NAEYC Children’s Champions Update

March 20, 2006

*SENATE REJECTS ADMINISTRATION BUDGET BUT PASSES A BUDGET THAT REMAINS VERY TIGHT FOR CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS
*FEDERAL CHILD CARE BUREAU REORGANIZATION PROPOSAL GETS CONGRESSIONAL ATTENTION

SENATE BUDGET RESOLUTION PASSES NARROWLY
On Thursday March 16, the Senate passed its Budget Resolution, setting the blueprint for federal spending for the coming fiscal year by a very close vote: 51 to 49. While there was a positive amendment for education, health, and labor programs passed by a vote of 73 to 27 that rejected the Administration’s proposed cuts in those areas of discretionary spending, the overall final Budget Resolution continues to make it hard to make the investments in child care, Head Start, education, health care, and other vital services that are needed for their success in school and in life. To see the vote on the amendments and the final passage of the Senate’s Budget Resolution (S. Con. Res. 83), please go to http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_109_2.htm.

Thank you for all your calls and emails, and to the 125 NAEYC affiliate leaders who visited their members of Congress on Capitol Hill last Thursday to be a voice for a fair and responsible budget for children and families.

The bipartisan amendment by Senators Specter (R-PA) and Harkin (D-IA) to restore the $7 billion to the fiscal year 2007 budget that otherwise would be cut from programs in the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and Labor. The $7 billion was offset, or paid for, by an advance on fiscal year 2008’s budget. Although the successful amendment does not provide more an increase over last year, it does send a strong message that the Senate wants to avoid dramatic cuts in those program areas.

The House Budget Committee is expected to mark up its version of the Budget Resolution next week, and it is anticipated that it will have lower levels for spending than the Senate version.

FEDERAL CHILD CARE BUREAU REORGANIZATION PROPOSED
On February 22, 2006, Secretary Leavitt of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent to Congress a letter outlining his proposal to reorganize the Administration on Children & Families. The chart of offices does not include the Child Care Bureau and its Associate Commissioner. Instead, the Child Care Bureau would be consolidated into the Office of Family Assistance, which handles the TANF (welfare) program. The Head Start Bureau would be moved directly under the Assistant Secretary in the reorganization plan. Nearly 300 organizations wrote to Secretary Leavitt urging him to maintain a distinct Child Care Bureau and to keep its focus on low-income working families as well as TANF families, and to ensure that the quality initiatives under the Child Care Bureau would not be diminished. Last week, a bipartisan letter from Senators Enzi, Kennedy, Alexander and Dodd and Representatives McKeon, G.Miller, Castle, Woolsey, Keller, Kildee and Regula was sent to Secretary Leavitt expressing concerns about the reorganization. The letter states: “However, before you proceed with this part of the Department’s reorganization plan, we respectfully encourage you to consider its consequences – intended and unintended – on the future direction of activities to improve access to child care and the quality of early care and education programs available to families. Of greatest importance, we ask you to assure us that any reorganization not narrow the population of children and families who benefit from CCDBG or lose the Child Care Bureau’s focus on promoting quality early education and child care.”