RECAP of the March EEC Board Meeting: Focus on Financial Assistance for Child Care
At Neighborhood Villages, we prioritize keeping up with the policy landscape in the early education and care field, both across the country and in Massachusetts. That includes tuning-in to the monthly meetings of the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care (“EEC Board”), to stay apprised of updates and to identify opportunities for how we can work with government and other stakeholders to improve our early education and care system.
The primary topics of this month’s Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) Board meeting were the budget and child care financial assistance. Here’s what you need to know…
If You Are a Provider:
The next Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) Operations Grant Survey will be available at the end of April. These surveys are required of providers who receive C3 grant funds. These surveys have been a crucial source of data regarding the impact of direct-to-provider grant funds and have provided a valuable look at Massachusetts’ early education and child care sector, generally! Learn more about how C3 grant funds are being used here.
Governor Healey’s Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) budget proposal of $1.5 billion for early education and care included, amongst other key investments, $475 million for C3 operations grants. The Governor’s budget also included $20 million for a rate increase for center-based and family child care providers, which annualizes the $80 million provider rate increases implemented earlier this year.
The Governor’s FY24 budget proposal doubled funding for the Commonwealth Preschool Partnerships Initiative (CPPI) from $15 million to $30 million.
If You Are An Educator:
The application for the Early Childhood Educators (ECE) scholarship program, which provides tuition assistance for early educators seeking postsecondary degrees, will be available on April 1st. This scholarship is provided in collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, to help early educators obtain a college degree.
The pilot program for educator financial assistance (for enrolling their children in care) remains open. As of the March Board meeting, 277 children of early educators are enrolled in care with financial support through the pilot. Another 697 children are in pre-enrollment. In addition, EEC has signed agreements with 119 new providers to participate in the subsidy system. The addition of these programs effectively expands the pool of providers that are able to serve children with financial assistance.
If You Are a Family:
The Governor’s FY24 budget proposal of $1.5 billion for the early education and care sector included $798 million to support access to financial assistance for families, including those receiving services or supports from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) or the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA). The Governor also proposed an additional $25 million to expand access to financial assistance for families currently on the waitlist. With these funds, the administration’s goal is to increase the caseload of children served with financial assistance from 52,000 to 55,000.
EEC estimates that there are approximately 20,000 families currently on the waitlist for child care financial assistance. The Department notes that this data is flawed and hope to learn more and reach a more precise number through a clean-up of the waitlist. They will be surveying families currently on the waitlist – via text and email – to try and collect information about families’ current status. In the meantime, the application for financial assistance has recently been digitized and is available in 10 languages.
If You Are a Child Care Stakeholder or Advocate:
As part of child care financial assistance reform work, EEC is re-procuring child care resource and referral (CCR&R) services. CCR&Rs connect eligible families with financial assistance and help them enroll in child care. EEC hoped to have the request for proposals (RFP) posted before the March Board meeting; the RFP was not posted by the time of the meeting, but should be posted imminently.
Child Care Financial Assistance regulations are closed to public comment. The revised regulations remain under review and EEC anticipates that they will be voted on prior to the April Board meeting. Common recommendations from public comments that were submitted included: reducing reporting requirements for families and broadening the scope of acceptable eligibility documentation; enabling payment by enrollment for providers; expanding review and appeal rights for parents; including eligibility for some SNAP recipients; clarifying educational service need eligibility; and defining domestic violence as a new service need.
