Not available
SUBJECT : Child care reform
CONTINUED
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SOURCE : American Federation of State, County and
Municipal
Employees
United Child Care Union
DIGEST : This bill contains a number of child care reform
measures: (1) concerning the collection of data by the
California Department of Education to assess subsidized and
unsubsidized child care supply and demand as specified, (2)
creation of a task force to develop and submit to the
Legislature a Child Care and Development Workforce
Development Plan, (3) states legislative intent concerning
the issue of a uniform rate for child care centers and
family day care services, and (4) states legislative intent
concerning the establishment of provider employment pools.
Assembly amendments : (1) require the Superintendent of
Public Instruction's recommendations to the Legislature to
include a recommendation on the most effective means to
collect from family provider child care employees
"educational and training attainment and linguistic
capabilities" and, (2) make a clarifying change.
ANALYSIS : Existing law:
1. Establishes licensure for child care centers and family
child care homes. "Family child care" is provided by
someone who resides in the home where care is provided.
2. Establishes a child care planning council in each county
responsible for assessing and prioritizing the need for
care.
3. Establishes the child care resource and referral program
and requires each contractor who provides resource and
referral services to maintain and report statistics on
supply and demand for care.
4. Requires the state's children and families commission
(California First Five) to adopt and periodically review
and revise guidelines that address the availability and
provision of child care services.
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5. Requires each county children and families commission to
adopt and periodically revise a strategic plan for the
support and improvement of early childhood development
within the county, and to report annually on or before
October 15 on the implementation and achievement of
program goals and objectives.
6. Requires the state children and families commission to
consolidate reports from county children and families
commissions with its own measures of performance, and to
issue an annual report by January 31 of each year.
7. Requires the state children and families commission to
maintain an account for research and development
relating to early childhood development; three percent
of the special tobacco tax revenue is deposited in this
account.
8. Requires the state children and families commission to
maintain an account for child care issues, including
education and training and the development of
educational materials and guidelines for child care;
three percent of the special tobacco tax revenue is
deposited in this account.
9. Requires the State Department of Education (SDE) to
write a state plan for child care and development
services, including information on training activities,
to submit that plan to the federal government, and to
revise it every two years.
10.Establishes family child care networks as one form of
contract for the provision of subsidized care (under
this rubric, a group of licensed family child care homes
contracts with the state to provide child care to
eligible children from low-income families).
11.Establishes a reimbursement system for subsidized child
care with the following features:
A. Parents can choose a licensed center or family
child care home, and the state reimburses the provider
the same rate that the provider charges a family who
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is not subsidized (up to a ceiling established by
state law).
B. Parents can choose a provider who is not required
to be licensed (usually a relative or a neighbor or a
friend), and the state reimburses that provider a rate
set within each county based on the mean cost of
licensed care within that county.
C. Parents can enroll their child or children in a
center or a network of family child care homes that
has a direct contract with SDE; child care in these
programs is reimbursed at a daily rate established in
the contract; for most contractors, that daily rate is
the Standard Reimbursement Rate, set in statute and
adjusted by the Legislature to reflect changes in the
cost of living.
D. The daily rate of direct contractors is adjusted by
statutory formula for infants, for school-aged
children, for children with disabilities, for children
who are at risk of abuse or neglect, for children who
have limited English proficiency, and for children who
spend less than 6 hours per day in care or more than
8.5 hours per day in care - these are called
adjustment factors (see Education Code Sections 8265.5
and 8266.1).
This bill:
1. Makes several declarations of legislative intent
including ensuring a link between program quality and
public reimbursements for child care, and ensuring that
child care providers have access to employment supports
that provide for improvement of quality standards.
2. Assigns to the child development division of SDE the
responsibility to assess supply and demand for
subsidized and unsubsidized child care in California and
report the assessment to the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI).
3. Directs the division when conducting the first study of
supply and demand to collect aggregate and provide
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information (see #4 below) to the Superintendent of
Public Instruction. The division is required to utilize
information gathered by resource and referral agencies,
local child care planning councils, alternative payment
providers, the University of California, and other
entities.
4. Provides details of what this assessment of supply and
demand shall include: types of care, types of
providers, cost and quality of care, needs of working
families who are eligible for subsidized care but remain
unserved, needs of other working families, availability
of care to special populations of children and families,
the availability and types of care for families that may
want or need linguistically appropriate child care, and
urban and rural care.
5. Directs the SPI to provide this assessment of supply and
demand to the Legislature, along with recommendations
based on the assessment.
6. Provides details of what the SPI's recommendations to
the Legislature shall cover: primarily related to the
needs of working families and ways to increase access to
care of high quality, linguistically appropriate child
care and to families in urban and rural areas.
7. Requires the recommendations to include a recommendation
on the most effective means for the department to
collect from all employers of center or family provider
child care employees, each employee's length of tenure,
qualifications, and educational and training attainment
and linguistic capabilities. (Programs for school-aged
children, operating at a school site, serving children
from that school, and administered by school personnel
rather than by an outside organization are exempt from
licensure.)
8. Directs the SPI to consult, while developing the
assessment of supply and demand, with an advisory group
comprised of parents, providers, experts, the state
Department of Social Services (DSS), and representatives
of child care support entities.
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9. Requires the child development division within SDE, to
the extent resources are available, to convene a task
force that shall submit to the Legislature on or before
January 1, 2006, a child care and development workforce
development plan.
10.Prescribes the membership of the task force that shall
produce the workforce development plan: ex-officio
membership from various state agencies, the California
Child Care Resource and Referral Network, and
representatives of the following:
A. Parents of children in subsidized and unsubsidized
child care center and family child care settings.
B. Community-based programs that provide child care
and development training.
C. Private colleges providing child care and
development training.
D. Employee organizations that represent child care
workers and operate staff training programs.
E. Providers of family child care services and center
based teachers who are consumers of training and
development programs.
F. Early child care and education experts.
G. Child care center administrators, including
part-day programs, Head Start, and the state preschool
program.
H. Local child care planning councils.
I. Local First Five commissions.
1. Prescribes the elements to be covered by the workforce
development plan, including expectations of staff
competencies, career ladders and a registry of child
care workers, strategies for recruiting and retaining
instructional staff, methods to publicize training
opportunities, methods to assess caregivers' access to
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training and professional development, and a procedure
for assessing the plan's impact and its amendment every
five years.
2. Expresses legislative intent to reform the current
reimbursement system for subsidized child care to link
fees to the private child care market; to establish
special rates for children based on their age, time in
care, and demonstrated special needs; and, to provide
incentives to meet standards of high quality.
3. Expresses legislative intent to establish, by July 1,
2006, "regional quality provider pools" for family child
care providers who choose to join the pool.
4. Authorizes each quality provider pool to operate a
substitute registry for family child care providers.
5. Authorizes each quality provider pool to join with child
care centers to form consortia for the purposes of
efficiencies in administration and purchase of benefits
for family child care providers and child care
employees.
6. Provides that the bill shall not be operative if, during
the 2003-04 Regular Session, legislation is enacted that
creates a workforce development task force and the task
force is charged with addressing the elements required
to be included in the plan developed by this bill.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee (5/24/04
amended version), cost to the General Fund of $20,000 in
2004-05 and $40,000 in 2005-06 and 2006-07.
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/12/04)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees (co-source)
United Child Care Union (co-source)
Family Child Care Association of San Francisco
Humboldt Family Child Care Association
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California Child Development Corporation
OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/12/04)
Child Development Policy Institute
Department of Finance
CP:nl 8/12/04 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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