Ahead of Illinois’ midterm and gubernatorial elections next month, in a recent survey, voters across the state made it clear that they want to see increased attention towards early childhood services. In fact, the vast majority of survey respondents believe that investing in early childhood education and care is a good use of taxpayer dollars – and most would even be willing to pay more in taxes to fund it.

Start Early conducted this latest survey on behalf of state advocates to measure the level of support for early education among voters. The results were unequivocal – Illinois voters value early childhood education and care and want to see government action.

Eight in 10 voters say investing in early childhood education and care is a good use of taxpayer dollars. Among key groups like Black voters (55%) and those in Chicago’s suburbs (53%), a majority believe it to be a very good use of tax dollars. A majority of voters (56%), including nearly 75% of Black voters, went even further to say they are willing to pay a little more in taxes if it meant the state had better services for families with young children.

While partisanship continues to divide voters in many other policy areas, the survey’s findings also demonstrated that the early childhood education and care discussion goes far beyond political lines: 90% of Democrats, 73% of Independents and 70% of Republicans support government action and investment in early childhood programs and services.

Home to approximately 800,000 children under age 5, Illinois has a prominent history of investing in early care and education, spanning four decades under leadership of both Republican and Democratic state administrations. As the state prepares for its midterm elections, most timely is the survey’s bipartisan finding that most voters (70%) would feel more favorably towards a candidate who prioritizes an increase in funding for early childhood services.

“While Illinois has long been at the forefront of early learning and care innovations and investments, our system, like that of most states, has its challenges and real shortcomings,” Start Early Vice President of Illinois Policy Ireta Gasner says. “Without decisive action by our elected Governor and state legislators, critical components of the system will collapse – leaving countless young children and those who care for them behind.”

Decades of research have proven that quality early childhood programs can help break the cycle of poverty for generations to come and can change the trajectory of a child’s life toward healthy development and success. Yet, families – particularly those in communities left under-served – continue to face impossible challenges in accessing such early learning experiences.

As Illinois works to mitigate these challenges, often brought on by systematic inequities, voters reported that funding services for children experiencing homelessness and for children with disabilities or developmental delays should be priority focus areas of the state. Voters also ranked early childhood services as the second most important way to address the root causes of crime, a traumatic reality for far too many young children.

Start Early and its advocate partners across the state are passionately working to advance transformational change of the early childhood system in order to reach families and those who provide early learning services. This powerful survey data reaffirms that Illinois voters share advocates’ desires, and offers policymakers a renewed opportunity this upcoming legislative session to redouble efforts to make early learning a reality for all young children.

Conducted in partnership with Global Strategy Group, the survey of 609 registered voters in Illinois took place between September 8 – 12, 2022, and an intentional focus was placed on ensuring diverse demographic and geographic representation among voters. Interviews were conducted over the phone and text to web.

Our Capitol Ambassador Ollie eagerly awaits the return of people.
(Photo Credit: Erica Hallock)

As we get further into fall, we see an uptick in activity that will influence the 2023 legislative session. Of course, one of the biggest influencers will be the Nov. 8 General Election and the subsequent leadership and legislative committee assignment decisions. Be on the lookout for a detailed analysis of upcoming changes following the election. In the meantime, this edition features timely updates.

Legislative Work Sessions

As part of the gear-up for the 2023 legislative session, legislative committees held a number of work sessions in the last few weeks. An interesting aspect of the preelection meetings is they include the sitting lawmakers, some of whom may not be returning in 2023.

Senate Ways and Means Committee

On Sept. 27, the Senate Ways and Means held the first in-person committee meeting since March 2020. I think it would be fair to say both lawmakers and audience members were excited to be back together.

Among the agenda items was a presentation by State Auditor staff regarding the audit of the state’s receipt and usage of federal dollars. It is not a surprise to see this review given that the state received billions of federal dollars to address pandemic-related items.

Of note for early learning, the State Auditor representatives discussed their finding that $293.2 million of the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant funds were “unauditable” due to the Department of Children, Youth and Families’ accounting practices which limited the State Auditor’s ability to access the level of detail needed to determine if funds were spent appropriately.

Following the State Auditor staff’s presentation, DCYF Secretary Ross Hunter responded (starting at around 1:30), noting that DCYF’s current Information Technology system needs an update to provide the level of detail required for more detailed auditing. Importantly, Secretary Hunter emphasized that DCYF did not receive any significant findings related to eligibility determination.

Secretary Hunter committed to working with the State Auditor; his agency submitted a decision package to provide the Information Technology investment needed to support the requested level of accounting detail.

House Children, Youth and Families Committee

On Oct. 11, the House Children, Youth and Families Committee held a work session focused on:

• Early learning programs for children with special needs or who have experienced trauma.
• Updates from DCYF on the Complex Needs Grants, Working Connections Child Care special needs rates and the Infant Child Mental Health Child Care Consultation program.
• Updates from OSPI on Inclusive Transitional Kindergarten Grants.

Each of the presentations linked above contain excellent background and data on the various programs, and the meeting video is worth a watch. The work session highlighted not only general confusion over the varying goals and target populations for the programs, but also the challenge for families in securing needed supports and care. We can expect these conversations to continue into the legislative session.

Joint Committee on Employment Relations

You are probably wondering why an early learning related newsletter includes an update about a rather obscure legislative committee related to state employment. I actually have a good answer for that!

The Oct. 13 meeting of this Joint Committee received an update detailing the estimated costs and themes of the various collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). This bargaining not only involves state employees but also includes higher education employees, state and K-12 education health care expenses and non-state employee groups of family child care, adult family home and language access providers. These collective bargaining agreements will be included in the 2023-25 biennial budget and with the state’s revenue picture tightening (See Sept. 29 Notes From Olympia), the price tag of these agreements will impact the availability of funding for other investments.

In short, the estimated costs of all the CBAs totals $2.24 billion, with $1.401 billion of that amount from the state General Fund. Like nearly every other sector, state government is challenged to recruit and retain its broad and diverse workforce. These agreements aim to address staffing shortages – especially in high priority areas such as hospitals, ferries and state institutions – by providing overall wage increases, various retention bonuses and premium pay/lump-sum payments for employees working in institutions and other high-risk positions.

Family Child Care Providers. As noted above, the state also bargains with Family Child Care providers and that agreement totals $217 million from the state General Fund to support 3,612 providers. This agreement increases the cost-of-care rate to $2100/month for providers accepting subsidy; increases the Working Connections Child Care subsidy rate to the 85th percentile of the 2021 market rate survey; removes the cost of background checks; and increases the hourly rate for Family Friend and Neighbor providers from $3.00 to $3.85 as of July 1, 2023 and up to an hourly rate of $4.00 on July 1, 2024.

What Comes Next? Following the November Economic and Revenue Forecast, the Director of the Office of Financial Management will make a “financial feasibility determination” (meaning – can the state afford these agreements?). After that decision, the agreements will be included in the Governor’s proposed budget, and then the decision moves to the legislative arena. Note that collective bargaining agreements are given an “up or down” vote. This is one of the few areas where the Legislature does not negotiate nor get the opportunity to make changes.

Minimum Wage Increasing January 2023

On Sept. 30, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries announced the hourly minimum wage will increase to $15.74 as of January 2023. This represents an hourly increase of $1.25, or 8.66%.

The 2016 initiative approved by Washington state voters calls for the Department of Labor and Industries to adjust the hourly minimum wage based on changes to the Consumer Price Index. With this increase, Washington will have the highest state minimum wage in the country.

Updated Summary of Decision Packages

Start Early Washington recently updated its summary document detailing early learning related decision packages submitted to the Office of Financial Management for consideration in the Governor’s 2023-25 biennial budget. The update includes a $5.046 million Capital Budget request from the Department of Commerce to support facility costs for early learning programs at six school districts. Our Sept. 30 Notes From Olympia contains more detail on the decision package process.

Each year the Illinois General Assembly passes legislation that can have an impact on families, or the organizations in our communities providing early childhood or related supportive services to families. Start Early leads on some of these legislative changes, often in coalition with others, and in other cases we contribute our early childhood lens and expertise to support the efforts of another lead organization. The 2022 Legislative Summary provides a listing of those bills that became law in the spring 2022 session that we thought would be relevant to families with young children and the field.  We hope that this is a resource you will download and share with colleagues and families alike. We are happy to provide additional information about any of these initiatives or connect you with other advocates where needed. Initiatives that were led by Start Early are marked “*”. 

The 2022 Illinois Policy Accomplishments report details progress we helped the state achieve toward advancing our Illinois Policy Agenda. In some places, Start Early may have led a charge, in other places we contributed research and advocacy to help advance shared goals of many stakeholders. While many challenges remain to be solved in our fragmented early learning system, this year’s report details the many ways that tangible progress is being made to improve the experience of families and children and providers.

In Illinois, Start Early engages on a variety of topics of importance to the well-being of expecting families, infants, toddlers, their families and professionals who support their healthy development.

Advocating with state agencies, elected officials, and working in partnership with providers, fellow advocates and parents, we work to advance our Illinois Policy Agenda. Work is currently underway for a refresh of our policy agenda to reflect our priorities for the next four years. More updates to come on this exciting work underway at Start Early.

We are excited to publish and offer two new resources relating to policy changes and progress toward longer-term changes that were achieved in Fiscal Year 22.

The Illinois Policy, 2023 Accomplishments report details progress we helped the state achieve toward advancing our Illinois Policy Agenda. In some places, Start Early may have led a charge, in other places we contributed research and advocacy to help advance shared goals of many stakeholders. While many challenges remain to be solved in our fragmented early learning system, this year’s report details the many ways that tangible progress is being made to improve the experience of families and children and providers.

The Capitol campus on a gorgeous September morning.
(Photo Credit: Erica Hallock)

A Reminder …

Start Early Washington publishes “Notes From Olympia” periodically throughout the legislative interim. This edition focuses on recently released state agency “decision packages,” a state revenue update and workforce challenges.

State Agency Decision Packages

Each September, state agencies submit decision packages detailing budget requests to the Governor’s Office of Financial Management (OFM). These decision packages (or “DPs” as commonly known) are used to build the Governor’s proposed budget that will be released in mid-to-late December. See Start Early Washington’s August 25, Notes From Olympia for further discussion on the DP process.

OFM established a dedicated website where every agency DP can be downloaded. Unfortunately, this website is clunky at best, and downloading each DP can be extremely time consuming (my grumbling may have been heard statewide).

Thankfully, the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) has been transparent about their DPs. They have held multiple stakeholder feedback sessions as their DPs were under development as well as a webinar to answer questions once the DPs were uploaded on the OFM website.

A full summary of the DPs most relevant for early learning issues is on our website. A few items of note:

• Looking across the variety of state agency DPs (broader than early learning), common themes emerge. These themes include advancing equity, providing direct funding to BIPOC-led organizations, targeted support to BIPOC and rural communities and increasing support to families (particularly in substance use disorder treatment services) to prevent out-of-home placement in the child welfare system.
• State law requires the adoption of four-year balanced budgets, so many of the DPs not only include requested spending for the upcoming 2023-25 biennium, but also for the subsequent biennium for state Fiscal Years 2025-27.
• You may find that not all the numbers add up perfectly in the finalized DPs, and that’s okay.
• DCYF organized many of their DPs into themes (e.g., Prevention, Child Care Access and Affordability), so their number of DPs is smaller than most other state agencies, but the grouped DPs often contain a larger number of requests. DCYF’s early learning budget requests total more than $1 billion in new funding for the 2023-25 biennium.

As the DP list is so long this year, we’ve summarized an analysis on our resource page. If you have a deep interest in a particular item, I recommend reading the DP as they include cost modeling and further explanation and detail. Feel free to reach out if you have questions or would like help navigating OFM’s unwieldy website.

State Revenue Update

On Sept. 21, the Washington State Economic and Revenue Council met to receive an update on the latest revenue figures from the state’s economist Dr. Steve Lerch.

In the current 2021-23 biennium, revenue is projected to exceed the June forecast by $43 million, bringing the 2021-23 budget to $65.999 billion.

For the upcoming 2023-25 biennium that begins July 1, 2023, revenue is projected to decline from the June forecast by $495 million. Even with this projected decrease, the 2023-25 budget is projected to exceed the 2021-23 budget by $2.313 billion, with a projected biennial budget of $65.504 billion for 2023-25.

You may be asking, what is contributing to the slowing revenue? It comes down to three primary challenges:

1. Decreasing personal income is leading to slower retail sales.
2. Washington construction is slowing at a rate faster than projected.
3. Interest rate hikes are slowing real estate activity, impacting real estate tax collections.

Finally, there was apparently a significant Board of Tax Appeal decision that reduced expected revenue in 2023-25 by $117 million.

A reporter asked the Governor’s Budget Director David Schumacher how the slowing revenue projections would impact the budget Governor Inslee will release in December. Director Schumacher responded by noting the Legislature left a healthy reserve that should help mitigate the blow of federal stimulus dollars concluding.

Per state budget documents, the Legislature left an ending fund balance of $789M for the 2021-23 biennium and $83M for the 2023-25 biennium. Additionally, of the $4.428 billion the state received and deposited into the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund (CSFRF) in the State Treasury, $3.151 billion was appropriated ($1.0 billion in the transportation budget; $400 million in the capital budget; and $1.75 billion in the operating budget). The remaining $1.277 billion was not appropriated and remains available for use.

The next revenue forecast will be released Nov. 18. These numbers will inform the Governor’s budget.

State Employee Workforce

The word of the year is workforce, particularly in the health and human services sectors. Looking through the agency DPs, you can see efforts to increase contracts and provide wage adjustments to help with staffing critical jobs ranging from child care to ECEAP to nursing home staff to behavioral health staff.

At the Sept. 15 DCYF Oversight Board meeting, DCYF Secretary Ross Hunter discussed his agency’s efforts to address recruitment and retention. (Secretary Hunter’s remarks begin around the 2:00 mark). He noted this is a challenge crossing all state agencies as they face competition from the private sector, with compensation being the largest barrier. Secretary Hunter acknowledged this workforce issue extends to DCYF’s contracted partners.

For DCYF, Secretary Hunter noted the emotionally and physically difficult work in all its programs, especially with the acuity of youth served in juvenile rehabilitation. A particular challenge for state agencies is in the Information Technology (IT) sphere, with the average age of state employee IT staff exceeding 50 years of age. IT is an area where the private sector is more lucrative.

Secretary Hunter also noted the importance of offering a career pathway for his agency’s employees and highlighted the magnitude of change the agency employees have undergone, starting with the creation of the new agency, navigating a pandemic and implementing multiple new laws and policies.

A few days after Secretary Hunter’s presentation, the Spokesman Review reported on a tentative deal between the state and its largest public employee union, the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE). The agreement includes a 4% wage increase in SFY 23 and a 3% increase in SFY 24, a $1000 bonus for receiving a COVID-19 booster shot and a $1000 retention bonus for current employees who stay employed on July 1, 2023.

While no cost estimate has been made public yet, WFSE said this is the largest compensation increase in the union’s history. But, first, the agreement needs to be approved by the state and the union, and then it will go to the Legislature, where an up or down vote would approve it. This is one of many Collective Bargaining Agreements the state is negotiating.

I raise this agreement because it will likely result in a significant price tag and, with slowing state revenues, competition for resources will be great. The policy question of workforce may be THE issue facing lawmakers when they gather in Olympia on January 9, 2023. Without people to perform mission critical work, the state will be challenged in serving Washingtonians in many areas.

What Will the 2023 Legislative Session Look Like?

While there has not been formal communication about the structure of the 2023 legislative session, we will likely see a return to in-person campus activity with continued ability to participate virtually.

The House of Representatives sent out communication last week stating that its December committee meetings will be in-person, with its hearing rooms equipped for hybrid participation and the Senate is holding work sessions this week from hearing rooms (with hybrid participation).

More to come …

Hello from my friend Ollie. He gets very happy when his human takes him for walks on the Capitol campus. He’s kindly offered to show us interesting spots when trivia resumes in January. (Photo Credit: Ollie’s mom, Pam Toal)

Next week, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is holding the first 2 of 3 fall budget hearings, the first step in determining next year’s proposed education budget for the state. These hearings provide the early childhood advocacy community an opportunity to help shape the state’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget proposal. Please consider participating *virtually or in-person* in requesting a 20% increase in state funding for the Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG).

Here’s how you can participate in the ISBE budget hearing process:

1. Visit ISBE.net/BudgetRequestForm, and enter your name and contact information.
2. Choose the hearing you’ll attend or select the option for submitting a written testimony. Written requests must be received by ISBE no later than Oct. 26.
3. Under the “Add Program Request” drop-down menu select “Early Childhood Education”
4. Enter $119,627,620.00 under the “Additional Requested Funding” section.
5. Under the field that begins with “Please provide the Board with a description of your funding request,” you will need to put further detail on the 20% ask.

Upcoming Budget Hearings:

• Oct. 4, 4-7 p.m. CT (Virtual)
  Registration deadline is Sept. 29
• Oct. 6, 4-7 p.m. CT (In-Person, Springfield)
  Written funding request must be turned in by Oct. 4
  
• Oct. 24, 4-7 p.m. CT (Virtual)
  Registration deadline is Oct. 20

Register Now

Contact us if you plan to testify or have questions. Thank you for speaking up for children and families across the state!

The City of Chicago began its annual budget engagement in July, and the preliminary budget priorities presented to the public the last few weeks lacked any mention of investments in early care and education. After the elimination of investments in early learning from the federal reconciliation package, Chicago is left with no choice but to increase local investment to live up to its promise of being a world-class, culturally vibrant city that celebrates its diverse communities and values its families and children, Chicago’s future leaders. The pandemic has had a devastating impact on the economic well-being, health, and development of children and now is the time to double down on our efforts to support Chicago’s children and families as we continue to navigate through a time of recovery and rebuilding. That’s why a growing coalition of providers, advocates, and families are calling on the city to invest more in these critical programs and services.

As the largest federal investment in evidence-based home visiting services, the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program (MIECHV) is a key pillar in the continuum of services and systems that strengthen the parent-child relationship and connect families to vital community resources to support long-term healthy development and well-being. The MIECHV authorizing statute – the law that describes and authorizes the distribution of federal funds to states, territories, and Tribal grantees by the federal government – expires on September 30, 2022. Now more than ever, advocates need to reach out to their Representatives to elevate the importance of the program in Illinois and urge Congress to reauthorize MIECHV before it expires.

In Illinois, MIECHV funds are critical to the state’s robust home visiting system, enhancing decades of local and state investments in home visiting services. MIECHV funds direct services for nearly 3,000 parents and children in Illinois annually. These high-quality home visiting services help families achieve stronger outcomes in maternal and child health, family economic self-sufficiency, and school-readiness domains.

MIECHV also strengthens the broader Illinois home visiting system by supporting high-quality training and professional development opportunities for home visitors and doulas, promoting coordination across the various funding streams that support home visiting, and supports innovative approaches to improve the ability of home visiting services to support families with child welfare involvement, families experiencing homelessness, pregnant and parenting youth in the care of the child welfare system, and other priority communities.

MIECHV has benefited from robust, bi-partisan support in Congress, including the leadership of Illinois’ Congressman Danny Davis (7th Congressional District) who has been a staunch advocate for MIECHV since the program’s inception in 2013 in his role as Chairman of the Worker and Family Support Subcommittee on the House Ways and Means Committee, which has legislative authority over the program.

Still, additional advocacy is needed to ensure every Member of Congress is ready to support MIECHV reauthorization. Key priorities for reauthorization are:

• Pass an on-time, five-year reauthorization for the program
• Increase funding by $200 million each year over five years, to reach more families and better support the workforce
• Double the Tribal set-aside
• Continue to allow virtual home visiting with model fidelity as an option

^*MIECHV data provided by the Health Resources & Services Administration. HRSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.