$4.4 Million Budget Cut Could Affect Child Care

By Jonathan Saltzman
Boston Globe
November 24, 2009

Thousands of children in Massachusetts risk losing subsidized child care services because of a $4.4 million budget cut that Governor Deval Patrick has made, according to the head of a Boston-based antipoverty group that helps arrange the services.

John J. Drew, president and chief executive of Action for Boston Community Development Inc., said a cut announced last month by the governor imperils services to 57,000 low-income children statewide, including 12,000 served by his agency.

“I just get tired of trying to balance the budget on the backs of poor women and kids,’’ Drew said, with frustration in his voice, in an interview yesterday. “It’s just ridiculous.’’

He said he has implored top officials in the Patrick administration - including Sherri R. Killins, commissioner of early education and care - to restore the funds. Nearly all the funding, he said, is federal money provided to the state and then distributed to antipoverty groups.

Killins, for her part, said late yesterday that the state has restored $1 million cut from the budget, which Drew disputes, and has told the antipoverty groups they can apply for another $1 million in federal stimulus funds if they manage the child care program more efficiently. One of those efficiencies would be transferring certain administrative responsibilities to child care centers.

“There is no need for any kids to lose day care, absolutely not,’’ she said.

The dispute revolves around a federal child care block grant that enables 14 antipoverty groups to write vouchers totaling $268 million for 57,000 children, most of whose families are on welfare. The money pays more than 6,000 private child care providers to provide services around the state.

Drew said that the antipoverty groups got an additional $9.78 million this year to pay staff to administer the programs, verify eligibility, and write the vouchers. But Patrick cut that by $4.4 million in the middle of the fiscal year that began in July, leaving many of the groups in the lurch, he said.

As a result of the cut, Drew said, antipoverty groups around the state have already laid off about 100 employees, and Action for Boston Community Development may have to lay off most of the 20 people it employs to manage the program.

“It will wreak havoc with thousands of lives and come back to haunt the state economy as parents lose jobs and child care agencies shut down,’’ he said in a statement issued earlier. “We will see working parents return to the welfare rolls and homelessness increase as families miss rent payments.’’

On Nov. 5, he added, Action for Boston Community Development informed the 1,167 child care providers that it deals with that if the cuts are not restored, the antipoverty group might not have the staff to process families’ vouchers and providers’ payments after Dec. 1.

Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/24/44m_budget_cut_could_affect_child_care/

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