1. BUDGET ITEMS IN EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION

Governor Doyle signed the new state budget for 2007-09 on November 1, 2007. The final compromise bill has some key provisions on early care and education.   The Early Learning Coalition was very active throughout the budget process and was able to convince legislators and the Governor to support these early care and education budget items.

• Wisconsin Shares -- a $69 million increase over the base, and $65 million than the Governor's original budget. The budget does not authorize waiting lists, and it does not change eligibility levels. Child care provider payment rates are essentially frozen at 2006 levels, and there are no statutory changes to absence policy or co-pay, where DWD has the ability to address policy by rule.

• 4K Start-up -- The Governor's proposal for $3 million in 4K start-up is included, with preference for community approaches.

• Child Care Quality -- The Joint Finance/Senate version was approved, which provides a minimum of (a) $3,475,000 annually for the child care scholarship and bonus program (an annual increase of $200,000), (b) $1,225,000 annually for child care resource and referral (maintained current funding), and (c) $4,800,600 for child care licensing. The overall package cuts $1,829,200 from base funding for child care quality.
  

Other related budget items include:

• New Department of Children and Families - DWD child care and DHFS child care licensing would be part of the new Department, which is effective July 2008

• Badger Care Plus - A major expansion of Badger Care was included, covering many more children and families

• School Breakfast - Higher reimbursement rates

• SAGE - $27 million for smaller class sizes in elementary schools

• Child Care Tax Deduction - Will begin to be phased in starting 2009.

WCCF has prepared a detailed summary of items in the budget compromise that impact our state's children & families in the following areas: Health Care, K-12 education, Early Care & Education, W-2/TANF, Juvenile Justice & Child Welfare, and Other Property Tax Relief. For this detailed summary, click here.

For the Legislative Fiscal Bureau summary of the final budget, go to: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lfb/2007-09budget/Conference%20Committee/tableofcontents.htm

2. ABSENCE POLICY WITHDRAWN

On October 24 the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) withdrew their request to extend an emergency rule on underutilized authorizations, often referred to as "the absence policy". A key feature of the rule required that payments to child care providers would be only for days attended if a child attended less than 50 percent of authorized hours in a week.

The rule had been controversial. In fact, the Joint Finance Committee during the budget process had recommended replacing the policy with an alternative proposed by the Wisconsin Early Learning Coalition. The Coalition favored an approach that tracked use of authorizations and reduced hours when there was a pattern of underuse, rather than reducing payments that providers were anticipating.

At the end of the budget process, the budget bill was silent on this policy. The withdrawal of the DWD rule appears to end the "underutilization" policy that had been implemented under emergency rule authority. Stay tuned to see if another proposal is in the offing.