BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 192 (Liu) - Child Care: Early Learning and Educational
Support Services
Amended: April 16, 2013 Policy Vote: Education 7-1
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 23, 2013 Consultant: Jacqueline
Wong-Hernandez
SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED.
Bill Summary: SB 192 modifies statutory staffing ratios, and
expands the definition of migrant agricultural worker family.
This bill requires the consolidation of early education program
contracts, changes terminology from "child care and development"
to "early learning and educational support", and requires
information to be provided to parents seeking early education
and care services regarding options for high-quality early
education and learning support programs and services.
Fiscal Impact (as approved on May 23, 2013):
Consolidation of contracts: Potentially substantial loss of
state savings, likely millions of dollars annually, as well
as minor administrative costs to the CDE. May create
additional cost pressure on Proposition 98 funds, by
effectively lifting the restriction on their use only for
part-day pre-school. See staff comments.
Expansion of "migrant family" definition: Unknown,
potentially substantial loss of savings to the extent that
more families become eligible for Migrant Child Care and
Development services (MCCs).
Conforming existing regulations: CDE anticipates minor
costs of up to $20,000 to conform existing regulations to
statute amended in this bill.
Codified legislative intent language: This bill
significantly expands codified legislative intent language
concerning programmatic expansion, state-supported staff
training, compensation and incentives, and the
implementation of a quality rating system; creates cost
pressure to implement declared intentions.
Background: The state's system of child care and early education
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programs include: a) General Child Care and Development
programs; b) the California State Preschool Program consisting
of State Preschool, Prekindergarten and Family Literacy, and
center-based general child care; c) MCCs, serving children of
agricultural workers; d) Resource and Referral programs; e)
Alternative Payment Programs, which help parents arrange child
care services and make payments directly to the provider; e)
Child Care and Development Services for Children with Special
Needs; f) Family Child Care Home Education Networks, which
support educational objectives for children in licensed family
child care homes; and, g) Infant and Toddler programs.
Proposed Law: SB 192 reorganizes and recasts provisions of the
Child Care and Development Services Act, administered by the
SPI, as the Early Learning and Educational Support Act, and
establishes as its purpose providing a comprehensive early
learning and school support system that promotes access to safe,
high-quality early learning and educational support programs, as
specified. This bill would require the SPI to administer the
early learning and educational support program through services
that include direct classroom or alternative payment services,
and would require the SPI to develop standards for the
implementation of high-quality early learning and educational
support programs based on certain indicia of quality, including,
but not limited to, educators who foster school readiness,
healthy development, and improved child outcomes, who possess
the appropriate and required educational qualifications and
experience, including credentials or permits, as required by the
Commission on Teacher Credentialing, and who meet applicable
licensing standards.
The bill would further require the CDE to develop and certify a
list of high-quality early learning and educational support
resources and to post the list on the department's website, and
would also require certain information to be given to parents
who receive services from resource and referral programs and
alternative payment programs. This bill also make various
changes to conform statute to existing practices and policies.
Staff Comments: This bill makes numerous changes to existing law
governing various state-supported child care programs. Some of
these changes are technical, or meant to update statute to
reflect existing practice, while others are more substantive
changes with significant fiscal implications.
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This bill expands the definition of migrant agricultural worker
family, by changing it from "a family that has earned at least
50% of its gross income" as specified, to "a family with at
least one parent that has earned at least 50 percent of his or
her income from employment in fishing, agriculture, or
agriculturally related work during the 12-month period
immediately preceding the date of application for child care and
development early learning and educational support services."
This change expands the number of families eligible for MCCs, in
order to allow child care contractors to spend more of their
allocated contract funds. This bill also allows contractors to
spend any remaining MCC funds in their contracts, after serving
migrant families, on nonmigrant families who are otherwise
eligible for services. While this authorized expansion of
allowable expenditures would occur within a contract allocation
and within the total program amount already budgeted, it will
reduce the amount of unspent funds that otherwise revert back to
the General Fund.
This bill consolidates every CDE classroom-based child care
program into one, for contract purposes. In other words, child
care providers could spend what are currently distinct
programmatic funds (in respective contracts) on child care for
multiple populations of eligible children. Allowing child care
providers to spread that funding across populations will likely
reduce state savings in unspent funds; currently, millions of
dollars are unspent annually and revert back to the General Fund
or the Proposition 98 reversion account, depending on the
source.
This bill also lifts the existing restriction on the use of
Proposition 98 General Fund for child care, which currently only
funds part-day pre-school. Contract consolidation of programs
that are currently funded in two distinct ways in the Budget
(especially coupled with the bill's language shift from child
care "programs" to "services") blurs the budgetary and
programmatic line between Proposition 98 General Fund and other
General Fund money spent on child care, because it allows funds
to be spread across populations and services. Funding
flexibility coupled with an expansion of child care programs
(including increasing staffing ratios and child eligibility for
pre-school services) could create cost pressure on Proposition
98 dollars to fund several child care programs. Any additional
Proposition 98 funds diverted to child care directly trade off
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with funding for other K-12 purposes.
This bill alters existing, and adds new codified legislative
intent language specific to program expansion, staff training,
and salary-related expenditures. While this language does not
have the force of law, it creates cost pressure to fund the
Legislature's stated intent to expand programs, services, and
personnel resources in various ways outlined in the language.
The committee amendments would remove all new codified
legislative intent language.