The good news:
In his budget, the Governor noted that all the hard work we did to make sure voters approved Prop. 30 brings an end to the annual cycle of vicious cuts to child care services. Previous cuts have left more than 300,000 children on waiting lists, leaving thousands of parents without the ability to go to work or school in order to rebuild their lives financially.
“I salute the unions—their members and their leaders. You showed what ordinary people can do when they are united and organized.”
Governor Brown in his State of the State address
But it’s not enough:
Yes, that’s really good news. But now that California is no longer in a budget deficit, we must take serious action to rebuild our broken child care system, which has absorbed $1 billion in cuts since 2008. Failing to do so will be a missed opportunity that will hurt thousands of working families who rely on child care to go to work each day.
And there are still serious concerns:
Our leaders are carefully reviewing some policy changes that the Governor included in his budget proposal which again introduce his idea for shifting child care from the state to the counties. As we noted last year, this raises serious concerns about maintaining program quality without the guarantee that money allocated for child care services would be spent on child care services.
Stay tuned for our plan of action, because when we fight for children and families…we win!
